It has been a quarter-century since Gov. Bill Richardson faced a truly tough election campaign.

His two gubernatorial races were contests with underfunded Republican candidates, and he faced only token resistance in virtually all his Congressional re-election campaigns. But back in 1982, Richardson came out on top in a Democratic primary that was hard-fought and grueling. It was a race in which he started out behind in the polls and often was the center of controversy.

Buoyed by his surprising 1980 showing against longtime incumbent Congressman Manuel Lujan — a year that generally was disastrous for other Democrats across the country — Richardson began his 1982 campaign almost immediately.

“I wake up in the morning at 6 a.m. and ask myself why I’m not at some rail yard or factory shaking hands,” Richardson told The Associated Press in December 1980. “I miss campaigning. I miss meeting people.”

In the same article, Richardson talked openly about a 1982 run. “I definitely will be a candidate in 1982 and the odds are very strong that I will run for Congress,” he said.
By the spring of 1981, Richardson was already flying to New York and Washington, D.C., trying to line up financial support for a new race. In the 1980 race, Richardson had appeared to be such a long shot that national Democrats basically ignored him when it came to campaign contributions.

In his autobiography, Between Worlds, Richardson said, “I reopened my consulting company, gave up teaching because it was taking up too much time, and awaited what the United States Census Bureau’s figures would reveal about apportionment.”

In January 1982, the Census Bureau’s latest head count brought the expected change in New Mexico’s political landscape. New Mexico gained a seat in Congress. Instead of two members of the U.S. House of Representatives, the state would have three. Lujan’s First Congressional District now encompassed Albuquerque and the immediate surrounding area. The new Third Congressional District would be an overwhelmingly Democratic district that included most of Northern New Mexico.

This time, the real race would be the Democratic primary. The competition was fierce, and the contest would turn bitter.

Roberto Mondragón, the lieutenant governor at the time, was running as was Tom Udall — a political novice with a pedigree as the son of former Interior Secretary Stewart Udall and nephew of Congressman Mo Udall of Arizona. Another candidate, District Judge George Perez, also announced.

In his autobiography, Richardson said then-Gov. Bruce King, who was unhappy with his lieutenant governor, persuaded Perez to run to hurt Mondragón.

Besides the four who made it to the ballot, two other Democratic contenders never cleared that hurdle. One of these, Joanne Tapia of Santa Fe made one of the most interesting charges against Richardson. At a forum in Española, she claimed Richardson was trying to “infiltrate” Congress on behalf of Mexico, which she said was “a communist training camp.” Richardson, who didn’t attend the forum, called the contention “absurd.”

While nobody else accused him of “infiltrating,” other candidates charged Richardson had moved to New Mexico only to run for Congress.

Of Udall, Richardson wrote in Between Worlds, “His strategy was transparent: The Hispanic candidates would carve up the Hispanic vote, he’d get the white moderates and conservatives, and maybe that would be enough to win.”

Both Udall and Mondragón claimed in 1982 that Richardson had offered each of them a deal.
According to Mondragón, Richardson said if the lieutenant governor withdrew from the race and Richardson won, he would run for the U.S. Senate in 1984 and support Mondragón for Congress that year. Udall said Richardson offered him the same deal.

Richardson dismissed the accusations as “lies and innuendo” and “shameful disgusting lies.”
In his book, Richardson recalled that Mondragón led in the pre-primary polls. But Richardson was No. 1 with Democratic Party leaders at the pre-primary convention, who gave him the top ballot position.

Soon after that convention, a couple of controversies arose that threatened to derail Richardson’s campaign.

In April, Richardson was forced to back down from a claim in campaign literature that he had been the top foreign-affairs aide to U.S. Sen. Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota. Though Richardson was on the staff of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which Humphrey chaired, two other Humphrey staffers disputed Richardson’s claim of being “top aide.”
Then there were questions about his campaign finances.

In May 1982, Richardson’s campaign finance report showed he had taken large loans for his campaign, including a $100,000 loan from a Santa Fe bank and a $49,000 loan from a bank in San Antonio, Texas. Richardson claimed the San Antonio loan was secured by his home in Washington, D.C. However, at first it appeared as if no lien had been filed against that property — which meant it was not being used for collateral on a loan. In July of that year, the bank took out a lien.

Richardson financial-disclosure documents listed a certificate of deposit valued between $50,000 and $100,000. But he didn’t name the donor or say whether the CD was used as collateral for his loans. The CD, according to Richardson’s filings, was listed “for use as collateral intended by the donor in making the purchase of unimproved land.”

His opponents pounced on what they said were apparent contradictions in Richardson’s statements about how the loans were secured and filed complaints with the Federal Election Commission over the $100,000 loan.

Richardson initially refused to release his loan papers or the person who donated the CD. His lawyer said this was because of the pending FEC investigation.

Santa Fe lawyer Gene Gallegos, who had run for Congress as a Democrat in 1972, was one of Richardson’s most persistent critics over the financing issue. “If somebody is providing him assets — that is, making these loans possible by providing collateral or guarantee or endorsement — then those are campaign violations,” Gallegos told The New Mexican in May 1982.

Federal law at the time prohibited campaign contributions of more than $1,000. Gallegos and others said the CD could have been a way to skirt this limit.

Richardson said in 1982 that the money he lent his campaign two years before had come from sales of stocks and bonds and interests in two partnerships. He previously had said he remortgaged his new home in Santa Fe to come up with the money to lend to the campaign.

These financial issues were still getting press coverage when primary day came. But Richardson pulled through, beating Mondragón by about 4,000 votes. In his autobiography, Richardson only alludes to the loan controversy in one paragraph, with no mention of the FEC investigation.

In the book, Richardson said he won the primary by switching tactics. While he had been concentrating on Hispanic voters, “I started working the Anglo vote in cities like Farmington and Gallup.” He also began courting Navajo voters in northwestern New Mexico. “I became a regular presence at Navajo chapter houses,” Richardson wrote.

After the primary, the FEC voted 4-2 to clear Richardson on the complaint about the $100,000 loan. The investigation showed that loan indeed had been secured by the CD. Initially he still wouldn’t reveal who gave him the CD, although he told The New Mexican in an August 1982 phone interview, “It’s my family for Christ’s sake.”

But the questions didn’t stop. Later that month, he finally disclosed the donor was his mother, a citizen of Mexico, who had intended the money be used for her son to buy land in Tesuque.
Richardson went on to win the general election in the heavily Democratic district, beating Republican Majorie Bell Chambers in a landslide shortly before his 35th birthday.

Whatever bad blood existed in the 1982 primary apparently has been smoothed over through the years. Udall, who eventually succeeded Richardson in Congress, is an ally. His stepdaughter, Amanda Cooper, serves as Richardson’s deputy campaign manager. Udall, now a Senate candidate, was the first member of Congress to endorse Richardson’s presidential bid.

Mondragón now works for the Richardson administration. “Years later as governor, Mondragón came to see me hurting financially, and I gave him a job,” Richardson wrote in Between Worlds. Mondragón has contributed $900 to Richardson’s presidential campaign.
Gallegos, who kept the pressure on Richardson over his campaign finance reports in 1982, is now a supporter. He contributed $13,500 to Richardson’s re-election campaign, and said this week that both he and his wife have contributed the maximum allowable amount to Richardson’s presidential campaign.

Gallegos said he and Richardson mended fences soon after the 1982 election. “We kissed and made up,” Gallegos said.
Contact Steve Terrell at 986-3037 or sterrell@sfnewmexican.com.