Still no hearing for nominee once charged with rape

Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham recently revealed her flaw of impulsiveness. On a whirlwind afternoon, she defied state laws by trying to ban firearms for 30 days in all public areas of metropolitan Albuquerque.

Lujan Grisham can also move like molasses in wintertime. The stagnant confirmation process for James Mountain is an ongoing example.

The governor on Feb. 3 appointed Mountain to be Cabinet secretary of the Indian Affairs Department. He accepted the position, but his continued employment supposedly is subject to confirmation by the state Senate.

The first step toward confirmation is a hearing before the Senate Rules Committee. One topic sure to surface if Mountain ever has a hearing is his indictment in 2008 on allegations he raped, kidnapped and battered a household member.

Prosecutors in Albuquerque after two years of motions and hearings dismissed the charges against Mountain. Once they’d lumbered through all those preliminaries, prosecutors said they didn’t have enough evidence to bring Mountain to trial.

Mountain, 51, has the constitution on his side. He was innocent under the law when the case began. He’s just as innocent since the government’s case dissolved.

A speedy confirmation hearing could have ended suspicions and rumormongering about Mountain, a former governor of Pueblo de San Ildefonso. He served one term before the criminal charges and a second term after they were dropped.

Six weeks remained in this year’s legislative session when Lujan Grisham appointed Mountain. She did not provide senators with requisite background material on her nominee. That meant the Rules Committee could not hold a hearing on Mountain’s fitness to supervise a state department.

The situation recurred last week. The committee held interim hearings for many of Lujan Grisham’s nominees for supervisory positions.

Once again, there was no hearing for Mountain, who’s paid $169,600 a year to run the Indian Affairs Department. The delay comes back to Lujan Grisham.

“The paperwork for James Mountain has not been submitted to the Senate Rules Committee,” Sen. Katy Duhigg, D-Albuquerque, wrote to me in a text message.

Duhigg, chairwoman of the committee, worked to reduce the backlog of confirmation proceedings by holding hearings before next year’s 30-day legislative session.

Nominees whose requisite paperwork was filed by the governor were endorsed last week by the Rules Committee. They advance for up-or-down votes before the full Senate in January.

Unclear is why Lujan Grisham still hasn’t sent Mountain’s nomination paperwork to the Rules Committee.

I sent emails to a spokeswoman for the governor requesting comment but didn’t receive a response. Likewise, Mountain did not reply to my questions about why his nomination had not reached the committee.

Because Mountain has not been confirmed, he holds the title of secretary-designate of the Indian Affairs Department. Lujan Grisham on her website dispenses with the legally correct title. She lists him as the Cabinet secretary, as though he’s been through the full process.

Senate confirmation hearings in New Mexico are neither grueling nor adversarial.

“We’re not the FBI,” former Sen. Stuart Ingle, R-Portales, liked to say. He was a longtime member of the Rules Committee, a panel that often seemed incapable of asking a tough question.

Once a nominee is endorsed by the Rules Committee, the full 42-member Senate seldom dissents. It’s rare to see more than two or three “no” votes against any of the governor’s nominees, no matter what the circumstances.

Lujan Grisham’s three selections for the Public Regulation Commission went before the Rules Committee early this year. Only 29 minutes were devoted to questioning the most controversial of the three, Patrick O’Connell, who had publicly supported a takeover of New Mexico’s largest electric utility by a Connecticut-based energy giant.

The Rules Committee backed O’Connell, and the Senate confirmed him by a vote of 31-3.

Sen. Mark Moores, R-Albuquerque, stood out during the last decade as the one Rules Committee member who consistently delved into the backgrounds of nominees. But state senators could be as aggressive as Watergate inquisitor Sam Ervin and still be stifled by the governor.

In the upside-down world of state politics, Mountain can be in office for years without having a confirmation hearing. It’s happened before.

Then-Gov. Susana Martinez’s designated secretary of public education, Hanna Skandera, waited more than four years before receiving a Senate confirmation hearing in 2015. Skandera, a Republican, was kept at bay by Senate Democrats who feared she had enough votes to be confirmed.

Skandera finally prevailed, 22-19. Five Democratic senators joined all 17 Republicans to confirm her.

The decision ended a silly standoff in a process that should have been finished in a month. Skandera ran the Public Education Department during all the years she awaited her hearing.

Mountain’s circumstance threatens to repeat history. This time, though, senators are ready to do their job.

Lujan Grisham needs to do hers.