Longtime New Mexico Democratic Party operative Eric Serna has gone to work for a Republican-dominated, national lobbying and government relations firm.

Serna said his new duties with The Cambridge Group involve helping insurance companies get licenses in other states.

The New York-based firm was founded by Barry Goldwater Jr., a former Republican congressman from Southern California who is a son of the icon of modern conservatism, the late Barry Goldwater Sr.

"It's a pretty conservative group," Serna said in a telephone interview Friday. "Most of them are R's, not that it matters."

The Española native was an aide to U.S. Sen. Joseph Montoya, D-N.M., 1975-77; cabinet secretary of the state Department of Labor, 1977-81; and a member of the state Corporation Commission, predecessor of the Public Regulation Commission, 1981-98.

In 1997, Serna was the Democratic nominee for the 3rd Congressional District seat vacated by Bill Richardson so he could serve as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. (Richardson later became head of the U.S. Department of Energy.) After losing to Republican Bill Redmond in a special election, Serna became regional outreach coordinator for the U.S. Department of Agriculture from 1998 to 2000.

In 2001, he was appointed state insurance superintendent, a job paying more than $90,000 a year. He was the founding president of the Con Alma Health Foundation, created the same year from the sale of Blue Cross and Blue Shield of New Mexico. He resigned as insurance superintendent in 2006 amid charges he dismissed fines on insurance companies that donated to Con Alma and other nonprofits.

Joe Ruiz, a deputy insurance superintendent under Serna, is serving four years in jail for his conviction in January on 30 federal criminal charges resulting from that scheme. Ruiz maintained he was only following instructions from Serna. Serna, who was not indicted, declined comment on that case.

In his new job for The Cambridge Group, Serna will avoid working on New Mexico cases but will continue to live in Santa Fe, he said. He's also doing "legal work," but mostly is "enjoying retirement from public office," he added. "I want to maintain a low profile. I like the anonymity. It's kind of nice to ride around Northern New Mexico and enjoy the wonderful views, the clean air ... and not be under the pressure and strain, but watch the politics from the sidelines."

Serna's new job came to light recently in a news release announcing that Louis "Lou" Pietroluongo, a veteran of the New York Department of Insurance, had been named vice president for business relations of The Cambridge Group. The release's final paragraph said Serna is among several former state insurance officials with the firm, including Mike Pickens, a former Arkansas insurance commissioner; Norman Taplin, a Florida lawyer appointed to a hurricane-advisory board by the Georgia insurance commissioner; and Douglas Sizemore, a former Tennessee commissioner of commerce and industry.

Barry Goldwater Jr. founded the firm after seven terms in the U.S. House of Representatives (1969-1984) representing a district in Los Angeles County. "He has used his government experience and knowledge like a knife to pry open and get to the heart of a problem effecting (sic) business impacted by regulation or law," says his biography on a company Web site.

Former Nixon White House counsel and Watergate figure John Dean recently collaborated with Goldwater Jr. on Pure Goldwater, a book about the elder Goldwater, a U.S. senator from Arizona who was the GOP presidential nominee in 1964.

Serna said he sees nothing wrong with working for the private sector in an area he learned while working for the public sector. "I have an expertise that is needed on occasions," he said. "I don't think there's anything wrong professionally or ethically with that."

Contact Tom Sharpe at 986-3080 or tsharpe@sfnewmexican.com.