Xochitl Torres Small’s radical record cannot hide behind her ‘moderate’ façade

This article originally appeared in the Alamogordo Daily News.

It’s no secret that during her entire time in public life, Xochitl Torres Small rarely, if ever, has answered a question with a straightforward answer, consistently pivoting, deceiving, and even lying to the voters of New Mexico’s 2nd Congressional District.

I spoke to Torres Small at one of her carefully-orchestrated events in Deming in August 2019. I posed a straightforward question regarding her refusal to sign onto the bipartisan Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, which gives an infant born alive after a failed abortion basic medical care.

I asked her, “if [a] baby survives an abortion, don’t you think it deserves the same standard of medical care [as] any other baby?” Torres Small answered, “That already exists. If a child is born, they have the right to – that exists.”

I pushed back, explaining to her how “in Albuquerque, there was a case that showed that this baby… did survive an abortion, and it was left to die on the table there, and it didn’t get that standard of care that we need to have.” She responded, “The law already exists to protect them. So, I deeply appreciate your advocacy on this issue, and we are in more agreement than we realize.”

But she did not tell me how infants who survive abortions are already protected. Despite being given examples of infanticide in our state where babies have succumbed to the horror of a botched abortion without proper medical care, she refused to acknowledge it.

To make matters worse, Torres Small used to work for Planned Parenthood, which takes the lives of thousands of babies every day and spoke at fundraisers for the organization while in Congress. She called abortion a “life-saving procedure,” and is a member of the “pro-choice caucus,” as well as a co-sponsor of extreme pro-abortion bills.

But Torres Small often says, “let’s work together,” or some iteration of that phrase intended to push difficult issues under the rug. However, Torres Small has proven to us that she says one thing and does another.

For example, despite her gun-toting 2018 campaign ad implying she supports the Second Amendment, she voted for H.R. 8, also known as the Bipartisan Background Checks Act of 2019, the partisan anti-gun “universal background check” bill. Now, Emily Caccamo, an ex-lobbyist for Michael Bloomberg’s dark money anti-gun group “Everytown” is her new campaign manager.

Torres Small also voted to impeach our duly-elected President, despite President Donald Trump winning the Second District by 10 points in 2016. She supports New Mexico’s version of far-left New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s “Green New Deal,” which would eliminate all oil and gas production by 2050 in New Mexico, annihilating lucrative industry in the Second District. Torres Small helped strip away religious liberty by supporting H.R. 5, also known as the Equality Act, which would put men in women’s sports, disadvantaging biological females, enabling sexual assault, and violate First Amendment rights of businesses, charities, and other organizations.

New Mexico’s Second Congressional District has so much potential, from the sprawling forests of the Gila and the Sacramento Mountains to the blinding beauty of White Sands, the towering spires of the Organ Mountains, and the desert prairies alive with diverse wildlife and fertile farmland. However, Torres Small’s corrosive leadership, which has taken the path of partisanship (voting with Nancy Pelosi over 94.5% of the time), is proof that she has no interest in “working together” to solve issues that affect us all. We must take back the Second Congressional District and elect someone who has the people in mind – not Washington, D.C. bureaucrats.