Our candid chat with State Sen. John Grubesic (D-Santa Fe).
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SFR: Does anyone ever call you 'Grubie?'
JG:
Yeah, lots of people do. Feel free.
No, I don't want to. I was just wondering. So, you have begun vocalizing that you are critical of the special session starting this week regarding gas and oil relief. The information I have is we're looking at $100 million or so of tax relief, $75 million for gas tax rebates; what's the gist of your criticism?
Basically that; I have as much information as you do. How can we do anything effectively with the information if we don't get it earlier? It's just ridiculous. This is a huge issue we're going to grapple with. I think it's much more productive to wait until January. I would like to take more time to look at the issue on a global perspective.
New Mexico has taken some global steps, like joining the Chicago Climate Exchange Program.
Yeah, I don't want to bash [Bill] Richardson completely on his energy policy. I think the Chicago Climate Exchange thing was fantastic. I applaud the governor on taking that step. I think we have made good progress. But this session isn't in that same vein. This feels too much like we're trying to garner good press.
Do you think other legislators have more information than you do? I mean…that didn't sound good.
I know I've been excommunicated from politics, but if the leadership has more information it should be disseminated.
Do you actually feel excommunicated?
I'm definitely the bad kid of the Senate. I wasn't well-liked coming in and my mistakes mean people were going to dislike me even more. I was stupid to do what I did, it just gave them more ammunition and sort of a hammer to keep me muzzled and I did get gun-shy after everything but the more I thought about this, I wasn't elected to this position to just go into this fetal ball and pity myself forever. I was elected to be a vocal leader in that body and that's what I intend to do.
Let's backtrack to your problems in case we have readers who weren't…paying attention.
Oh yeah, the interesting thing to me is I was, what, seven days on the front page of The New Mexican and mine was basically a traffic accident; [indicted State Treasurer and former Treasurer] Robert Vigil and Michael Montoya have allegedly been stealing from the state for so long. That's all sort of self-serving though.
Your situation seemed to really prompt public ire.
I had death threats, I had my windows broke and my tires slashed. Death threats at my house. People took the time to bring notes and put them under my windshield wipers.
What do you think that's about?
I don't know. I went into this whole thing very naive about the whole process. I didn't want to get elected to become this hated individual. I know I was hurt by the amount of stuff that happened and pretty shocked by just how hateful it got. Both of the incidents had nothing to do with my job on the senate floor and I have taken steps to correct the demons I'm battling with.
You're in a 12-step program.
Yeah. I'm an alcoholic. That's my problem that I'm struggling with and I've got a lot of anger issues. I was…I don't want this necessarily to be the focus of this article, but I was molested as a kid, not the Catholic Church, but a Methodist minister instead. And I think that plays into a lot of my anger issues that I never dealt with. To be thrown into the pressure cooker I was thrown into, I obviously didn't have the coping skills I needed and I'm working on that now. I'm not anywhere near understanding the depth of my problems or how I'm even going to deal with it and that's overwhelming at times. But I know it's something I gotta do and I don't want to be this one-term senator that just burns out.
Do you have some plans for what you're going to do in the January session?
The first thing I'd like to propose is a government accountability act. Let's say I'm Joe Smith, I was elected to office May 5, 1996 and in 1998 I start taking money from the till. I'm indicted, I'm convicted. I would like to have some act in place to require that state official to reimburse the state all his salary and benefits from the start of his wrongdoing. There's also, in the Open Meetings Act, a loophole for legislative committees so we can do committees in secret if we want to.
I know.
That's a joke. We talk out of both sides of our mouth. We need to have government be entirely open.
How long have you been sober?
About 2½, 3 months. And you know, 2½, 3 months, I'm nowhere near conquering this thing. I have a long way to go.
Well, if you can stay sober while being a New Mexico politician you can probably do anything.
Yeah, stay sober and keep your sanity at the same time.
