Background news audio:
…happened that day in the hours leading up to his prerecorded video.
Teresa Leger Fernandez:
Oh, Castro, Joaquin Castro.
Mary-Charlotte Domandi:
Yes.
TLF:
Yeah. Our managers are so good.
MCD:
We can talk about impeachment or we can leave it for another day. I know you’ve been talking to mayors today.
TLF:
Yes. It was wonderful because basically today—both mayors and County managers. And this is really key. My job is to represent people in the district. And so while I might’ve gone around when I was campaigning and talked to people, now I’m going around truly in an official capacity to say, okay, what’s happening on the ground? Tell me what’s happening. Tell me the stories, tell me what you need and then bring it to them. This is what the bills looked like so far. These are the things we’re trying to get in. And then them tell me, yes, we really need that. So that way I can take that urgency that they feel with me as I go and participate in this effort to get the $1.9 trillion. One of the people on the call today said, do you really think you’re going to get anything through the Senate? And I could actually say, yes, we are. They passed a budget reconciliation they passed the 1.9. Now, will it look exactly like what the house does? Probably not, but pretty darn close.
MCD:
What kind of stories are they telling you?
TLF:
Oh, they’re telling us the stories of the people who’ve lost their homes. They don’t have enough emergency housing for people. The members of their communities who’ve doubled up and now there are two families living in a house meant for one. They’re telling is about how they’ve also run out of housing. And some places like up in Taos where they’ve run out of affordable housing, because with COVID people have come from other parts of the country where they had a lot more money and were able to buy. So, you know, New Mexico, the housing market is hot, but it also means that in certain places we’re losing the availability of housing for regular workers because the housing prices are going up. Section Eight housing, they have Section Eight vouchers, but there isn’t housing available for families who need it and qualify for Section Eight vouchers. The Section Eight voucher for anybody who’s listening who doesn’t know, it’s a voucher that you get from the federal government that subsidizes what you need to pay for a house. So instead of building big public housing, they say, let’s get that money and we’ll turn it into vouchers so that you can go rent. And then the Section Eight will provide a subsidy of that rental. But they have the vouchers and they have the families who need the house, but they don’t have any affordable houses. So that housing was a big issue that just came up a lot today. And their need to get help because they haven’t gotten the gross receipts taxes. That’s a big one for the cities. Their gross receipts taxes are so low. And then for the counties, they’re spending money on getting their seniors vaccinated and all the work they do to get the information to the seniors, to mobilize the seniors, to pick up the seniors, to get them all vaccinated. That’s all money that they’ve spent that they had not budgeted for.
So they are like, “Can we get reimbursed?” So one of the questions, can we get reimbursed for the money we’ve spent, because there is money in the bill that we passed out at 2:19 AM this morning from house and education. There is specific money that we put in there for helping seniors to get vaccinated and educated and transported. But they’ve already done a lot of that work because they’re not going to wait for the money, but they’ve eaten up other parts of their budget in order to do this, it’s like, can we get reimbursed for that? It’s like, well, I didn’t know the answer. So I couldn’t say yes. It’s like, but I hope so, let’s find out. So there were lots of questions that I didn’t know the answer to, but I could say we’re going to find out.
MCD:
So taking those stories, you then know better what the need is. Then you take it back to Congress and what do you do? What’s the next step?
TLF:
Well, the next step, some of it is finding out for them what they needed to know. Like I might not be able to change a bill now to have that done, but I can get the counties and the cities the information they need so that they can then go after those monies that might be there, that they can actually know what to do for reimbursement so they can know what’s coming down the pipeline. So that if they know some money’s coming down the pipeline, they might say, we’re going to take the risk, we feel good that we think maybe 70% chance, this is going to happen, we’re going to spend some money on this right now with the hope that we’ll be able to make it up because this help is on the way. So it’s a two-way street. Some of it is bringing information of what we’re doing in Congress to the cities and the counties. And some of it is, like today, tell me like what you need. And they’re telling me some of what they need that might go into the infrastructure bills. So then I’ll take that back up and say, this is a big need for the infrastructure bill or like with the reimbursements, let’s make sure that the counties can use this money to replenish funds that they may have depleted.
MCD:
Was there anything you heard today that was surprising?
TLF:
Not surprising, but interesting in that, regardless of whether I was in Northern New Mexico or on the Eastern side, that the needs were similar. And that’s not surprising, it’s the opposite. It’s what I always anticipated. That there is no, this is a conservative and this is a liberal part. There are two different parts of my district that might vote conservative or might vote liberal, but their needs are the same. And so housing needs, I mean, both places, please, we need to talk housing, please. We need to talk about getting this help. Cause our GRT is down. Tourism is important in Taos, but it’s also important in Tucumcari. And so that the pandemic has impacted tourism, which has had a negative impact on both Tucumcari and Taos. Two very different communities, but both suffering similar impacts from the pandemic. And both communities, very interested and welcoming and appreciative of the fact that the federal government is, and that Congress is, working on legislation that will help them.
