Erik Visits an American Grave, Part 2,148

This is the grave of Pete Domenici.

Born in 1932 in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Pietro Domenici grew up in an Italian immigrant household. His dad ran a grocery. The family was of course super Catholic and Domenici went to Catholic schools, including the now defunct University of Albuquerque for college, before transferring to the University of New Mexico, where he graduated in 1954. He was an education major, not a normal major for someone with huge political ambitions. He pitched a little minor league ball and taught math. But he decided he wanted a law degree and went to the University of Denver for it, finishing that in 1958. He moved back home and worked as a lawyer.

Well, being a lawyer is a normal path for someone with big political ambitions. New Mexico became a lot more important nationally during the Cold War than it had been before because of its outsized nuclear and other military facilities. It was generally a Democratic-leaning state, but there was tons of space for a military-oriented Republican and that’s very much how Domenici thought about politics. So he started thinking about running for office and in 1966, won a position on the city commission and then in 1968, won the equivalent of mayor–at that time, it was head of said city commission. So he became one of the state’s top Republicans.

In 1970, Domenici ran for governor and was the Republican nominee. He lost, but then he ran for Senate in 1972 after Clint Anderson retired. He beat the Democrat Jack Daniels 54-46. This is too bad because I really wish the nation had a senator named Jack Daniels, not to mention that Domenici was a right-wing asshole and New Mexico could have had better. He did face a pretty challenging Democrat in Tony Anaya in 1978 but won 53-47. He never faced serious opposition again.

Domenici was a man of the Cold War, a man of the military-industrial complex that funded New Mexico, a man of development, and a man who did not like a lot of social change. Domenici wasn’t the flashiest Republican and he didn’t harbor the kind of big-time presidential ambitions that marked some of his colleagues. But he rose to become a power in the Senate on the issues he cared about.

One thing Domenici made sure of is that he would have a lot of corporate funding. This was a man who truly loved corporate America. He took on an issue early in his career that had absolutely nothing to do with the people of New Mexico, but which would get him as much corporate money as he wanted. This was waterway usage fees on U.S. Army Corps of Engineers projects. Basically, barges could use waterways for free. This hurt the rail companies, who of course did have to pay transportation fees. Domenici fought like hell to end this practice. He succeeded too, in 1978. This made the railroad companies his best friends and they always gave a ton of money to his campaigns.

Domenici was a huge proponent of anything nuclear. This had to do with personal belief and it had to do with the fact that his state was so dependent on the military-industrial complex. It was the home of Los Alamos, the home of the Trinity Site, the home of Sandia National Laboratory, the home of Holloman and Cannon Air Force Bases. Anything that could promote nuclear power was something Domenici was passionate about.

Despite the contemporary liberal attempt to claim that nuclear energy is green energy (which is not completely inaccurate but also not without its problematic aspects to say the least), nuclear was supported by the worst people for the worst reasons and that very much included Domenici, who hated environmentalists and anything that could be associated with environmentalism. He would do whatever the ranchers and oil kings of New Mexico wanted and reveled in angering the environmentalists in northern New Mexico cities.

Domenici was one of these Republicans obsessed with a balanced budget, which was always a good excuse to oppose the social policy he opposed anyway. He was named chairman of the Budget Committee in 1981, the same year that Reagan wanted to use it to slash spending on social services. Domenici was happy to oblige. He was questionable that you could cut taxes and increase military spending without leading to deficits, since, you know, that position is total nonsense. But it’s not like Domenici was going to stand in the way of Reagan. He was more concerned anyway with such horrors as an expanded Social Security benefit or ensuring that Americans have access to good healthcare if they can’t pay out of pocket.

There was no chud too right-wing for Domenici to vote for, including all the worst Supreme Court justices puked up by Republicans. And while we can’t exactly know, there’s no reason to assume that if Domenici was still in the Senate today that he wouldn’t vote for everything Donald Trump wants. He never showed any courage, was always a complete Republican hack, and always put party before country. In other words, the issues with the Republican Party are so deep that Donald Trump is merely a symptom. In some ways, Pete Domenici is quite indicative of the cause.

There was one sorta exception to this, which is that Domenici really was a balanced budget fanatic and worked with Bill Clinton instead of Newt Gingrich on the budgets of the mid 90s, thinking Gingrich’s Contract with America was fiscally irresponsible. Domenici was also very much a Man of the Senate, the sort of fellow that Joe Biden loved to work with and waxed on about when discussing the Good Ol’ Days of Comity. It wasn’t just Biden either, Ted Kennedy was a personal friend.

Domenici did get caught up in a scandal in 2006 when it appeared that he made personal phone calls to a leading federal prosecutor in New Mexico just before said prosecutor, among others, were fired by the Bush administration for not being hacky enough. Bush may hate Trump, but he and his appointees laid the groundwork for a lot of this stuff. Anyway, the Senate didn’t do anything to Domenici and he apologized.

Domenici chose not to run in 2008. His health was failing and unlike contemporary Democrats, he took that as a good sign that it was time to retire. He had a brain disease that leads to dementia and by the last months of his term, it was visible. He had it all set up for his girl Heather Wilson, then a prominent member of Congress from Albuquerque, to replace him and be the new New Mexican of the military-industrial complex. But she couldn’t even win the primary to the far-right Steve Pearce. Tom Udall then won the seat and it has been held by Democrats ever since.

Domenici died in 2017. He was 85 years old. I don’t think the last few years were great. It was abdominal surgery which led to some complications that got him in the end, not the brain disorder.

Pete Domenici is buried in Mount Calvary Cemetery, Albuquerque, New Mexico.

If you would like this series to visit other senators elected in 1972, you can donate to cover the required expenses here. James Abourezk is in Sturgis, South Dakota and James McClure is in Payette, Idaho. Previous posts in this series are archived here and here.