KRWG Public Media is speaking with candidates running for office in 2026. Interviews will be posted and aired as they are conducted. Please check back for additional interviews with candidates running for governor and other local and statewide offices.
Former Las Cruces Mayor Ken Miyagishima talks about issues facing the state and his proposed solutions. Here is a transcript of his interview with KC Counts:
KC Counts:
All right, well let me start by asking you to tell listeners who may not know you about what in your background has prepared you to serve as governor of New Mexico.
Ken Miyagishima:
Sure, so I've been in public office or had been for 30 years. So I started in 1990. I ran for the state house. I didn't win, almost won, took49 and a half percent. And then two years later in 1992, got elected as a county commissioner, District 4, won re-election in 96. And then I was term limited in 2000. Then I leaped over to run in the city council, 2001, won re-election in 05, unopposed, which was pretty nice. And then in 07, after a couple of times, I won the mayor's seat. And then I got re-elected in 2011, 2015, 2019. So I served 4 four-year terms. So I have a total of 30 years in public office there. I'm also an adjunct college professor here at New Mexico State, although I did take some time off. I teach personal finance. And then I've been a business owner for 30 plus years. And I've seen a lot, KC. I've seen a lot of things in government, what works and what doesn't work. And so right now, our state is facing so many challenges, so many hurdles, in addition to things from Washington. And so I feel I'm prepared to take over as governor in the very beginning without any on-the-job training.
KC Counts:
You were about to launch into the answers to my second question about those top issues facing New Mexico that you would plan to address right away.
Ken Miyagishima:
So when I first announced way back when, earlier last year, medical malpractice was top of the list because we can't have a great state without good medical care, without good doctors here. And then right behind that is education. So if we're going to recruit businesses here that are going to provide good, well-paying jobs, they're going to want to make sure that there are good doctors and that their children have good education. And those are two huge components. And then the third, of course, is going to be crime. You know, we have a few pockets of crime here in Las Cruces, but our friends up north in Albuquerque have a few more pockets. And then our friends to the east of us in Roswell have some other pockets. And there's certain areas that have and are seeing this different crime wave. And so I want to have the Metro Police Department to help assist local law enforcement, police, and sheriff's departments.
KC Counts:
Sounds like you're about to now launch into the answers to my third question, and that's about solutions, right? So let's talk first about the first issue you cited, and that's medical malpractice, something the state legislature is grappling with right now. Do you see more work to be done on that issue for the next governor?
Ken Miyagishima:
Oh, absolutely. What they're doing right now is window dressing. And let me explain it this way. I was 19 years old, I got into an at-fault accident. It was my fault. And I didn't hurt anybody. It caused $2,000 of damage to my truck and maybe $1,000 of damage to the car. Insurance paid for it. Everything was good. Nobody was hurt. But imagine if a month later I get a bill, I get sued for punitive damages for $100,000. And I took that, let's say I took that to my insurance company, then they're going to say, we don't cover punitive damages. We covered the other part, the damage that you caused that other person. We fixed your vehicle. But we're not going to cover punitive damages. punitive damages is usually when you do it repeatedly.
KC Counts:
Well, an HB 99, so that's a punishment, right? That's an award to punish. And so HB 99, that's making its way through the legislature, and I say that, we know it faces an uphill battle, but that's on the table in this legislation. Do you think that's going to be still waiting for the next governor?
Ken Miyagishima:
Well, let me kind of finish here. Okay, so getting back to that, And I'm sorry, because this is very important.
KC Counts:
Because caps, are you talking about caps on punitive damages?
Ken Miyagishima:
Well, yes, but my example is this. Insurance doesn't cover punitive damages. So even if they put a cap of $1,000,000, let's say, on punitive damages, the doctor's still going to have to pay out of pocket. So I support, if a doctor does a bad job on something, they should pay. And that's where the first part, like I told you in my example, their malpractice insurance will pay it. It's the punitive part that's not paid. So if they put a cap from $5 million to $1,000,000, it's like saying, well, okay, KC, sorry, but you're still going to have to pay $1,000,000 out of your own pocket. It's not, at least it's not 5 million, but it's a million. And so it's like, that's a million.
KC Counts:
So you're suggesting actually that you would, you know, advocate for legislation that got rid of punitive damages altogether?
Ken Miyagishima:
Well, that or have a standard of what is considered punitive. For example, has this doctor done this more than two times? Maybe they left an instrument in a person's stomach, more than twice. Well, what? You can figure this out here. That's probably punitive. But if they did it once accidentally and they took it out, is that punitive? I don't know. So I think that's the standard there. So the standard, it needs to be very clearly aligned as to what is punitive and if there is a cap. So it needs to have two parts of it.
KC Counts:
Like the standard of proof. And I, you know, one of the arguments that people supporting that particular bill would argue is that the standard of proof in New Mexico is the lowest in the, among the lowest in the nation. And so they want to raise that bar up.
Ken Miyagishima:
Yeah, it's like, and I hate to use sports examples, but it's the instant replay. When the ref says it's a touchdown, they have to have irrefutable evidence that it wasn't a touchdown. If they can't completely prove it, then it's a touchdown. And you don't have that when it comes to punitive damages. And so that is a risk that doctors aren't willing to take because they have to pay out of pocket.
KC Counts:
Let's move on to your next topic and that is education. So what strategies do you think are necessary to employ in order to help New Mexico get out of the bottom of that list every year, right?
Ken Miyagishima:
You know, I'm sure you've always heard New Mexico and Mississippi have traded places. 49th or 50th. Who's in 49th place? Who's in 50th place? You know what? You don't hear about Mississippi anymore because you know what? They're in 39th place. And so I've researched what they do. And so what they've actually done is they've got to the point where they've identified children that may flunk, okay? And so what that does is it kind of lights a little bit under the parents and saying, hey, you know what? Your child may be held back. And of course, they go stomping into school, wanting to know why. Well, because little Johnny can't read or write. Well, so then we're going to help little Johnny read and write so they don't flunk. And so what it does is it brings everybody together and helps this little Johnny so they can read and write. And so one of the things that we've seen here in our education system is they just pass people through when they shouldn't. And so it's important that we have means to identify those that are struggling and not just pass them through or involve the parents or involve people who can help them. And I think that's one of the big keys. And so that's one of the things. The other thing is you've heard of these standardized tests. You see students study all year to pass this one test. Teachers, the same thing. When I went to school here, I grew up in Las Cruces since 3rd grade. The 1st and 2nd grade was in Alamogordo. But from 3rd grade on to college, graduate or alumnus of New Mexico State, I had a great education. They taught us the reading and writing and arithmetic and, wood shop and auto mechanics, all these great things. I don't know where things changed. I don't know why they changed it. It was going pretty good. Now I want to see different trades in schools. But what I wanted to get at was they would have like a little snapshot that they, we would take a little test. It wasn't something that we had to really study for because it was stuff that was taught to us. And it would say, that I was at, let's say I was in 5th grade and it says I was reading at 10th grade level, or maybe I was doing 10th grade math. That was something that I would take home and share with my parents. And of course it was good. It looked good. But I think nowadays they're studying just for this one test, when really, it should be something there that we should be teaching them so many different things. The other day, years ago, I had someone address some envelopes for me. And not thinking that they did, I was thinking they knew how to do that. And when I got the envelopes, they put the address not where it's supposed to go, where your name normally goes.
KC Counts:
I've had that experience.
Ken Miyagishima:
And I'm like, I go, so they don't teach you how to address an envelope? No. And then also a check. Not that many people write checks.
KC Counts:
That's the thing. I think that people just don't use those services so much anymore.
Ken Miyagishima:
No, I get you, but it's still, I mean, hey, you see these checks in when they donated to KRWG, there's a huge check, right? Am I right? I mean, and they do it pretty good. KRWG, donate $5,000. Then it's spelled out $5,000 and a little signature. But these are just basic things that I think that we've gotten away from and that, you know, it's just about educating our children to the best of their ability. And I can assure you as governor, we will get there.
KC Counts:
And then let's move on to the third issue that you identified. You know, obviously another one of those top issues that lawmakers grapple with more and more, and that's public safety. You started to mention your idea for a solution. That's the Metropolitan Police
Force.
Ken Miyagishima:
Okay, that's part one. There's 2 parts. All right, and I'll get to the first part that's most important. When they passed the no cash bond, there somehow, the Supreme Court took it upon themselves to put an assessment in there, and it's called the Arnold Tool Assessment. And it basically ties the hands of judges because the Supreme Court oversees all the judges, municipal judges, magistrate judges, district court judges, court of appeals, all the way down to probate judges. Okay? So if the Supreme Court says you're going to do this, you need to do it. And what it basically does is it says if you're, if someone's arrested and they don't hit a certain criteria, they have to be released, right? And that's why you see, in fact, it's interesting, probably a few years, a couple years before I left, I called out one of our city judges because she put zero people in jail. Because they were, I had a list where this one person was arrested Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday in a row and was released within hours of every single one because she refused to hold him in jail. And so, I need to get that redone, this Arnold Tool Assessment, because you have law enforcement when they go and arrest someone, a few hours later, they're gone. They're back on the street. And that can't happen. So that's part one. Part 2, the reason for the metro police, is there's two cities in New Mexico that the mayor is in charge of the police department. That's Albuquerque and Santa Fe. All the other cities are usually run by a manager or a town clerk, what they call, and those are hired by the city council. And so the police chief answers to that city manager. And KC, I can tell you unequivocally, I have seen or I've heard where if we're getting tough in one particular area, certain members of the city council individually may hint to the city manager, hey, tell the chief, kind of slow down a little bit here because they're being a little bit too tough on some of these residents that the residents are talking about are people who've broken into businesses and broken the glass or done things that they shouldn't have done. And so what happens is they back off. And so as a metro police, this would be a unit from the New Mexico State Police Department, and we will work with local police and local sheriff's departments. Now, sheriffs are different. They don't answer to a city council or a county commission. They're independent. You don't see that problem with the sheriff's department. You see that with the cities. So the metro police will listen, but they don't have to listen to the city manager. And they'll do, and I want them working substations. I want to go after hotspot areas, which there's a couple here in Las Cruces. And I also want to be a little bit more proactive. So this Metro Police will have some undercover police officers that look like they're kids, but they're adults, to infiltrate some of these youth gangs that are out there and figure out what's going on, where they're at, where they plan on hitting before it happens. You've seen these people. You've seen, they're 25 years old and they look like they're 15. Those are the ones that we want to work in this undercover because we, right now, juvenile crime seems to be out of control.
KC Counts:
And so, let's not involve Las Cruces in the conversation. It's too close to home. But how do you expect city governments, local municipalities, to respond to that kind of idea where they have no control over this new police force in their city?
Ken Miyagishima:
We're not here to overrun city or county government.
KC Counts:
I think especially, we're watching what's happening around the country.
Ken Miyagishima:
Right now, at any given time, there's usually just six police officers in the city of Las Cruces patrolling the city. They need more help. Oh yeah, no, it's amazing.
KC Counts:
My eyes got big when Mr. Miyagishima said that.
Ken Miyagishima:
Especially late at night on weekends. And so what I want to do is I want to use different departments, specifically within the National Guard. There are military police units that we could use when they're not working. Because when they're working, you'll violate the Posse Comitatus law. When they're not working, they're civilians. And if they want to help out as a partner to help our police officers so that they have a partner, we can do that.
KC Counts:
Okay. Now, I've saved this question for last. It's, you are the first candidate, at least of this election cycle, to change your party affiliation. Tell me about that decision.
Ken Miyagishima:
So earlier I'd mentioned to you it's been 30 years since I've run in a primary. And things have changed. Back then it was about issues that affected our community. And you would think that in a primary, these would be issues that affect our state. But all you hear are issues, what's going on in Washington. Washington this, Washington that, you know, the current administration. That's just not the conversation I want to have. New Mexico is facing some huge challenges, and it's going to take some huge solutions to fix it. And I felt that by running in the general election as an Independent, I can go back to what I'm used to doing, and that is governing with everybody. You know, when I appointed judges at the city, I didn't ask if they were a Democrat or Republican. I still don't know what their political affiliation is. But I can almost assure you, if you look at Democratic governors, for the most part, their judges were probably Democrat. And if you look at Republican judges, a lot of their judges were Republican. You know, I just want the best and the brightest working in New Mexico because that's how we're going to solve our problems.
KC Counts:
So, curious about kind of the response. You've been a Democrat for all of this time. So how does that feel? And what kind of response are you getting since you've made this announcement?
Ken Miyagishima:
So Keep in mind, when I left the county in 2000, I probably should have just changed my affiliation, but I didn't. And so for the next 23 years, until I left the city in 2023, I didn't have a party. I didn't go to party functions. I didn't have party bosses that I talk with. I just did what I thought was best for the city. And so that's the same thing here. I just want to do what's best for our state. And you ask what kind of response I've had. Actually, it's been really good. I've never had people text me early in the morning or late at night when they first heard about it, saying, this is great. I've also had people who said, wow, now I have a, now I can really get behind this. I mean, you could tell that they were limping along a little bit to help me, but now they're energized. Now there's a few, which I've often wondered, who I thought were kind of on the fence, who weren't happy, but I think they're happy; or they're disenchanted for other reasons.
KC Counts:
What did you see as an opportunity for you as a candidate that goes along with this decision? What's the biggest advantage that it gives you?
Ken Miyagishima:
I have 10 months to campaign. Nine months, I guess. Well, let's see, February, nine months. And I have to admit, it's like a reset. I get a chance to see and experience the things that I've experienced since campaigning since last year. But more importantly, I get to focus on the real issues that are plaguing New Mexico. And I have these, I have several months to deal with it instead of two months to do, deal with something that just, the message just wasn't resonating.
KC Counts:
Former Las Cruces mayor and county commissioner, candidate for governor, independent candidate for governor of New Mexico, I should say. Thank you for spending this time with us.
Ken Miyagishima:
Thank you for having me.
