August 22, 2008
Albuquerque Journal
SENATOR’S SEND-OFF
Celebrating a Legacy
Colleagues gather to honor New Mexico’s longest-serving senator
By Rene Romo, Journal Southern BureauThe godfather of nuclear power. The prototype of what a U.S. senator should be. A tireless advocate and rainmaker for New Mexico.
Sen. Pete Domenici, the state’s longest-serving senator whose 36-year tenure will end with retirement in January because of a degenerative brain disease, was lavished with praise and fond recollections Thursday by a string of politicians and former colleagues during a conference at New Mexico State University organized to examine the 76-year-old Republican senator’s legacy.
“You’re an icon, you’re an institution,’’ Gov. Bill Richardson told Domenici during a morning event at the Domenici Public Policy Conference before about 400 people in the Pan American Center.
Richardson, a Democrat, ratcheted up the praise to laughs, by saying, “I’m going to make an admission I never, ever make. Had I run against you, you probably would have beaten me.’’
Domenici appeared moved by the tributes Thursday morning that included a series of Democrats — Richardson, Lt. Gov. Diane Denish, U.S. Sen. Jeff Bingaman, and Las Cruces Mayor Ken Miyagishima, who read a proclamation declaring Pete Domenici Week.
“It’s been a terrific 36 years, you must know that,’’ said Domenici. “I really don’t know whether I could have been any more fortunate doing anything else in my life.’’
He said he has been bombarded with goodbyes. “It’s been wonderful,” Domenci said. “I haven’t quite got a mind-set about what I’m going to do when I’m not senator.”
After lunch, the tributes continued in a series of talks focusing on Domenici’s legacy in energy policy, the federal budget, and national security.
In a videotaped tribute, Democrat Leon Panetta, chairman of the House Budget Committee in the early 1990s and later President Bill Clinton’s budget director, called Domenici a “close friend’’ and praised him as “the quintessential public servant committed to working hard for the people who elected him, committed to our country, committed to our democracy.’’
G. William Hoagland, former staff director of the Senate budget committee on which Domenici served 23 years as chairman or ranking member, said the senator struggled throughout his career to achieve the elusive goal of a balanced federal budget. Domenici, Hoagland said, sometimes struggled with fellow Republicans under the Reagan administration, sometimes reached across the aisle during the Clinton administration, in pursuit of fiscal responsibility.
Domenici also helped secure billions of dollars in federal funding, or “pork,’’ for projects and facilities in New Mexico, Richardson noted. Ambassador C. Paul Robinson, who serves on the State Department’s Council on International Security and was director of Sandia National Laboratories from 1995 to 2005, called Domenici the prototype of what Americans “should want in a United States senator.’’ He touted Domenici’s achievements in legislation aimed at securing nuclear weapons following the dissolution of the Soviet Union and in crafting comprehensive energy policy in 2005.
Assistant Energy Secretary Lisa Epifani, who is a former Domenici staffer, noted the retiring senator has been called the “godfather of nuclear power’’ for his longtime support for expanding nuclear energy production.
The conference, planned as an annual event, ends today after more sessions on nuclear weapons nonproliferation and science and research and an appearance by former Secretary of State James Baker III.