A Conversation

Joseph Maestas is the New Mexico State Auditor, the state's financial watchdog, elected in 2022. He grew up on a small farm in Santa Cruz, by Española, in a family of military veterans and public school teachers. An engineer, he left New Mexico for sixteen years and came home still in federal civil service, where he spent more than thirty years, and ran for the Española City Council in 2000. He went on to serve as mayor of Española, on the Santa Fe City Council and on the Public Regulation Commission. When we spoke on October 23 he was running for a second and final term in the November 3 election.

We talked about selling corn door to door in Los Alamos as a kid, the mayor's tractor bid he challenged at his first council meeting, and clean water for the Española Valley. He described the program his office built to help acequias, land grants and other small public bodies catch up on their books and reach money the legislature had already awarded them. We also talked about the AI his office is bringing into audit reviews, a custom program now in testing, and the one it already uses on conservatorship reports, and why he doesn't burn bridges.

Watch the conversation on YouTube: https://youtu.be/EWEqr3CHCJ8

Thank you to State Auditor Maestas for the conversation, and for showing how much of a state's work rests on its smallest public bodies, the acequias, land grants and water associations that volunteers run across rural New Mexico. We filmed in Santa Fe on Friday, October 23, 2026.

Read about the Office of the State Auditor at https://www.osa.nm.gov/

See the Small Local Public Body Assistance Program he describes: https://www.osa.nm.gov/slpb/

Kris Houghton has served on the New Mexico Court of Appeals since the governor appointed him in August 2025. Before that he clerked for Justice Charles Daniels and Judge Miles Hanisee, practiced immigration law, and spent most of his career at the U.S. Attorney's Office in Albuquerque, where he ran the Criminal Division after two and a half years as the Justice Department's judicial attaché in Bogotá. He is on the November ballot for a full eight-year term.

We talked about how three judges go back over a trial, why a headline about a pretrial release can leave out the law behind it, how a judge gets the job and how voters can grade one through the Judicial Performance Evaluation Commission, and what AI is changing inside the courts.

Watch the conversation on YouTube: https://youtu.be/EczkF9eo4-E

Thank you to Judge Houghton for a great lesson in civics, and for showing me how vital the Court of Appeals is, how humane and reassuring it is to have three judges go back over the whole record. And for the opportunity to acknowledge the people who make up our judicial system.

Thank you to the Flying Star on Corrales Road in Albuquerque, where we filmed on Friday, October 16, 2026. https://www.flyingstarcafe.com

Read about Judge Houghton and the court at https://coa.nmcourts.gov/about/judges/

See how New Mexico grades the judges who stand for retention, the Judicial Performance Evaluation Commission he mentions: https://nmjpec.org/

Dylan Crabb's first byline ran in the Taos News while he was still in high school. He went on to report for papers in California and northern New Mexico, most recently the Questa Del Rio News, usually with his own camera in hand.

We sat down in Taos to talk about how he works and why he thinks anyone can do this: show up at the city council meeting, learn where the public records are, ask your questions, and build a reputation by being there every time.

Watch the interview on YouTube: https://youtu.be/pAXkniuU1oo

Thank you to Hacienda del Sol in Taos for letting us film on their beautiful grounds. https://www.taoshaciendadelsol.com

Read Dylan's reporting at https://mylocalpress.com/@dylan