Ben Ray Lujan: U.S Representative from the Closet.
Ben Ray Lujan (far left) shakes Governor Bill Richardson's hand (seated).
When Candidate Obama came to Northern New Mexico to campaign for President he introduced Ben Ray Lujan as the next "rising star" of the State's Democratic Party.
Ben Ray is New Mexico's Hispanic version of a gay Texan Billy Bob. I mean I don't trust anybody who can't decide what his first name is. And I also don't like the "daddy's boy" way he got his job and the way he hides his gayness.
New Mexico Speaker Ben Lujan Sr. and his boy Rep. Ben Ray Lujan (seated right).
My friend Prec has taken offense to the nickname that I gave Ben senior. I have been calling him Ben "the Rat" from the onset of this blog. He has proven time and time again to have earned the name because of his stands that if he were not a Democrat would be considered reactionary. Pro-military, anti-medical marijuana, environmentally insensative, and bureaucratic fat cat patron.
His son, our Congressman, talks a better game but being a former "Corporation Commissioner" he gets big contributions from both Big Labor and Big Business like the pharmacutical and insurance companies. He talks the new green lingo and PC rainbow jive. But when all is said and done he is a Obama lackey with a daddy that lets him speak to the State legislature when ever he wants.
Little Lujan, like his father, gets his support from voters with patronage jobs dished out by the main industry in Santa Fe ... government. And being an in-the-closet gay type who the talks like an environmentalist, Ben Ray benefits from the hoards and herds of poofy politically correct Obama worshippers in New Mexico's "City Different." Little Lujan also benefits from the tradition here of liberals and local Hispanics voting against their own self interest; voting for the devil that you know or who is a distant relative; and the general lack of an opposition political party.
Keep the Tradition Alive?
Ben Lujan senior from a 1980s' campaign flier title "Keep the Tradition Alive."
Governor Bill Richardson (left), his right hand man Ben Lujan senior (center) and Steve Flance (right). The file name for this photo is pork_rat_wombat because the bill they were signing was government pork like Obama's stimulus package, Lujan sponsored the bill that gave free insurance to New Mexico's National Guard (but not its teachers) and Flance used to play in a cover band called the "Wombats."
posted by Danny Cabeza de Calabazo @ 2:45 PM
6 comments
6 Comments:
Can I suggest a new nickname for Ben Ray Lujan? How about "Little Lu-Lu"? You can use it free of charge, Cove!
Ben Lujan Senior has done much good for New Mexico and if Ben Ray is anything like his father he will also do much good for New Mexico and New Mexicans.
Ben Lujan Sr. has done "much good" for no one except Ben Lujan Sr. No doubt, sonny-boy has been taught the ropes by one of NM's premier robber-politicians. Unfortunately, these two clowns are here to stay, and it will only get worse if a "Ben Lujan III" ever comes along. If NM voters weren't so dumb, they would stop voting for people just because they have the same name as their crooked politican-daddy (Jerome Block, anyone?) and have that all-important "D" after their name on the ballot. By now, you would have thought NMs would have figured out that political dynasties don't benefit anyone except those in the dynasty. But that's why we're darned near last on any good list of national accomplishments, I guess.
J. Basilone is wrong.. I live a long way from Santa Fe and have spoken with the Speaker and Ben Ray many times. They have helped out New Mexicans many, many times. MANY TIMES! And we New Mexicans will vote for them again and again. You wish New Mexican voters were dumb. "Se hace el loco para comer con las dos manos" type of dumb maybe? Que le figuras?
Amen. Well said. And the way to fix it is to vote for the few candidates who have the balls to stand up against the machine in 2012!
Clare
Another corrupt grease ball
Does the value of property increase when a highway interchange is built near it?
Of course it does. So the fact that the state Department of Transportation abruptly moved the site of a proposed interchange to four-tenths of a mile from land owned by House Speaker Ben Lujan, D-Nambe, in 2007 should raise eyebrows.
Of course, Lujan has been doing things for years that should raise the eyebrows of anyone who cares about honest and ethical government, so perhaps the revelations contained in Sunday’s Albuquerque Journal article about the DOT project shouldn’t come as a surprise.
Nonetheless, in the context of the cloud of scandal that has descended upon state government in recent years, it’s simply embarrassing that House Democrats continue to make Lujan the most powerful lawmaker in New Mexico despite the appearance of impropriety that surrounds him.
Consider the most eye-popping situations involving Lujan in recent years:
• Housing scandal: In 2006 we learned that a top aide to Lujan was living rent-free in a home owned by the scandal-plagued Region III Housing Authority, even though she was earning more than $71,000 per year. The agency was supposed to be providing housing for low-income New Mexicans.
Lujan was a close friend of then-Region III Director Vincent “Smiley” Gallegos, a former legislator who, after he left that job and became a lobbyist, spent a lot of time in Lujan’s office during legislative sessions. The aide, Lujan’s office manager, says that’s how she and Gallegos came to work out a deal for the house, and claims she and her boyfriend were “defrauded and victimized” by the housing authority.
During the 2007 legislative session, Lujan was accused by many of trying to kill reform to help his friend, an allegation Lujan has always denied. The reform was approved anyway. Gallegos and others were recently indicted in the case.
• The tirade: Then there was a situation earlier this year that ended with Lujan losing his cool and publicly accusing Senate Finance Chairman John Arthur Smith, D-Deming, in front of journalists, of being “full of shit” and “a racist S.O.B.”
Prior to that, the House twice voted down a Lujan proposal to help pay for a project at the Santa Fe Railyard that a developer wanted. Lujan responded by slipping the proposal into a completely unrelated bill during a committee meeting. After twice failing the test of public scrutiny, the proposal quietly sailed through the House on the third try.
It was after Smith opened a conference committee on the bill to the public and thwarted Lujan’s final attempt to help the developer that Lujan went on his public tirade against the senator.
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