Senate candidates spar over LANL support

In GOP debate, Wilson says Pearce votes would have hurt lab

26 Apr 2008 // U.S. Rep. Heather Wilson ripped into her opponent and fellow Republican member of Congress, Steve Pearce, at a debate Friday in Los Alamos because of votes by Pearce that she said would have been devastating to Los Alamos National Laboratories.

The debate, in the Duane Smith Theater at Los Alamos High School, ended a week of attacks against each other by Wilson and Pearce in television ads and news releases.

The two are seeking their party's nomination for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Republican Pete Domenici. The winner of the GOP primary will face U.S. Rep. Tom Udall, who has no opposition in the Democratic primary.

Both Republicans largely agreed with each other on issues discussed in the debate -- including Iraq, education, national security and protecting phone companies from lawsuits over their role in illegal wiretaps.

But Wilson came out swinging in her opening statement, blasting Pearce for his support of amendments to the energy and water appropriations bill that would have made large budget cuts at LANL.

Pearce said the energy bill was full of wasteful "earmarks," and "I will vote against wasteful spending every single time."

But Wilson countered that Pearce had voted against an amendment that would have cut off all the earmarks. "You can't say you support this lab when you don't support the (Department of Energy) budget," Wilson said.

She added: "I will not vote for a narrow ideological agenda that goes against the needs of New Mexico."

The two candidates also argued over Pearce's vote against the Homeland Security Department appropriations bill funding more Border Patrol agents. He said the bill called for spending $187,000 to train each agent. The Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Artesia receives only $21,000 per person to train agents, Pearce said.

Wilson said the bill wasn't wasteful, and the $187,000 paid for training, salary, benefits, equipment, uniforms, background checks and other necessary items.

Pearce said he sponsored an amendment that would have paid for 4,500 new border patrol agents, which Wilson voted against. She said she opposed it because it would have been funded by cutting the budget for explosives detection at airports.

The candidates were asked about the Senate Ethics Committee's recent admonishment of Domenici for calling then-U.S. Attorney David Iglesias about the progress of a political corruption case. The call was made shortly before the 2006 general election, when Wilson was facing a tough re-election battle.

Wilson also called Iglesias during that period to ask about the case. Iglesias said last year that he had been questioned about Wilson's call by the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct. A spokesman for the committee said Friday that he couldn't comment on or verify the existence of a similar investigation of Wilson's call to Iglesias.

Both candidates praised Domenici, while Pearce condemned a national ethics group that brought charges against Domenici and also wanted to investigate Wilson, saying Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington is a partisan group out to smear Republicans.

Wilson said Domenici had apologized for his call to Iglesias, and people should accept his apology.

Of her own call to Iglesias -- in which she asked him about sealed indictments in the case -- Wilson said: "People in New Mexico expect leaders to act when a U.S. attorney is delaying corruption prosecution."

Wilson said she is the more electable of the two Republican candidates. "I've served in the House for 10 years," she said. "And every two years, they've come after me with millions of dollars of negative advertising, over the entire time $25 million of negative advertising. Steve, you've never had to endure that. You don't know what it's like."

However, Pearce said he is doing better in the polls in matchups against Udall -- even though the polls show the Democrat leading both Republicans by comfortable margins.