Janice Arnold-Jones and Michelle Lujan Grisham, candidates for Congress from New Mexico\u2019s First District, shared a stage recently to debate the issues.\u00a0 Before taking their places at separate podiums, they hugged each other.<\/p>\n
Both have a record of working on a bipartisan basis.<\/p>\n
RepublicanArnold-Jones worked collaboratively across the aisle for eight years as a state legislator.\u00a0 She developed a reputation for mastering the details of issues and insisting on open practices.\u00a0 At this forum, she said that before she votes on a bill, she will read it \u2013 a practice unfortunately not done by all members of Congress.<\/p>\n
She talks about the advantages of seeing issues from multiple perspectives and building relationships as a way to work on the issues.<\/p>\n
In response to a recent query from me about signing pledges related to taxes or other topics, Arnold-Jones wrote, \u201cI do not sign any pledges because my only obligation is to the people of the First Congressional District \u2026 \u00a0I will not submit the people of New Mexico to extreme views that have left government in a stalemate.\u201d<\/p>\n
Democrat Grisham served as an agency head and cabinet secretary under three successive governors: \u00a0Democrat Bruce King, Republican Gary Johnson and Democrat Bill Richardson.\u00a0 She was head of the Agency on Aging and later secretary of the Department of Health.<\/p>\n
Grisham has not yet answered my question about pledges, but I find no mention of pledges in her literature, on her web site or in several instances when I have heard her speak (some Democrats have signed a pledge related to Social Security).<\/p>\n
One clear reality emerges about these two candidates:\u00a0 each is a highly qualified expert in a critical area of public policy.<\/p>\n
Arnold-Jones, who is married to a retired Navy commander, has worked in information technology as a contractor to Sandia National Labs. \u00a0She has considerable knowledge about the role and potential \u00a0of New Mexico\u2019s national laboratories and military bases in national security and the harm to the nation if the \u201cbrain trust\u201d gathered here is diminished.\u00a0 She can explain in some detail how, when Congress enacts continuing resolutions instead of a real budget, the laboratories\u2019 contracts with small high-tech companies cannot be funded and those contractors may be forced to close their businesses \u2013 jeopardizing a piece of that national security apparatus as well as the New Mexico economy.<\/p>\n
Grisham is one of New Mexico\u2019s leading experts on health care.\u00a0 In addition to in-depth professional expertise based on her career, she has personal experience from shepherding family members and others through the health care maze.\u00a0 She recognizes the health care industry as one that will grow and be a source of jobs, and at the same time sees opportunities to shrink the inefficiences in the system as a way to reduce costs and improve performance.\u00a0\u00a0 As an example in one recent talk, she cited electronic medical records:\u00a0 they have the potential to save billions of dollars, yet today records are being stored on proprietary data base systems that do not communicate with each other.\u00a0\u00a0 She talks about New Mexico\u2019s medical brain trust and suggests that the University of New Mexico should become a center for biomedical engineering. While supporting the Affordable Care Act, she emphasizes that much needs to be done to fix it, including improvements in patient access to health care.\u00a0 \u201cCongress cannot afford to be stagnant on health care reform,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
There is too much expertise here to waste any of it. It\u2019s probably not realistic, but I wish that whichever of these remarkably competent candidates wins the November election will hire the other as a consultant.<\/p>\n
At the end of the forum, they gave each other another hug.\u00a0 Washington, are you watching?<\/p>\n
<\/em>Triple Spaced Again, \u00a9 New Mexico News Services 2012<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Janice Arnold-Jones and Michelle Lujan Grisham, candidates for Congress from New Mexico\u2019s First District, shared a stage recently to debate the issues.\u00a0 Before taking their places at separate podiums, they hugged each other. Both have a record of working on … Continue reading