I stumbled into a number of politically charged events this week, without originally planning to. Trying to get an understanding of all the angles and all the research and all the opinions, I sometimes find instead it is all too much.
But one thing struck me: people are really concerned about national politics. And rightfully so – there is a lot going on right now that affects our everyday lives. While attending a town hall last week for U.S. Rep. Gabe Vasquez, D-CD02, I noticed our elected leaders went on and on about the president who probably couldn’t find Las Cruces on a map. They seemed intent on whipping up even more derision and contempt, when what our country really needs is collaboration and calm. But that is a discussion for another day.
There is also a lot going on in our state, our county and our city that has equal, if not greater, direct impact on day-to-day. Our elected officials have the capability to fix some of the local problems that are plaguing us. But a large ship in that fleet sailed at the end of the last legislative session. Now, rumblings of a special session already abound – time will tell if it will be met with the same reluctance that tanked last year’s four-hour fallacy. But many legislators last year cited the governor’s proposed legislation like juvenile justice reform and criminal competency as being “half-baked” (no marijuana pun intended, I’m sure). That excuse isn’t valid this year, though, after a 60-day session, numerous town halls and countless repeat offender arrests and now, a juvenile tragedy.
But no, instead, they spent their precious time (starkly less time, I might add, than the governor spent here at her town hall in July) lamenting national politics that they can’t control and offering the usual hollow promises in response to the questions from the audience about local issues. At a 2025 Legislative recap panel last Thursday, some questions were more filtered by the moderators than others. I noticed the governor didn’t sit behind a moderator last year during her town hall about public safety, but I digress.
And the attendee numbers at these events were telling as well. For example, Vasquez’s town hall pulled in, by my count, 350-400 people to hear him. But during the legislative recap, the state legislators, five of them on a panel, saw only 150 or so folks there. This same trend follows the elections, too, where our voter turn-out numbers are woefully low, even for national elections but especially for local elections, even though those people have the most say in our day-to-day lives.
The bottom line is, I wish our elected leaders and, in fact, all of us, would look for solutions to our local problems. I don’t care if they go with the common sense or the innovative solutions, but let’s put our heads together and at least try to solve the local problems that we can and leave national politics to the midterm elections in 2026. We can get a lot done in 18 months before some of the politicians remember that Las Cruces exists.
Shawna Pfeiffer is a life-long Dona Ana County resident, graduate of NMSU, small business owner, hobby farmer, dog-lover, outdoor enthusiast and mother to two young children. She can be reached at srpfeiffer1@gmail.com.
