Bill Richardson 1947–
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H former members 1977–2012 H Bill Richardson 1947– UNITED STATES REPRESENTATIVE 1983–1997 DEMOCRAT FROM NEW MEXICO ill Richardson’s dual U.S.-Mexican heritage politics when he ran for the presidency of his fraternity and his ability to interact in Washington’s policy and won. Richardson recalled that experience as “my first circles facilitated his success as a policy aide and taste of politics.… I liked all the organizing … and I found Bas a Member of the U.S. House. During his 14 years in that I was good at it. I started to appreciate that there was Congress, Richardson responded to constituent requests, power that came with the office.”3 After receiving his B.A. burnished his foreign policy credentials, and raised the in 1970, Richardson applied to the Fletcher School of stature of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. He also Law and Diplomacy in Bedford, Massachusetts, where he crafted a unique role as a diplomatic troubleshooter for the participated in student government. He graduated with an William J. (Bill) Clinton administration. Of the power that M.A. in international affairs in 1971 and married his high comes with public service, Richardson wrote, “Politics in a school and college sweetheart, Barbara Flavin, in 1972. democracy is a competition over ideas, and it is inevitable The Richardsons have no children.4 there will be winners and losers. Any freely elected After college, Richardson moved to Washington, politician who says he doesn’t crave power to get the laws D.C., where he worked as a staff member for and programs he thinks best for his city, state, or nation Representative F. Bradford Morse of Massachusetts, is either dissembling or belongs in a different business.”1 a moderate Republican, from 1971 to 1973. In 1974 The son of William Blaine Richardson, Jr., and Maria Richardson left to work as a congressional relations aide Louisa Lopez-Collada, William Blaine Richardson III was for the State Department. “Human-rights issues at the born in Pasadena, California, on November 15, 1947. State Department,” he recalled, “were what made me As a manager for the National City Bank of New York (a a Democrat.”5 In 1976 Richardson returned to Capitol predecessor to Citibank), Richardson’s father worked in Hill to work as a staffer for the Senate Committee on a number of foreign countries before settling in Mexico Foreign Relations until 1978.6 City, where he met his future wife Maria, who was a Eight years of working as a staffer convinced secretary at the bank. Richardson recalled his father “was Richardson that aides could affect the way legislation proud of his American son, and my mother was very was implemented, but he decided that type of influence proud of her Mexican son. Their pride was passed down “was no substitute for the power to do good things for to me, and I grew up honoring both the United States and people that comes with elected office.” Richardson’s Mexico and the language and culture of each country.” itinerant early life had prevented him from building Richardson and his sister, Vesta, were raised in a bilingual an electoral base from which to launch a political career. household; his father spoke to the children in English, After speaking with the staff of Senator Joseph Montoya, and his mother addressed them in Spanish.2 Richardson Richardson decided to move to New Mexico to “work attended school in Mexico City for seven years and then hard in Democratic politics, make a contribution, and boarded at a private school in Concord, Massachusetts. eventually run for office.… I told one and all that my He subsequently attended his father’s alma mater, Tufts ambition was to run for the United States Congress.”7 University, in Medford, Massachusetts. Majoring in Richardson introduced himself to the New Mexico political science and French, Richardson became active in political establishment and immersed himself in state 542 H HISPANIC AMERicans IN CONGRESS Image courtesy of the U.S. House of Representatives Photography Office Bill Richardson 1947– UNITED STATES REPRESENTATIVE 1983–1997 DEMOCRAT FROM NEW MEXICO H bill richardson H politics for two years. While establishing his political tier research lab and the birthplace of the atomic bomb. bona fides, Richardson opened a consulting firm, taught It also drew upon a mixture of political ideologies, with politics and government in Santa Fe, and prepared himself conservative San Juan County and Farmington offset by to run against six-term incumbent Manuel Luján, Jr., in liberal voters in the state capital of Santa Fe.14 Richardson New Mexico’s First Congressional District.8 A mixture of described the district as “tailor-made for a Democrat liberal and conservative areas encompassing Albuquerque and a Hispanic.” He filed early to run for the seat, but and Santa Fe—two of the state’s largest cities—the district met resistance from long-standing political bosses who spanned the northeastern and north-central portions of encouraged their acolytes to run for the seat. The result New Mexico.9 was a fight for the June 1982 Democratic primary between Richardson announced his candidacy in September Richardson, lieutenant governor Roberto Mondragon, 1979 and promised to bring industry and jobs to northern district judge George Perez, and future Congressman and New Mexico using public and private resources.10 He Senator Tom Udall.15 believed casting Lujan as a puppet of the energy industry— Behind in the early polls, Richardson reached beyond “an almost invisible presence in Washington” who “voted his nuevomexicano base by appealing to conservative Anglo against the interests of his district”—would give him a Democrats in the district’s larger cities and to Navajo decent chance of winning. Compensating for limited voters who had backed his 1980 run.16 Richardson recalled financial support from Democratic political organizers, a frenetic primary finish: “We logged hundreds of miles and minimal name recognition, Richardson financed his of travel around the new Third, shoring up the Hispanic campaign using donations from organized labor PACs and base, reinforcing my interest in Anglo voters, telling the a $100,000 inheritance.11 House Speaker Thomas P. (Tip) Navajos that I meant it when I said I’d work their interests O’Neill of Massachusetts and prominent officials from in Washington.” Richardson won by a decisive plurality of the James Earl (Jimmy) Carter administration eventually 36 percent, ahead of Mondragon (30 percent), Perez (19 backed him. “I was campaigning twelve or fourteen hours percent), and Udall (13.5 percent).17 a day, seven days a week, and Lujan was doing nothing,” Richardson’s opponent in the general election was Richardson recalled. Richardson lagged in the polls one Republican Marjorie Bell Chambers, a two-time member week before the election but managed to gain ground. Luján of the Los Alamos county council, a former president clung to his seat, with 51 percent of the vote to Richardson’s of Colorado College, and a nationally recognized expert 49 percent.12 Although the Democratic National Campaign on civil rights and education issues. Both candidates Committee offered to pay for a recount, Richardson promised to bring industry and economic opportunities declined. “I was ecstatic,” he said. “I had prepared myself to to the district, pressing the state for tax incentives and the lose: All I wanted was to lose respectably so that my political federal government for job training and environmental prospects were not foreclosed.” 13 protection. Richardson criticized the Ronald W. Reagan In 1982, Richardson ran in the newly created Third administration’s economic policies and garnered District, which covered much of northwestern New endorsements from Speaker O’Neill and Senator Edward Mexico and included the major cities of Farmington (Ted) Kennedy of Massachusetts.18 Chambers, a lifelong and Santa Fe. Its majority-Hispanic population had sent New Mexican, brought up Richardson’s recent move to the many nuevomexicano Delegates, Representatives, and state and compared him to a “Ping-Pong ball, first coming Senators to Washington. The district contained numerous up on one side of an issue and then popping up on the American Indian reservations along the Rio Grande and its other side.” Richardson recalled, Chambers “came at me tributaries, a surplus of natural resources such as oil, gas, from the start with an odd and out-of-character bias: Let’s and coal, and the Los Alamos National Laboratory, a top- send this guy back to Mexico.”19 Richardson canvassed the 544 H HISPANIC AMERicans IN CONGRESS H bill richardson H district—in which Democrats outnumbered Republicans passage of two bills that entrusted a portion of federal lands nearly three to one—and won 64 percent of the vote on to the Pueblos.24 As chairman of the Subcommittee on Election Day. In his victory speech, Richardson said he Native American Affairs, Richardson proposed a number would begin working “tomorrow morning.… I promised of bills involving health, education, and employment to be a fighter, so I’ve got my work cut out for me,” he initiatives that became law. Richardson also shepherded to added. In each of his six subsequent re-election campaigns, passage H.R. 4487, a bill that amended the Public Health Richardson earned at least 60 percent of the vote.20 Service Act by extending the National Health Service Richardson embraced a straightforward approach Corps and providing grants to states that supported rural to his congressional career: “Err on the side of trying to health offices.25 do too much rather than the side of doing too little.” Richardson took seriously his role as a Representative Upon entering Congress, Richardson won seats on the of Hispanic descent.