How do you solve public safety and crime issues?
According to Republicans in the NM House and Senate, apparently the answers come from a former state official with a history of blatant racism and an ex-police chief who was allegedly involved in an illegal weapons scheme.
Prominent Republicans like Crystal Diamond Brantley, Rebecca Dow, and Jay Block hosted an Albuquerque event on December 1 labeled as a “Public Safety Legislative Task Force.”
Unfortunately, unlike the more standard bipartisan task force, it was mostly made up of Republicans. Same goes for an additional event scheduled for Monday, December 15th in Las Cruces labeled as a “Juvenile Justice Reform Legislative Task Force.”
Featured speakers at the events, which supposedly focus on crime reduction, include Rudy B. Mora along with Rachel Gudgel, who is also involved in creating and reviewing policies as an attorney for NM House Republicans.
Mora is well known for his time as the right hand man of former Bernalillo County Sheriff Manny Gonzales. Mora and Gonzales were both named by federal prosecutors in 2023 as having helped gun dealers fraudulently obtain machine guns in an illegal weapons scheme.
Gudgel, who is listed as General Counsel for the NM House Republican Caucus, has a colorful history of her own.
While serving as Staff Director of the New Mexico Legislative Education Study Committee (LESC), she reportedly made disparaging comments about Native American students at a 2019 event in Dulce, N.M., saying “It’s not like making beaded sandals is going to improve student outcomes.” Multiple former staff members also reported that Gudgel used the term “pow-wow” to refer to staff meetings.
After five former staffers filed a complaint in 2019 against Gudgel for creating a hostile work environment, an outside attorney was brought in to investigate the office. He found evidence that substantiated those claims, including multiple cases of her unwanted comments on staffers physical appearance, dress, and ability to develop a career while also being a parent.
Gudgel finally resigned in 2021 after sustained pressure from dozens of Indigenous and Native American advocacy groups.
Another featured speaker is City of Las Cruces Chief of Police Jeremy Story, who has pushed to increase police budgets and harsh penalties for even the smallest of crimes.
While he’s been careful to not openly violate strict rules that regulate how non-elected municipal staff advocate in electoral spaces, he’s also increasingly turning to public forums and social media to essentially do what amounts to lobbying anyway.
Most recently, he posted a social media video complaining that his hands were tied when it came to doing his job as a local cop which in turn prompted the US Attorney’s office in New Mexico to come into Las Cruces and arrest a local man on federal charges.
Story is theoretically required to be at a City of Las Cruces Council meeting Monday afternoon at the same time as the panel, so it will be interesting to see what he says, and which meeting he attends after all.
As Republicans continue to push for increased prison time for youth and people struggling with mental/behavioral health issues, a new report presented this week to the Legislative Finance Committee found that courts and police are failing to fix outstanding issues. Those include coordination, tracking, and consistent communication, despite the legislature allocating nearly $400 million in recent years to solve problems.
New Mexicans deserve real solutions that keep our communities safe, not out of touch, ineffective Republicans coming into our community to have us lectured by racists and people who break the law.
Until Republicans are willing to acknowledge that we need to invest in things like community violence prevention, youth employment, mental health and drug treatment, affordable housing, etc. we can expect to see more “discussions” about criminal justice reform that amount to campaign grandstanding.