Opinion: Some lobbyists still work for public interest

Lobbyists get a bum rap, mainly because of the big shots. It’s hard to respect someone who wines and dines and cozies up to lawmakers in order to deflect legislation that might cut into the profits of an oversized industry like the pharmaceuticals or gun manufacturers. Their bottom lines aren’t necessarily in the public interest, which makes it easy to criticize those who lobby to make the rich richer.

By a broader sense, however, we are just about all lobbyists — or at least that’s true for those who care enough about something to take it to your state representative or senator. Our local officials do it before and during every New Mexico legislative session, to get funding for their hometown projects.

Industry associations frequently have professional, paid lobbyists keeping up with legislative matters that impact the business interests they’re paid to protect.

There are far fewer people lobbying in the public’s interest.

Then there are the think tanks, organizations designed to advance policies through research and advocacy. Some of them, quite frankly, are too politically tainted for independent thinkers, but generally they contribute well to the national dialogue because they tend to emphasize empirical data and rational thought.

Here in New Mexico, we’ve got the Rio Grande Foundation, which bends toward conservative as it pushes “liberty, opportunity and prosperity,” the Santa Fe Institute, with its focus on science and technology, and my favorite, Think New Mexico.

Think NM is independent of party politics and focuses its attention on systemic problems that can actually be fixed. Its latest publication, “A Roadmap for Rethinking Public Education in New Mexico,” is a good example of its work.

Last November, Think NM put out the 60-page booklet, which gives emphasis to a 10-point plan for improving the state’s schools. It’s the basis for Think’s latest lobbying efforts at the Roundhouse.

Space does not allow for a point-by-point review of those 10 points, so here’s a quick look at a few of them and their legislative impact in the session that ended last month:

• On the think tank’s push for more time spent teaching and learning, more classroom time for public school students was passed, as was a graduation requirement for some “financial literacy” instruction.

• Funds for teacher residencies and raises for principals were added into the state budget.

• Efforts to keep school districts’ administrative spending on pace with classroom spending increases, as well as the effort to reduce reporting requirements (administrative paperwork) died, though the paperwork reduction plan did make it into a memorial that passed.

• The push to reduce class sizes also fell short, although Think’s team expressed optimism it might be passed next year.

• Two other would-be reforms — to overhaul the state’s colleges of education and to improve the performance and behavior of local school boards — fell short, with the former looking as if it may be reconsidered after more study and the latter being opposed by the state School Boards Association.

The fact that the School Boards Association was able to defeat the bill is a good example of how much easier it is to kill a bill than to pass it. Think NM had pulled together a sizable coalition of more than a half-dozen organizations in support of their bill, and it got a beaten back in the House Education Committee anyway.

Think New Mexico, a nonprofit since its inception, has been fighting for the greater good here since 1999. Founded and still directed by Fred Nathan, its list of accomplishments, from knocking the sales tax off to getting millions of dollars into lottery scholarships, continues to grow every year. One of its latest accomplishments is getting the state’s tax on Social Security removed for most low- and middle-income recipients. It took three sessions to complete the task, but Think NM got it done.

Now that’s the kind of lobbying I appreciate.

Tom McDonald is editor of the New Mexico Community News Exchange. Contact him at:

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