Opinion: Richardson has earned a place in history

You’d be hard-pressed to find a more consequential New Mexican than Bill Richardson.

He was a U.S. congressman and New Mexico governor, a cabinet secretary, an ambassador to the United Nations, a diplomat at-large, and for a few months in 2007-08, a candidate for president.

Richardson died Sept. 1 at age 75.

William Blaine Richardson III was born in Pasadena, Calif., grew up in Mexico City and earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees at Tufts University in Massachusetts, where he met his future wife, Barbara Flavin.

In 1978, Bill and Barbara Richardson moved to Santa Fe, where he first ran for office.

First, he was beaten by Manuel Lujan in the First Congressional District. Two years later, in 1982, he won election to the newly created Third Congressional District, and went on to represent northern New Mexico in the U.S. House for 14 years.

Richardson served seven full terms as congressman before President Clinton picked him to be ambassador to the U.N., then Secretary of Energy a couple years later.

In 2002, he handily won election as New Mexico governor. It was during his first term that he made his most indelible mark on his adopted home state. Early on, he muscled through life insurance coverage for active-duty members of the New Mexico National Guard — the first such policy in the nation — along with other measures he was able to get through a state legislature filled with friendly fellow Democrats.

His infrastructure projects were highly ambitious. He got the Rail Runner and Spaceport America funded and under construction. And as a demonstration of his political flexibility, he gave civil rights protections to LGBTQ citizens while also backing a law to create concealed weapons permits for New Mexicans.

His second term, which he won in a landslide, was a bumpier ride. Allegations of “pay to play” schemes created an air of suspicion around his political deeds, but he got things done nevertheless. He successfully supported a ban on cockfighting — a “culture war” of sorts at the time — and signed into law the legalization medical cannabis in 2007. And, in 2009, he also signed a bill that repealed the death penalty in New Mexico.

I remember the first time and the last time I met Richardson. The first time, I was brand new to New Mexico, attending a legislative breakfast of the New Mexico Press Association at the newly constructed New Mexican press plant in Santa Fe. He made light of “stealing” some of the best journalists in New Mexico to come work for his administration, and I wondered what my colleagues thought of that. They just took it as Richardson’s own unique brand of humor.

The last time I met him was in his Roundhouse office, as one of many newspaper representatives seeking to defeat a cockamamie proposal to water down legal notices in newspapers of general circulation. He was supportive of our position, but still wanted to “f--- with” the Albuquerque Journal over something or another that they’d written about him.

But he said it with a smile. He was a tough politico, but he always had a winning smile.

Rest in peace, Governor. You’ve earned a place in history, both here and abroad.

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

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