His service to New Mexico was profound and ongoing. I won’t baste his memory with any more honorifics than those already accorded to him by his sincere and grief-stricken colleagues speaking in the Rotunda, except to say that his enduring gift of Collegial Civility will almost be everlasting, and I hope Governor Richardson will find some buildings in both Santa Fe and Silver City to name after him. Richardson prefers to bestow such honorifics on the living, when the person is still alive, and we all know that Ben Altamirano deserves this as much or more than some of those already deemed to be so worthy. He touched every single area of state government. There is housing named after him at New Mexico universities, and there is the Altamirano Leadership Conference at Luna Community College, which might be developed at all of the New Mexico state universities, in the Political Science Department or at UNM Law School. Ben would have liked that . . .
IV. Corporate Lobbyists’ Stranglehold on LegislationI am still angry about the way that the corporations involved and their lobbyists robbed New Mexico of the powerful new Nutrition Council sponsored by Ben in 2005 and in 2006. Actually, on the strength of his great personality and power, the bill made it all the way through in 2005 passing resoundingly in both Houses, but died on the last day as a result of a long and destructive filibuster by Roswell Republican Dan Foley which in fact killed about six bills and five memorials. Throughout both years, the lobbyists leaned on Ben about this bill: he even shared with me in 2006 that particularly Coca Cola was upset with him for sponsoring such pro- consumer legislation, reminding him that they had donated many thousands of dollars to his slate of Senators for reelection, in golf tournaments and in outright direct contributions.
Like many parents with large families, he wanted all in his Legislative family to be happy, even the lobbyists, although I told him many times that if you are going to do real consumer protection to benefit the families, the poor, and the minorities of New Mexico, you are going to make some corporation angry, perhaps even several.
Ultimately, he caved into the demands of these unscrupulous lobbyists, because they too were his long time friends. The same corporations hired “friends” of Bill Richardson to be their lobbyists one year, which resulted in a 15-day delay in putting the bill on the Governor’s “call,” and in a 30-day session, a fifteen-day delay is a death knell for even the most profoundly needed legislation.
It is a bathetic and a pathetic ghastly situation in which corporate lobbyists from Ajinomoto, a Japanese company making aspartame and monosodium glutamate, can purchase their stranglehold on government, as they do in Santa Fe, in Washington, and in every international capitol, a condition that will go on and on, even as human bodies pile up from Multiple Sclerosis, Cancer, Sudden Cardiac Death from Aspartame in Diet Cokes (please take the time to read Neurosurgeon Blaylock’s alarming article on this at
http://www.wnho.net/aspartame_msg_scd.htm), mesoepithelioma cancers from asbestos, brain damage from lead paint, autism from mercury in flu shots and infants’ vaccines–the list goes on and on. Not a pretty picture, is it?
V. Genius of Finance and Civility that he was….
Altamirano couldn’t remedy all of the above, but for two years, at least he tried to establish a Nutrition Council, to advise the schools, and even occasionally challenge the FDA when it was obviously dead wrong. Ben once told me he how he passed a bill in 30 minutes for the Secretary of State on the last day of one session to pay for some voting machines the legislature had previously voted to require, but had forgot to secure funding for. He personally walked the bill through the Senate Committees then over to the House, which voted on it and passed it with three minutes to spare before noon.
VI. Altamirano’s Last Joke:His son Paul at the Memorial Service told a joke that Benny would have liked to share with his fellow legislators: a fellow was extolling the virtues of his new hearing aid to his neighbor. “I can even hear a bird chirping across the street.” “Well, that is some hearing aid.” “Yes, I can even hear a butterfly flapping its wings on the next block.” “Great! What an amazing hearing aid. What kind is it?” The fellow looked at his watch and said: “2:15.”
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