Ben Ray Lujan is running for Congress in New Mexico's diverse third district.

He is young and progressive. He supports universal health care, single payer or otherwise. He hopes to transform northern New Mexico's national laboratories into alternative energy research facilities. And, as the grandson of a farmer and sheepherder, he overflows with ideas about sustainable agriculture.

He is expected to win.

I first met Ben Ray six or seven years ago, when he was running for the state Corporation Commission. I was at "The Roundhouse," New Mexico's capital building which houses both the state legislature and the Office of the Governor, so named because it resembles a pink adobe pie.

My friend, Santiago, was lobbying for authorization for my county to place a mill levy on the ballot to support health care. I was tagging along, offering my expert opinion that it was a good idea to our legislative delegation (and to anyone else who might listen).

"Let's go to the Rio Chama," said Santiago. "I want you to meet someone who's good for health care. I bet he'll help to pass this bill."

 It was five o'clock, and we joined the throng of lobbyists, politicians, staffers, lawyers and advocates who frequent the atmospheric bar next to the Roundhouse. Santiago sat down beside a mutual friend, 'Erlinda.' Barely scraping five feet, she was a well-known Chicana activist. "Hey, hermana" she greeted me. "Que Pasa?"

At that moment, Ben Ray, surrounded by a small entourage, strolled up to the table. "Yo, Prim!" Santiago called out to him. "I want you to meet somebody. La Lauren is a health care advocate en El Norte. She needs to talk to you about a way to finance health coverage for la gente."

"Yeah," added Erlinda. "Lauren and I go way back. We taught a class on community organizing together a few years ago."

"We go back even farther than that," I offered. "When I was fourteen, I was getting into lots of trouble back home in Chicago. My comadre brought me to New Mexico for the summer. The two of you drove me around for a week. You took me out to meet a lady who had a zillion foster kids."

Erlinda looked puzzled. "I took you out to meet 'Rosie?'" she asked. "Who's your comadre?"

I told her.

Suddenly Erlinda shot out of her seat. "Your comadre had an affair with my boyfriend!" she exclaimed, standing and placing her fists menacingly on her hips. The lobbyists at the next table stopped discussing payday loans, private prisons and the joys of insurance and turned their attention to us.

I was stunned. I could not imagine my straight-laced comadre having an affair with anyone. And she was my comadre. "I don't think so." I responded.

"You remember her..." Erlinda said to Santiago. "That redheaded chick that took up with 'Rapheal.'" She named another well-known activist turned legislator.

The corporatists at the next table were listening intently now. Santiago gazed at me with new-found respect. "Your comadre was that redheaded chick who used to hang around with Raphi?" he echoed.

"They were not having an affair," I insisted.

Ben Ray inserted himself between Erlinda and me, ruining the view from the next table. "Pleased to meet you," he said loudly, offering his hand. "What do you do in El Norte? Maybe I can be of assistance."

An Acequia Runs Through It

New Mexico's Spanish residents arrived in the 17th century, migrating northward through the fertile valleys surrounding the Rio Grande.

For the most part, wealthy, aristocratic landowners settled in el Rio Abajo, the lower River in Doña Ana and Bernalillo counties. Nuevo Mexico's territorial capitol came to be located in Santa Fe. A mixture of Jews and conversos escaping the inquisition, Spaniards, Portuguese, and freed Comanche, Ute and Sioux slaves settled in the rugged northlands of El Rio Arriba, the upper river.

They comingled with local Pueblos, developing a distinctive culture, unique agricultural traditions and a reputation for fierce independence.

Today, the Hispanic residents of Rio Arriba refer to themselves as Mestizos.

"I'm fortunate that I grew up just north of Santa Fe in a small community by the name of Nambe," says Ben Ray. "Today I still live in the same home my parents and grandparents once lived in. I'm neighbors with my parents and my front yard...the acequia runs through it. And we have this gorgeous old Cottonwood that my Grandpa, my Dad's Dad, Salvatore...that he kept there... it's probably over 115 years old. My Grandpa was a sheepherder. We still raise sheep there today just to remember my Grandpa."

Ben Ray goes out on cold winter mornings to break the ice in the acequia, the community-run agricultural ditch, to water his sheep. He and all his neighbors keep vegetable gardens. He is a huge fan of sustainable agriculture and farmer's markets, which he considers an essential component of health care as well as a building block for a viable neighborhood.

"The community comes together to keep our acequias clean and our acequieas strong," he says, referring to the seasonal effort neighbors make to clear weeds and obstructions from the ditches each year.

"We have to make sure that families across the state have the opportunity to grow gardens," he tells me. "We need to promote farmer's markets to help families grow their own food and live off the land. We need to grow food close to where we live. It keeps people off the roads, brings down the cost of food and the amount of oil we use. Also, it helps revitalize the local economy.

"The food you get at the farmer's market is just incredible and it's a great event. You get to meet your neighbors... talk to folks. We stop at farmer's markets every time we get a chance." Ben Ray advocates a farm bill that will support small, local organic farming, and promote a healthy diet for schoolchildren. Diet is an issue close to Ben Ray's heart: NM 03 has had its food supply disrupted. Beans, squash and wild game have been supplanted by fast food. Ben Ray's constituents suffer from astronomical rates of diabetes.

A Disappearing Way of Life

The agricultural lifestyle and wide vistas of El Norte are quickly disappearing as roads and poorly planned subdivisions spring up, as though spontaneously, from the sandy earth.

Yet, and not surprisingly, Ben Ray sees an opportunity for northern New Mexico to develop a flourishing "Green Energy" economy.

"Our country consumes over 25% of the world's oil but we only produce 3%," he tells me. "We need to make sure that we're looking to the future and that we're not only offering relief for people today by looking at some of the reserves and cracking down on speculators, but that we're gonna be serious about developing a new energy economy. Our economy, we all know, it needs to be stimulated. So many people are being impacted by the economy today."

Ben Ray points out that most countries seeking nuclear power are initially looking for a solution to their energy needs. Weapons come later. He believes we can reduce the number of nuclear weapons in the world by making clean energy technology globally available.

"Our national labs in northern New Mexico, the brain trust we have, the brilliant people, are a resource. They can be part of the solution. There is already research taking place at Los Alamos that needs to be fully supported to solve the storage problem that would allow alternative energy to really take off. At night when the sun's not shining and when the wind's not blowing we need to be able to draw on stored energy. Our researchers at the lab can help us to solve this problem. When we solve the storage problem not only at home but around the world, then we will be able to live up to our commitment to global non-proliferation. We need our labs to help us solve these problems."

Health Care Nation

The current system's broken. Health care needs to be treated as a right. Some people talk about it being a responsibility of every individual. In a nation as great as ours, we have over 47 million uninsured nationally, 400,000 here in New Mexico..."

"But we only have about 1.8 million in population," I pointed out. "That's nearly a quarter of all New Mexicans." Our state trails only Texas in its rates of uninsured.

"We need to be able to take care of...of...of our people," blurted out Ben Ray.

Lujan supports single payer health care and will absolutely sign on to HR 676, National Health Insurance. He will also support other measures to achieve universal access to high quality health care. I decided to tell him about his constituent, my neighbor, Leo.

Leo was a construction worker until he suffered a severe heart attack. Like most construction workers, he didn't have insurance. Now Leo can't work. He and his wife, Berlinda (who already works a full time job), gather and sell piñon nuts and do yard work in order to pay their hospital bills.

Ben Ray told me about a family that approached him while he was serving on the Public Regulatory Commission. They were a couple with one child who had sought treatment for her subsequent infertility. They filed a claim with her insurance company. Not only did the company refuse to pay for her infertility treatments... when they reviewed her claim, they discovered that they had approved treatment for endometriosis for several years. They ordered the couple to reimburse them for all previous claims because endometriosis is related to infertility. The couple was about to sell their house to cover the charges. Fortunately, Ben Ray was able to get the decision reversed.

"You know, most people are one injury or one illness away from being broke," he said. "Even people who have insurance can't get health care. People are paying more and more for health insurance and getting less. How many people do you know who have had claims denied?"

"How many do you know who haven't?" I responded.

"That led me to wonder how many more people out there are getting treated this way," continued Ben Ray. "We directed the Superintendent of Insurance to open up an inquiry into the denial practices of health insurance companies. And that's something that we need to look at. People need to be treated fairly. Consumers need protection and the industry needs reform.

"When I was elected to the Commission, I made a commitment to bring new ideas and a new voice...to stand up to problems. And we've done that. We stood up to problems in the Insurance Division, we've made the Commission more transparent, more available to the public. We need true universal health care. People need to be seen not just in an emergency, but we need preventative care. We need to be treating people with symptoms of diabetes and other conditions. They shouldn't be going into the hospital with severe problems. Health care needs to be accessible and affordable to everyone. That's what we need to do. We need to stand up to the insurance companies and make sure health care is available to every American."

If elected, Ben Ray, like Jeff Merkley (D-OR), whom I interviewed here, will help to strengthen the wavering resolve of our Congressional leaders to take on industries that matter.

In the final fifteen minutes of the session all those years ago, it was Ben Ray Lujan who got our mill levy authorization passed. He brought the issue to the attention of the Speaker of the NM House of Representatives, who happens to be his father. A little county passed a big bill.

Our Future: Hope or Fright?

I did not ask Ben Ray the really difficult question: how are we going to get all of this done after the current administration empties the coffers? But I know the answer. I currently work for a county government that was left utterly bankrupt by a previous regime. When our commissioners took over they had no buildings or furniture. Their road equipment had all been sabotaged or left in disrepair. Most of the county's financial records were missing. All grant moneys had been returned to the state.

The Powers That Be sat back to await failure...which never came.

My colleagues and I spent our first few months driving up and down the county holding community meetings. "Tell us about government," we told people. "Tell us what you want us to do and then help us to do it." We built a new future together.

Soon the dollars that have been stolen will mean very little. The dollar is nothing more than a representation of the value we place in the social compact, our relationships to one another. This is my social theory, not Ben Ray's. But I know what he would say.

"When you talk to the viejitos, the wise people, the Grandmas and Grandpas, they all say that they survived the depression by coming together as a community to do what needs to be done."

And that is what we will have to do. We will rebuild our institutions from the bottom up.

Comments or questions for the author? Post them in the Ben Ray Lujan discussion thread.

About the author

Lauren Reichelt is the Director of a County Health and Human Services Department in northern New Mexico. She has worked as a community organizer for twenty years in the US and abroad. She writes for ePluribus Media and is a regular poster -- as TheFatLadySings -- to the DailyKos blog.

Photo and art credits: Art © 2008 used with the permission of Roger Montoya, contact Lauren Reichelt ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ) if you are interested in using Montoya's work; photos © 2008 by Lauren Reichelt

ePluribus Media Contributors: Aaaron Barlow, Avahome, cho, Roxy Caraway, Susie Dow

 

 

 

 

PR: wait...  I: wait...  L: wait...  LD: wait...  I: wait... wait...  C: wait...  SD: wait...