Gambling and New Mexico Politics

Mitt Romney

The most recent GOP presidential debate generated fireworks over the weekend. Apparently, Mitt Romney offered to “bet” Rick Perry $10,000 over some point of debate contention. Earlier yesterday we noticed a number of people around the state talking about how awful it was for Romney to be tossing around the idea of gambling that amount of money. Imagine! $10,000. Even State Auditor and U.S. Senate candidate Hector Balderas was indignant over the thought of a whopping $10,000 wager involving Romney.
There is one wager that will never be offered by any elected official in the state of New Mexico. You can bet that nobody will wager that someone in a leadership position within the Democratic Party of New Mexico will demand that state Democratic Party Chairman Javier Gonzales fully disclose the details of his ownership involvement in the "Santa Fe Studios" gamble.

Very serious questions remain regarding this gambling "arrangement." How much taxpayer money was gambled on Santa Fe Studios a couple of years ago? Was it as much as the $10,000 that Mitt Romney offered to risk?

Let’s count up all of the taxpayer money wagered on Santa Fe Studios and let's identify the gamblers involved. The gamblers were lawmakers. Some were elected to serve Santa Fe County and others were allegedly serving our very own state government. Of course none of the decision makers involved in the Santa Fe Studios gamble actually bet their own money on the "deal." Instead they made this very aggressive multi-million dollar wager on behalf of taxpayers.

Javier Gonzales

The entire bet on Santa Fe Studios was huge. It included plenty of free land, free water utility hookups, a $10 million "economic development" grant (from the state of New Mexico) and a $6.5 million low interest rate loan (from Santa Fe County). Who received the money? It was collected by private owners that included the Democrats very own Party Chairman, Javier Gonzales. Why was taxpayer money gambled? The only reason we have been able to detect is that there were high hopes for eventual “job creation.”

When pressed for disclosure Javier Gonzales never explained how a person in his position of incredible political influence could be on the receiving end of such a large taxpayer financed bet. However, Gonzales did say that he had since “detached” himself from the project. We checked around. No CPA’s or tax attorneys we spoke with seemed to know what the financial term “detached” actually meant. Did he sell his stake? If so for how much? 

With the holidays approaching and betting being part of the current discussion, two wagers seem sure. First, Gonzales is unlikely to receive a politically engineered financial gift like he pulled in a couple of years ago. Second, even with all the talk of "full disclosure" being bandied about as a big “issue” in the upcoming legislative session, anyone purportedly offended by Romney’s gambling offer to Rick Perry, won’t be demanding a full accounting of the Santa Fe Studios gamble, let alone disclosing who was on the winning end of the wager. It would seem that getting to the bottom of this deal will be up to media members. Once thing is for sure. It doesn't pass the smell test.

Gambling and New Mexico Politics