Discussing Effective Lawmaking with State Senator Mimi Stewart

Alan Wiseman (00:09:18):

Hello. My name is Alan Wiseman. I’m the Associate Provost of Strategic Projects at Vanderbilt University, and along with Craig Volden at the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy, I co-direct the Center for Effective Lawmaking. In today’s version of our Center for Effective Lawmaking, or Conversations with Effective Lawmakers video series, we’re very excited to welcome Mimi Stewart, who served in the New Mexico State House of Representatives from 1995 until 2015, and in the New Mexico State Senate from 2015 until current day. She currently represents State Senate District 17, which comprises of portions of Albuquerque, and she also currently serves as the Senate’s President Pro Tempore. Now, as many of you might know, especially those of you in New Mexico, Senator Stewart was born in Florida but was raised in Arizona and Colorado. She earned her bachelor’s degree in sociology and history from Boston University before obtaining her master’s degree in education at Wheelock College. She moved with her family to Albuquerque in 1978, where she spent more than 30 years in the public school system with an emphasis in elementary special education. Now, from her earliest days in the state legislature, Representative Stewart truly showed great promise as an effective lawmaker, as some of you are familiar with our data on state legislative effectiveness can attest our data on New Mexico goes back to the 1997-1998 legislative term and according to our data, in every one of the thirteen legislative terms since then, then Representative, and now currently Senator Stewart was rated among the top-10 most effective lawmakers in the Democratic party in her legislative term, and on three occasions she was actually recognized or ranked as the most effective lawmaker within the entire chamber in her legislative term. So, President Pro Tempore Stewart, we’re so excited to welcome you. Thanks so much for taking the time to join the Center for Effective Lawmaking on a conversation and interview.

Sen. Mimi Stewart (00:02:10:24): Thank you so much for having me. Listening to my background, though I’m already tired from all of that work.

Alan Wiseman (00:02:17:11):

We’ll do our best to keep it fresh here. So as you know, as we described to you a little bit earlier, our plan is that we’re going to ask you a fairly general set of questions regarding your perspectives on the lawmaking process and your own background, and we’d really invite you to offer not only answers to the questions, but the extent to which you could provide any examples from your own career or other observations you’ve made about lawmaking in New Mexico, or, more generally speaking, we’d really welcome those perspectives as well. Just to kick things off, what I’d like to do is actually start with some questions really about your own background. And by that, I mean before you actually obtained elected office in New Mexico and try to get a sense about how your own professional background shaped your approaches to lawmaking. So, more specifically, Craig and I, and I know our viewers, would be really interested in hearing how your perspectives as a public school teacher influenced your decision to ultimately join public service in another forum, and that being as your way, as you became an elected legislator.

Sen. Mimi Stewart (00:03:25:00):

Well, it was a long time ago. 1994 was when I first ran, but when I was teaching, and over my thirty years, I taught at five elementary schools in Albuquerque. I started teaching in Boston after I got my master’s degree, but then moved here. I joined the Albuquerque Teachers Federation in 1983, when I was teaching, and I got very active in that organization because we had trouble with all kinds of things in education. The year I got there and started working for the Albuquerque public schools, they actually, that year, stopped doing any kind of early childhood endorsement and they also stopped requiring any outside education like CLE credits. So, it seemed like the education community did not like those issues, and the Albuquerque Teachers Federation actually came to me and asked me if I would work for them. For a few years I was a fed rep, a federation representative, so I represented whichever school I was in at the Albuquerque Teachers Federation. For three years in the late eighties and early nineties I stopped teaching for three years and worked for the Albuquerque Teachers Federation, and as part of that I had to lobby the legislature about funding for education. It was such an eye-opener for me to talk to legislators that had served for twenty or more years, and they had no idea how we funded the public schools. We have a state equalization guarantee funding formula that’s been the envy of many states because it has worked so well. We’re a very rural and urban state, and we’re also a very poor state. We have the second highest rate among students. So, we were struggling back then, as we still are. In my lobbying work, it was just so shocking to me to realize that we had legislators in charge of the funding for education that were so ill-informed. During that time I got to know some of the legislators, and in 1992, I had four State Senators ask me to run for office. I did that, and I lost, and then I got fired by the union. They didn’t like me running for office, but I went back to teaching. It was much better to be a teacher than be a fed rep or a union representative, let me tell you. Two years later the teacher’s union came back to me and said we were wrong, and you were right. We want you to run for the House, and I said, well, will you get my petition signatures and give me a little money to start? And they said, yes, and hence, thirty-one years later, I’m still there. My work with the union had become political. I had become the what’s called the COPE committee chair, the Committee on Political Education. I had gotten to know the players in Santa Fe, in the legislature, and I was firmly committed to helping our education community. That’s what really what got me started. I was at a school that had four different principals in five years and the last principal was fired because she slapped a parent. Another principal that we had was a bodybuilder. You know, at an elementary school back then, it was mostly women, so we had fun looking at our principal but he didn’t know much about education. So, I really felt that we needed more focus on education, and that’s really why I still serve, is because of education.

Craig Volden (00:08:40:13):

Fantastic. So let me second the thanks that Alan gave for joining us today. It sounds like when you entered the legislature, you already had quite a bit of knowledge about how things were going and what legislators were informed about and some areas that you were interested in, in particular. When you think back to that first term was there one particular issue or set of bills in education that you were interested in moving forward at that time?

Sen. Mimi Stewart (00:09:15:03):

Not originally. It was such an experience because when you get elected, we have these extremely short sessions in even-numbered years. We go for sixty days, and in odd-numbered years we go for thirty days. And so here I was teaching, and remember, we also don’t get paid as legislators in New Mexico. I had to keep my day job, and I wanted to. So here I was, teaching, and I had to leave my classroom the first year for sixty days. That was very difficult to do. Eventually what happened was that I got a dedicated substitute. I got a retired teacher who was willing to work with me and come into my classroom and get to know the kids and do that every year at that same time. It wasn’t the bills I was working on. It was like, can I even do this? What happens in the New Mexico legislature is that we introduce way too many bills, and then we spend every day trying to sort out which ones we’re going to pass. I had a great undergraduate degree from Boston University in history, and sociology so I felt that I was fairly widely read and understood things but I had to learn everything about state government. So, I spent my early years trying to learn about state government and all of those issues that I hadn’t really dealt with before. It was an intense education to begin with, and I didn’t start doing education bills for a few years, and then I never stopped.

Alan Wiseman (00:11:28:00):

I really appreciate the fact that you highlighted the ways in which New Mexico is, in fact, a part time legislature, compared to some other states, and the unique set of constraints that puts on legislators to maintain both dedication to the legislature while also maintaining their own jobs, if they’re still working full time. I’m sure a lot of our viewers might not fully be aware of that in many of our states. I am curious, though I mean just the way you just described things upon being first elected. In your earliest days in the House of Representatives, what were they like in terms of orientation opportunities? Was there any meaningful orientation program? Is there? Now, what are some things that you wish you’d been informed about. You described a situation where you were doing a lot of homework on the legislative process. Is there any sort of institutionalization now, or have there have been paths forward in this area?

Sen. Mimi Stewart (00:12:21:13):

It’s much better now, but back then I didn’t get any training. I got elected in November and by the third Tuesday in January I was in session, so I got a little bit, but not much. That is totally different now. Now, we bring in our new representatives and our new senators in December. They have three or four days of this. They have a 7 to 8 o’clock trainings three times a week for the first month. Each morning is a different issue. I had none of that. I just had to learn by the seat of my pants, and also because I was still teaching, I really couldn’t go to very many interim committees. I could take ten other days off during the school year, so I went to the committees that I didn’t know very much about. I went to the courts, corrections and justice committee and found out a lot about juvenile delinquency that working at elementary I didn’t really have to deal with. So, we’ve, in my thirty-one years, really changed the way we train people to take part. Before our meeting today I had lunch with one of our brand-new senators and she asked for it, and I sat down, and she just had questions. She just had one question after another, and it was really fun to explain things to her, and she said to me, you know, I thought that I should just sit back and listen and learn this session. Was that the right idea? And I said, yes, it was. And, by the way, you should do that for a couple of years. Don’t start worrying about legacy or bills you have to have to do take part in these interim committees. I did explain that sixty-day and thirty-day, and we’re not paid, and how difficult it is for just regular people to be part of the legislature, but we make up for those short days by having a very robust interim committee process. We have twenty interim committees. Me, as the President Pro Tem, I have just appointed forty-two Senators to those twenty committees, and she wanted to ask about those committees. Training is just really crucial, or you sit around and do nothing for a number of years, because you don’t know how.

Craig Volden (00:15:37:22):

Many people aren’t aware of just how much work is being done outside of those thirty and sixty days and how influential that is for thinking through issues, building up coalitions and all of the rest, as well as how long it takes to get up to speed. You were saying that after a little while you were introducing your own bills largely having an education-based agenda. But you weren’t just interested in education issues, right? You’ve been interested in environmental and water issues, and a variety of things influencing your district. How did you think, over time, about the issues you want to focus on, and why is that?

Sen. Mimi Stewart (00:16:28:14):

When I got to the House of Representatives, the then Speaker said to me, “I have six requests for the two spots on the Education Committee, but I need a smart Liberal for the Judiciary Committee, and I’m asking you to go on that committee instead of Education.” Well, I was brand new, and he was the boss. I wasn’t about to say no, although I really wanted to be on that Education Committee, but what he put me on was the Interim Education Committee. Now we have probably one of the best interim education processes in the country, because we have a dedicated staff of about eight to ten and a director, and their job is to help us study education in New Mexico and come up with reforms and solutions. So, I served on that in the interim. It’s really one of the places where I worked on those education bills. But here I am in the Judiciary Committee, brand new. I’m glad the speaker thought I was a good person to go on it, but it sure was drinking from the fire hose. I did go to the Interim Courts, Corrections, and Justice Committee, and I became very interested in different all kinds of different criminal issues. I also served on the Water and Natural Resources Committee, which is where I became interested in water and the environment. I’ve always been an environmentalist. And I, although I have a colleague who says Amy Stewart was progressive before anybody even thought of the term, I’ve become more moderate. I don’t know if it’s age, or it’s the process of compromising and collaborating and trying to empathize and understand an opposing point of view. I also started focusing on women’s issues. When I got elected out of seventy, there were six women. We had so many issues around women and corrections and other things. We had a backlog of five thousand rape kits that were not tested over a period of a decade that just that got me so angry. So, I’ve done several bills around that already. It’s a matter of opening up your mind, and when you start to understand how state government works, then you start to try to figure out how to fix these issues that come up everywhere. So, it was my experience on those committees, and then my experience during the interim, when I could go to a few interim committees that that broadened my scope, that made me able to turn a long-term knowledge. I read both diet for a small planet, and Rachel Carson’s book in my early twenties. I also, in my early twenties, lived for a year on an organic vegetable farm. It was so much fun. I still grow plants and vegetables and everything so I felt like I was finally bringing my full self when I started getting involved in water and the environment and women’s issues and good government issues and education. Those continue to be the areas where I work in.

Alan Wiseman (00:20:44:13):

This is really helpful. You actually touched on a couple of themes in your response to Craig that really teases me up for my next question. Just thinking about having served in the New Mexico Legislature for thirty years, you obviously held a number of roles, and by that, I mean as a member or chair on various committees, your seats on various interim committees, and given your perspective especially having served in the House, the Senate, and your current leadership role in the Senate. I’d be curious to get your perspective on how well you think the legislature in New Mexico is organized at present to raise and engage and address public policy challenges facing constituents.

Sen. Mimi Stewart (00:21:27:01):

So we’ve been hearing for a number of years from advocacy groups that they think we should modernize, and we agree. We agree. I mean, I had a bill to extend the length of our sessions when I was in the House. It lost by one vote. When I was in the House for twenty years, we passed two constitutional amendments to actually give us a salary. We lost both of those. So, fast forward couple of decades and the women in the House and in the Senate have joined forces and are trying to pass three constitutional amendments, one to set us up to get a salary, two to extend the length of the sessions, and then one item that we decided we didn’t need a constitutional amendment for, for the last two years we actually are providing every legislator with an interim staff, because not only do we not get paid and don’t have offices, we don’t have any dedicated staff until we’re in the session. When I first got there in this session, I had a secretary that I shared with someone else. That was my staff, you know. So I worked without staff for twenty-four years in the Senate before I became the Pro Tem. I was the Whip. I actually got an analyst when I was a Whip. Now that I’m the Pro Tem, I have a chief of staff and an analyst and a secretary. So, everybody’s jealous of me now. I said, look, look at how much work she’s getting done. We need staff so everybody now can have a full-time or part-time staff for the interim to help with constituent needs, to help in the district. Not for the session, but in the district, so not everybody has hired one. I’m not going to. I don’t need another person, but that at least has started to modernize it. When I was talking to some folks about the constitutional amendment to extend the length of time they said to me, not until we’re paid, because, just think, you know, I’m retired. Now I can do this full time, and I do. But if you’re working and we all have to work because we’re not getting paid. Which job will give you two months off, one year, one month off the next year, and up to twenty or thirty days for the rest of the year to do your committee work. Not too many places, and so we are on a path to modernize ourselves by setting a salary and extending the length of the of the session.

Craig Volden (00:24:47:18):

Yeah, I mean, it seems like that. Even that first step of having staff involvement traces back to what you were saying earlier in terms of the staff on that interim Education Committee really setting you up for success there. Now I’m hearing that that’s many of the staff that people are hiring are doing mainly constituency service rather than lawmaking service? Is that the way to think about that?

Sen. Mimi Stewart (00:25:15:20):

Well, that’s what people wanted, what they want help with, the constant email and phone calls and letters from constituents. So that’s really what they were hired for. Now a lot of people are using them for policy research and helping them with bills that they’re thinking about, or that we had before, or need to be reformed. So, they’re using them as kind of a general generalized staff and very happy about it, very happy about it.

Craig Volden (00:25:53:16):

Great. So, there isn’t a restriction on how you can use these staff numbers?

Sen. Mimi Stewart (00:25:59:03):

There are some restrictions. They can’t be political. I mean, here we are in a political process, but these staff are being paid by the taxpayers, and it’s important that they don’t do highly partisan things. Yeah, they’re going to work for Republicans. They’re going to work for Democrats, but we serve everyone. I have plenty of Republicans that I work with in my district, so the staff can’t be highly partisan, and we’ve already had to kind of rein some folks in with that.

Craig Volden (00:26:40:13):

That leads directly into a question that we’ve had just about how bipartisanship has been functioning in New Mexico. You have a multi-decade experience there. What were the relations between Democrats and Republicans when you first arrived? And how have they evolved over time?

Sen. Mimi Stewart (00:27:01:18):

Such an interesting question. This one I’ve really thought about. So, when I got here thirty years ago, I didn’t pay any attention to the Republicans. We had seventy members. That’s a lot of people. There were, I think there were like I think it was like forty to thirty or a little bit less than that. Thirty-eight. Anyway, we had five or six more Democrats than Republicans, because it was so big, and I was trying to learn. Sure, they were on the committees, you know. I knew who they were, but I didn’t bother getting to know them. I didn’t bother reaching out and working with them, and now I do that all the time. And in my role as the President Pro Tempore, which is for the entire Senate-yes, I’m elected by my caucus, but that doesn’t stand. I’m not elected until the full body convenes on opening day, and I have to be elected by Republicans and Democrats. So it’s just kind of like I’ve grown up. And I’ve grown into the job, and I’ve had several Republican colleagues that we were so closely aligned. We did bills together, Senator Gay Kernan, who is also a teacher from Hobbs. She and I-she left last year, but she and I have done numerous education bills together. Craig Brandt, who is a Republican from the West Side who serves on that interim LESC. We’re very simpatico, and we’ve done bills together. The majority leader and I work with the minority leader and the minority whip very closely. We met with them. So, the Minority Leader and the Whip of the Republican caucuses, they’re both brand new and they’re not brand-new people. There are two people that both the majority leader and I worked with for many years. But now they’re in leadership. So, they were like, how do we do this? How do we put people on committees? How do we, you know? Do this? We said, oh, well, let’s meet, let’s meet. So, we’ve had these just wonderful fun meetings where it’s like, what, you want that guy on that committee? I don’t know. Where we worked out our differences and where we taught them how to do things, and we had fun doing it because they were fun, and they were grateful that we wanted to do that. So, we’ve, for this particular caucus, I think we’re off on a good start. Now we have some new Republicans in our Senate, and they-this is how I describe them-they’re emboldened by the national politics. From New Mexico, which is a reliable blue state, they have trouble with statewide elections, but because they’ve got this President now, and they have this Congress, and they have the Senate. They’re emboldened. And so, one of them brought a DOGE bill. And, you know, others have tried to use their megaphone in that way. And we try to teach them, react with respect and some humor, and just being reasonable people. So, I’ve just learned so much about empathy and compassion and trying to put yourself in other people’s shoes. And I’ve been trying to understand the conservative brain for thirty years, and I really respect and like parts of that conservative brain and feel like I can relate to parts of it. You know, we used to have a big, conservative Republican caucus around the country that was focused on the environment. I just don’t think the environment should even be a partisan issue. It is, but it doesn’t have to be. And I don’t think education should be a partisan issue, and that it doesn’t have to be so. I’m kind of proud of myself for going from, I don’t need to talk to those Republicans to, I like them and respect them and want to work with them, even though I disagree with them politically about eighty percent of the time.

Alan Wiseman (00:32:03:17):

Well, all said, the way you’re characterizing the political environment centers is actually quite refreshing in comparison to what we hear, perhaps at the national level or in other states. A situation in which, even, you know, you have a situation in which one party is completely dominating the political environment and it’s clear that you and other leaders on both sides of the aisle are trying to work together to advance common goals. I guess, loosely related to that point, Craig, and I’d also be interested in hearing your perspectives on the evolution of your thinking about the lawmaking process and its relationship in the House and the Senate. So, the bicameral nature of lawmaking, having served in the House and now Senate. Where do you see how Senate relations in New Mexico in general at the moment, how they evolved? Given your past experience in the House, for example, do you feel that your bills, or bills you’ve sponsored in the past in the Senate, are they more likely to receive a warm welcome upon arriving in the House? Are you actively cultivating coalition partners in the other chamber at the time you’re developing your own ideas? I’d just really be interested in your perspective on this.

Sen. Mimi Stewart (00:33:14:06):

Well, so what a great question! And things are so different now than they used to be, and I will tell you that the answer to the issue of work-the chambers working together is so dependent on who’s there. I mean, we have processes, but a lot of it is left for the current membership and I am so lucky that I have a majority leader in Peter Worth who can work across the aisle and can work across Chamber. But you know, when I first got to the Senate ten years ago in 2015, my Senator got elected to something else. So, I got to jump to the Senate. I had to, because the House went Republican, and I knew that I was not going to be very happy with that. So then, in my first, you know, four years, when I was in the Senate it was easy to get my stuff passed in the House now. They were a little mad at me because I had abandoned them, but they were still friends, and they still, you know, knew my bills and knew what I wanted to do and would help. Well, that’s gone now. I think because there’s been such incredible turnover. I mean, there’s hardly anybody left. Eleven years, this is eleven years after I left. There’s hardly anyone left there that I served with. So, and I had a very-I had a very bad experience this year with the House. For the last several years I have worked with the House on passing paid family medical leave. I’ve gotten it out of the Senate two times with all but two Democrats voting for it, and then they can’t get it off the floor of the House. So this last year, I said, well, let’s start it in the House, you know. I know I can get it out of the Senate, so you guys start it and then they didn’t speak to me for six weeks, and changed the bill so drastically that I barely recognized it when they did pass it. So, I still don’t know what happened. With that I have my-I think I know what happened. I think there was a small group of people who needed to have it changed for them to vote for it again. And so they really-it’s not really a paid family medical leave that they passed. There’s no paid family leave. There’s only six weeks of paid medical leave, so the bill was just so different that the Senate didn’t pass it. So I feel like now I have to almost start over. I first have to say, what was that, you know? Six weeks of not talking to the Governor, not talking to me not talking to anyone in the Senate, not talking to the advocacy groups that are so crucial in a bill like that. It was shocking. I still don’t understand why they did it. Maybe they felt like they just had to do it. They had to just do it themselves and not have anybody help them. You know, I never think like that. The advocacy groups that work with us are crucial. They work with people more than we do. They work with who’s hurting more than we do. You know, the ACLU, the Center for Civic Policy, we’ve got twenty-five of them. We have twenty-four environmental groups, you know. Yeah, we’ve got the Sierra Club and Conservation Voters, and then we have twenty other ones. I can’t name them all. So, these people are important because they are working on the issues that are really important. So, I will say that I also got out of my comfort zone this past session and did three major climate bills. Boy, that woke up the other party. I got the House to pass two of them. So, I’m starting back with my, okay, we can work together. We’ll work this out. We’ll work out the differences and we’ll meet. We’ll listen to each other but it’s hard and it’s tough. And I, you know the two in our interim committees-it’s always a mix of D’s and R’s and House and Senate, and my new folks asked me, well, when do we get to know the House? And I said in the interim, in the interim. You’ll be on committees with them. You’ll get to know them. You’ll make those alliances, but I don’t like the fact that we start the session, and we don’t talk to each other until the last week or two, and then it’s like, oh, we’ll pass all the Senate bills. Well, you pass all the House bills, and there’s not really coordination during this session, and Peter Worth and I, the majority leader, and I have worked on that. We’ll continue to work on it. I’ve gone way past your question. I think.

Craig Volden (00:38:52:11):

But in terrific directions. I’m really taken aback by first, the degree to which House and Senate are working independently of one another, but second, the element of it being driven by personalities and the nature of leadership, right? Different people have different leadership styles there, and that leads me to wonder, you know. So, as you were, say, chair of various committees, or now in the President Pro Tempore position, you take some of those leadership roles in discerning. You know, what are the issues? We only have thirty days, or we only have sixty days. We can’t do everything. What are the ones that are really going to get our attention and move forward. So, can you tell me a little bit about how that’s done? Top down versus bottom up. What would happen if a member comes to you and says, I’m really passionate about this issue, and you’re saying, well, that’s not our top priority at present. How, how does that all play out?

Sen. Mimi Stewart (00:39:53:06):

I don’t really do that. No, Senators are very independent now. When we have to work with the House, that’s different. We, in fact, did a better job in the interim of working with the House, and part of that was the Governor. We have a terrific Governor, but boy, is she in a hurry, and she wants to do everything. So, she wanted to call us in for a special session on crime. Well, you imagine the advocacy groups who say, what are you doing? What are you going to be doing with these people? And we didn’t have anything solid, and so we basically said no to her, and she was so not happy, and trashed us publicly. It was bad, but the House and the Senate then settled down, and we got three or four bills that were just so impactful. And we made the decision between the two chambers to pass them in the first thirty days, and we did. That was shocking most of the time. Everything passes in the last week. In the first thirty days we passed an incredible behavioral health bill, where we divided up the state in five regions and gave money to police, judiciary, and behavioral health advocacy groups in that area to come up with a plan to deal with homelessness and the drug abuse that we’re seeing in the crime and we put money into it. Money for the police, for the judiciary. It’s for behavioral health we put money in for, actually, buildings or leasings. You can do it now to set up these behavioral health programs. That’s what we did in the Senate, and we did a trust fund in the House. They put eight different crime bills together, but what they worked on is the issue around competence. That was the biggest problem, and they fixed that. And so in the first thirty days they passed and we passed ours. They crossed over, and they both passed. I’m the most proud about that in the session, because that took those two chambers. So, we do have examples when we overcome these issues. I know before the election I heard this comment by some of the House Democrats who are saying, yeah, the Republicans are a problem to work with but the real enemy is the Senate. What are you talking about? We can’t get our bills out of judiciary. It’s like, oh, okay, that’s what you’re talking about. So, this really worked this year. Now the second half didn’t work so well. That’s when the paid family medical leave fell apart and several other things fell apart. So, it’s kind of like we need four months to work together before we go to the session. That’s what we had this year. We don’t have that every year.

Alan Wiseman (00:42:59:05):

I want to shift gears slightly, Senator, to get your perspective on the ways in which the New Mexico Legislature has evolved over the years that you’ve been there, and more specifically, as observers of legislative politics and gender, and politics in particular, know, New Mexico has now passed the threshold of an even split among the number of men and women who are serving in the House, and it’s also actually a majority female legislature when you combine the two chambers. So, the Center for Effective Lawmaking, Craig and I, and many of our faculty affiliates are actually quite interested in the different legislative experiences and strategies and achievements of male and female legislators, both in the U.S. Congress and other state legislative environments. And I’d be curious to hear your perspective especially given that you started off-or a little bit earlier in the conversation-you pointed out that when you were first elected to the State House, of the seventy legislators, only six of them are women. So, I’d be curious, just, you know, really to hear your reactions or thoughts about how there, or how, if any, there might be differences in approaches to lawmaking, legislative strategies and the perspectives that men and women bring to the legislative process based on your own observations or evolution of the Chamber across time.

Sen. Mimi Stewart (00:44:14:20):

That’s a very interesting question. These are all interesting questions. I’m so glad I’m talking to you today. So, there’s a lot of pros, and there’s a few cons. We got six new women in the Senate this year. Let’s see of those, so, it’s five new women. One woman replaced another woman. It just felt better to me on the floor of the Senate. It was lighter, there was more chatter among the women legislators. There’s, you know, it just still feels like a man’s world in in that body. And interestingly, this new brand-new woman, Senator, that I had lunch with today, she said to me. She said, I think that the people respond differently to a male chair and a female chair, and I said, yes, they do. So, there’s just there’s just misogyny, you know. You just-it’s hard to get around it. And, as I said, I just think the other party is more emboldened now, and they’re, you know, they’re just being more emboldened with everything that they’re doing. So yeah, the House majority women-the con I’m seeing is that they’re all new. I mean, this has happened over the last, like, three cycles, and you know I was in the house for twenty years. It’s every other year you’re running. I mean, you can’t ever forget about the campaign. So, because they’re so new, I mean, I’m talking about the whole House is, like, so new, I mean, I don’t recognize them all. That is a very strange feeling. It’s like, what? Who are you? So, they don’t know what they’re doing. They don’t know what they don’t know, and what they do know about all of this is not flushed out, is not detailed, it’s not oriented towards doing something about it. So I don’t see real significant things coming out of the House. I just think there’s more significant things coming out of the Senate, in part because we’ve just been there longer. I mean, we run every four years, and it just gives us a few years where we don’t have to worry about that, where we can really focus on how to make these bills better, how to come up with better solutions. In my twenty years in the House, my ten in the Senate I have had to learn to work with men that I did not respect and did not like, and that’s hard to do. And you’ve heard me talk about the change over thirty years, where I can do that more, I can understand and be more empathetic and compassionate to people with opposing views. But when they’re not nice with their opposing views, it makes it more difficult. So, I think, with more women you get more collaboration, you get more compassion. And, also, they care about what I care about. You know, kids, education, schooling, women’s issues, the environment and climate. What are we doing? So, to me it was like when some of these new people came in, and I said, well doing these strong climate bills, sign me up. Well, thank you, and put me on the committee where you need me to vote for that. So, I think the level of policy gets elevated when you have more of an equal split between men and women, I mean, I’m not saying men don’t care about kids and education, but you know, women care more than they do about it, just the way it feels to me. They think about it more. It’s more something they want to work on. So, it’s just better to have both men and women being part of these decisions. It would be much better if everybody had more of experience and understanding and education that we have. We’ve elected some people with, like, just no experience with public service and no background. No, I don’t know, no educational background that makes you want to say, okay, I can learn from them. I can work with them, they will know what they’re doing. So, I’ve had a few of my colleagues say to me recently, oh, boy, you know you better stick around. I better, too, because this new crop, who knows where they’re going to go? So, you know. So, it’s kind of like waves for me, you know. I’m just through with the wave of the of all the new people we elected in 2020. And it’s like, okay, they’re starting to be all right. We’ve only lost a couple of them. They’re starting to do get involved in things. And now we’ve got these new crops that oh, my gosh! They know nothing.

Craig Volden (00:50:19:24):

I mean, it is fascinating that continually we’re coming back to the learning curve that’s involved in the ability to do good lawmaking, to do that legislative work, and I’ve been heartened to hear about the orientation and the new members, as well as the staffing that helps people get up to speed. One other issue I’d love to touch on for a little bit of time is the degree to which, you know, some of the issues you’re confronting, climate and others, are other states working on as well. And so, I’m wondering, you know. Do you look around and see what others are doing? Or do you take your successes and highlight that for legislators in other states, how does that back-and-forth process work?

Sen. Mimi Stewart (00:51:04:20):

So, that also is different now than it used to be when I first got elected. I thought, I got to find some other progressives, because I don’t have anybody here speaking my language. So, I did start going to NCSL. I got involved twenty-five years ago with Leon Billings when he started the National Caucus of Environmental Legislators. There were twenty-five of us. Now there’s a thousand, and they have an annual meeting. I got at least three or four of my best environmental bills from going to the National Caucus of Environmental Legislators. So, I also joined WLWAND. That’s Women Legislators And Women Acting For New Directions. They’re no longer-I don’t think-I’m no longer part of it. I don’t think they’re in existence anymore. I got three or four of my bills from them. So, in my first twenty years I went to other states, I went to other trainings. NCSL was very important to me. I was part of the International Education Study Group that NCSL: put together, where we compared our educational system in the U.S. to several Asian countries. To Singapore, to Finland to two provinces in China, and came up with No Time To Lose. You know, first you had No Child Left Behind, then through NCSL you had No Time To Lose, and I promoted that work during the Interim Education Committee when I was the chair. So, I have used other states and these national organizations. I’m now more involved with Council of State Governments West. They have a Colorado River Forum, New Mexico is one of seven states that have a compact on the Colorado River. We must come up with a different configuration because of climate change and the drought and the fires and the lack of water, and we have to do that by the end of next year. So, because I was involved with that, they’re now having the next meeting here, and I’m the co-chair in Santa Fe in November of this year. So, I’ve used those national organizations to educate myself and to do more legislation. But for the last ten years I’ve really had to focus on New Mexico. And in my role now I’m just busy all the time I am going to go back to NCSL this summer and in NCEL but they also invite me, you know, as the Pro Tem. They invite me everywhere. I don’t have time to go to-I’ve been invited to France. I’ve been invited to Greece. I’ve been invited to Ireland. I don’t have time to do that. It’s kind of sad, really. I am going to try next year to go to France. They invite me to this incredible Normandy leadership every year, and my majority leader has gone, and he says you should do that, it’s really cool.

Alan Wiseman (00:54:28:22):

Yeah, this sounds like a good problem to have, Senator, I have to tell you. Well, we want to be mindful of your time, but finally, because the Center for Effective Lawmaking is located at Vanderbilt University and the University of Virginia, and especially given your focus on education, we wonder if you have any particular insights or advice you want to share with college students today?

Sen. Mimi Stewart (00:54:53:14):

Thank you for asking me that it was just so much fun to get to that last question and think, oh, now that sounds like fun. Read widely in fields that interest you. You know, there’s just so much out there. The new books that are being produced all the time, read widely in those areas that interest you. Try very hard to obtain a degree. It will open doors, for you. Don’t quit your last year, like my partner did and had to go back like my daughter did. Try to get that degree. It will open doors. You don’t have to stay in that field, but it’s important to get that degree and try to develop these three habits. Habit one, try to reflect and write about those books that you read. Try to do academic work your whole life. Reflect and write about those books and cultivate friends that are going to help you remain academic, that want to talk about books that want to go to presentations that want to learn. Try to cultivate a lifelong learning. You know, I am getting older. I’ve had lots of years of work. I’m at the point where I’m saying, you know, I’m going to I need to de-stress, and I’ve read lots of how you de-stress, several lists of how you de-stress, is read a book. Read a fiction book. I can’t read any fiction during the session. I just cannot do it, but I sure can afterwards, so sprinkle in some fun fiction along that, and then limit your screen time. Those are my words of advice for young college students.

Craig Volden (00:57:00:19):

Fantastic. Thanks for those, and thanks for your time today, and thanks, of course, for your public service your many years of what you’ve been doing on behalf of New Mexicans.

Sen. Mimi Stewart (00:57:12:19):

For no money!

Craig Volden (00:57:15:12):

Yeah, for free as a volunteer service, no doubt. I did want to give you just one more chance if there’s anything that we failed to ask you. I know you’ve been sticking to our questions but anything that that we should have asked you about effective lawmaking in New Mexico or anything you felt we left out?

Sen. Mimi Stewart (00:57:35:11):

You know, it’s probably something I’ve left out. There has been one driving issue for me, and that is to try to get our colleges of education and our current elementary school teachers to teach reading according to the science of how kids learn. I’m sure you’re aware of these five decades of being sold a story, and been sent down the wrong path by our two icons, Lucy Calkins and Marty Clay. They were both wrong about what they said to us about how to teach kids how to read. You don’t teach kids to guess, it doesn’t work. Structured literacy is what must be taught at these elementary levels. And it’s not about teaching English. It’s not a curriculum. It’s the way to teach the alphabetic code. And whatever language you’re in, according to the science of how kids actually learn to read. And I’ve been trying to get us to do that for thirty years. And we’re almost there with this Governor. We’re starting to train teachers in the last session. The House wouldn’t pass my education bill, so I took it and put it in another bill. I just stuck it in another bill. It’s the first time I’ve done that, and of course, then on the last day they copied us and did the same thing. But this is happening all over the country. And until we all step up, use our own research, five decades of research that shows us what to do. We’re just being stupid. And other countries-we learned this in the National-in the International Study Group. They say to us, we just use your research. You have fantastic research. Yeah, we use it. Why don’t you? So, I’ll leave you with that.

Craig Volden (00:59:32:07):

Well, I appreciate that on content, but I also just love it from the passion right that seems to have driven you and your agenda for the past thirty years on this front and that as a driving feature of effective lawmakers is unsurpassed. So, thank you, again. We really appreciate your time.

Sen. Mimi Stewart (00:59:55:00):

And this is very fun. So, thank you for asking me to do it.

Alan Wiseman (00:59:58:06):

Wonderful. We’re really grateful to have you here, Senator.

Sen. Mimi Stewart (01:00:02:14):

Okay, great. I hope I meet you sometime.

Alan Wiseman (01:00:05:04):

We’d love to have you out at Vanderbilt.

Sen. Mimi Stewart (01:00:08:00):

Oh, and I’m sending new people to your school for your training.

Alan Wiseman (01:00:12:07):

Wonderful! Wonderful! Have them look us up.

Sen. Mimi Stewart (01:00:15:03):

Yeah, I will. Thank you both. Bye.