“Passing legislation is like a rabbit getting through a pack of coyotes,” according to Pauline Eisenstadt, a longtime state legislator from Corrales. “If it comes out alive, it will usually have a smaller tail, one leg, and perhaps one ear left, but usually it will not survive.”

As the first woman to serve in both the New Mexico House and Senate, Eisenstadt was remarkably successful at getting her rabbits past the coyotes, most of them males, who patrol the halls of the capitol in Santa Fe.  

Now, we have the benefit of her personal and political memoir, A Woman in Both Houses (New Mexico Press, 2012).  In it, she details her life with her husband Mel, both Corrales residents since 1975, and their family. She also discusses her many interests. But the heart of it is her time in the legislature from 1985 to 2000. For part of that time, from 1991 to 1994, I was privileged to serve on the staff of former Governor Bruce King, so it was fun to match her recollections with mine.

A political memoir can be used to pursue old grievances, claim undue credit, or pretend to have had unique insights that were never shared at the time they might have been useful. It also can be used to put matters in perspective and share the credit with old colleagues.  Eisenstadt has chosen the second course. On balance, the book is exceptionally generous, not only with former comrades, but with present and future generations of New Mexicans interested in learning about the political and legislative process.

For example, I was delighted to see the credit she gave to three individuals  –Dick Minzner, a former state representative and secretary of the state Taxation and Revenue Department; Max Coll, an oil industry Republican turned Democratic state representative from Santa Fe; and Kay Marr, a former secretary of the state Department of Finance and Administration. They made it their business to thoroughly understand the workings of state government, how it is paid for and how it is administered. Along with others, Minzner, Coll and Marr showed how the state has a structural deficit – the amount of revenue it obtains in a normal year is less than the state’s long-term commitments, such as schools, health care, and prisons.  Since the state budget has to be balanced, various patchwork steps often are necessary, disguising the underlying problem.  Tax cuts and new long term spending commitments are unwise, especially if they are done simultaneously and do not have defined long term benefits and impacts. In Santa Fe and in Washington, those lessons are easily forgotten.

Eisenstadt did not forget.  She learned to craft legislation that moved policy forward without adding to the structural deficit.  She co-sponsored the state’s Art in Public Places law, which sets aside one percent of a state building’s construction budget for art projects.  When the state has enough money for capital projects, art works are part of them.  When there is no money, there is no long term commitment.  Her Grandparents Rights Bill, passed in 1987, solved a problem for grandparents seeking to visit their grandchildren after divorces or other disruptions, but did not create cumbersome new state agencies or expensive administrative mechanisms.

Herself a former social worker and teacher, Eisenstadt was involved in the effort to create a continuum of care for children and families in New Mexico, including the creation of the state Children, Youth and Families Department.  The book graciously mentions the contributions of Jolene Maes, another Corrales resident, and many others. Of course, the initiative is most often associated with former First Lady Alice King, who was its driving force. They were able to put before the legislature a package that, as much as possible, combined and restructured existing programs to accomplish a continuum of care without an enormous contribution to the structural deficit. That’s good government, as far as I am concerned.

Eisenstadt makes it clear that she preferred the Senate, with its smaller size, less frequent elections and more relaxed rules for debate, to the House. In this context, it is perhaps understandable that she enjoyed a warmer working relationship with former State President Pro Tempore Manny Aragon than with longtime House Speaker Raymond Sanchez. This was often the opposite of our experience on the fourth floor (where the governor’s offices are located) and in some ways it was odd.  But it does demonstrate how politics are personal.

As a young man in politics, Raymond Sanchez was among those responsible for opening up the state’s political processes in the 1970s, especially for Hispanics, but also for women and other groups.  As a trial lawyer, Sanchez worked (and still works) on behalf of ordinary people caught in the grind of everyday life, insensitive bureaucracy, and unfair systems. He and Pauline Eisenstadt should have been allies and, on some issues, they were. But they clashed in 1985 when Eisenstadt, newly elected to the House, was among those who championed the construction of Paseo del Norte, an expressway that cut through the heart of Sanchez’s North Valley district. They disagreed again on the issue of ethics reform and on House procedures. Some of Sanchez’s signature achievements, such as workers compensation reform and the 1993 Intel expansion, receive no mention in Eisenstadt’s book. But this is her memoir. For Raymond Sanchez’s perspective, we’ll have to await his memoir, which I hope he is writing.

Toward the end of her Senate career, Eisenstadt also had to distance herself from Aragon when she thought the legendary Senate leader was improperly engaged in consulting work for a corrections contractor. Subsequently, Aragon was sentenced to prison in 2009 for fraud and conspiracy in connection with the financing of a courthouse in Albuquerque.  At the peak of his leadership, though, Eisenstadt found him “extremely smart, compassionate,  kind, with a terrific sense of humor, and sometimes a bully all wrapped inside one person.”  

Eisenstadt disagreed with my boss, Governor King, on the issues of tribal sovereignty and casino gambling.  The governor respected the right of native people to manage their own affairs on their own lands, but he tried to draw the line at commercial activities, whether they were gravel pits or casinos, designed to attract non-natives. He thought those activities should respect state laws.  He and his wife Alice opposed an expansion of gambling because of its effect on children and families. Eisenstadt, acknowledging the interest of the pueblos in her district, supported King’s successor, Republican Gary Johnson, in opening Indian lands to casino gambling. In the book, she defends her decision reasonably and firmly.

As a Democrat, Eisenstadt had her disagreements with Republicans, too, of course.  But she remembers with particular fondness her radio broadcasts with former state  Representative Don Silva and her discussions on KOAT-TV with former state Senator Victor Marshall and with former state Senator Billy McKibben, all Republicans.  Colorful, amiable, and somewhat unpredictable, McKibben provided an especially good counterpart. Eisenstadt, with different political views, shared the characteristics.

Most of the characters in Eisenstadt’s book have passed from the political main stage.  She wistfully tells the story of meeting someone on a Corrales ditchbank who asked her, “Didn’t you used to be somebody?”  

She also muses how sandhill cranes, flying in formation over her Corrales home, periodically change leaders, something she recommends for the leadership of the House and the Senate.  But the flying cranes also are a good metaphor for the political life itself.  Someone like Pauline Eisenstadt, flying right at the head of the formation, changing flocks in mid-flight, nudging the leaders when she thinks they are off course, cackling with the sheer exhilaration of being there, that's what makes government and politics useful and fun.