In Other Words

Bill Waters | The New Mexican

5/15/2008 - 5/16/08

Taking on Giants: Fabián Chávez Jr. and New Mexico Politics by David Roybal, University of New Mexico Press, 304 pages

Such was his respect and admiration for the person under discussion that the late state-capitol genius Dick Folmar wound up his interview with David Roybal by urging the author to "write a good book for Fabián."

It's the only way Roybal writes. The biography he has built around Fabián Chávez more than merely does justice to the New Mexico political legend. It recaptures a golden era of our state's politics — one of reform in the face of resistance; of blows struck against hardened attitudes on behalf of civil rights, of what Roybal calls "commotion" in a long-somnolent land.

The hero of his story is a lively and dynamic man who may still be seen on the streets of Santa Fe on his way from one knightly quest to another as he closes in on 84. A state legislative leader who learned his lessons well from the old guard, Chávez has had the courage to confront close friends with the importance of doing better by their fellow New Mexicans.

Justices of the peace were one glaring example of those who, to put it mildly, could be better. Too many of them connived with cops to get petty offenders booked into their courts so they could profit from the fines. Chávez led the effort to abolish a system that was beyond repair and replace it with magistrate courts — which at least have been an improvement.

Then there were cases of price fixing by the liquor industry. Under the guise of "fair trade," the law at one time allowed liquor wholesalers to overcharge what an often-impoverished market would bear for beer and other drinks. Chávez bucked the state's most powerful lobbyists in an effort to end mandatory markups of wholesale prices.

Big Booze bucked back: the liquor industry's long-standing, well-oiled senators and representatives fended off reform. Chávez lost in the Legislature, but his efforts prompted a lawsuit that, he says, "won the war in the courts."

While waging those high-profile battles, Chávez led less-sexy — but vitally important — institutional reform that today's New Mexicans take for granted.

Chávez saw the U.S. Congress as a destination where he could serve his state better, but he found the road to Washington blocked by New Mexico's Capitol Hill power brokers, Joe Montoya and Clinton Anderson, who viewed him as a threat. Chávez was bushwhacked by a state Democratic establishment stung by his reforms and stunned by his refusal to be bought.

Thwarted in his congressional campaigns, Chávez won his party's nomination for governor against great odds in 1968. That was the year Hubert Humphrey lost the presidency to Richard Nixon, and in New Mexico, Republican Gov. David Cargo narrowly won re-election. Among some wags, Chávez became known as the "Damn-Near Governor."

Chávez became the state's tourism director, doing diplomatic duty in the process, and through those efforts he finally got to Washington — as an assistant secretary of commerce in the Carter administration. On his return to New Mexico, he was made state insurance superintendent — over the politically dying bodies of state regulators who were in bed with those they were supposed to be regulating. He lost little time finding out how much his fellow citizens were overpaying for premiums, and he stood in the way of greater rip-offs.

It was Chávez who first called attention to the title-insurance monopoly — a shame which the state Legislature and at least three governors have yet to remedy. But Chávez is still lobbying for it.

He'll leave a great legacy — and that ain't bad for a kid from the then-small town of Santa Fe, whose dreams roamed far beyond the Río Grande.

At 12, his hitchhiking adventures took him all the way to Hollywood. At 15, mainly as a result of his wanderlust, his dad had him sent to the reform school at Springer. Like so many kids, he lied about his age to join the Army for World War II, coming home from France, Belgium, and Germany with five battle stars.

This was someone ready for the ranks of politics — and he joined them with a zeal engagingly and delightfully described in Roybal's book. As a modern political history of New Mexico, this is "must" reading for newcomers and old-timers alike — and it would be easy to see political-science professors as well as civics teachers turning courses on it.

More than a legend in his own time, Fabián Chávez is a walking, talking case history on reform. That reform, and the reformer, appear far from finished.

— Bill Waters

A book launch and reception with Fabián Chávez Jr. and author David Roybal takes place from 5 to 6 p.m. on Friday, May 16, at Garcia Street Books (376 Garcia St., 986-0151).