The 4th of July was a working holiday for New Mexico’s Attorney General. While families across the country relaxed at backyard barbecues, Patricia Madrid began her day riding in the 4th of July parade in Rio Rancho. After the parade, she was interviewed by a national reporter. She met with veterans at the VFW Hall in the South Valley in Albuquerque. Later, she wound up at another parade, and in the evening, she was talking with prospective voters at a city festival. “I must have shaken five hundred hands,” says Madrid, a candidate for Congress in the First Congressional District of New Mexico. “It was a full day and my favorite type of campaigning. I met and talked to the people on the street.”

“The people on the street” will soon be Madrid’s constituents, if New Mexico voters cast their ballots her way in November. The attorney general is vying to unseat incumbent Rep. Heather Wilson, a Republican moderate and the only female armed services veteran in Congress, who has held the seat since 1998.

Ethnically and economically diverse, the First Congressional District spans struggling city neighborhoods in Albuquerque and fast-growing suburbs. Political observers in New Mexico say that Madrid is Wilson’s toughest challenger ever, and the Albuquerque Tribune described the race as “hotter than a vinyl car seat in an Albuquerque summer.” The race also promises to be one of the most watched races this fall as Democrats try to regain a majority in the House of Representatives.
Madrid’s high profile, popularity, and ethnicity (in a state that is 43 percent Hispanic) are strongly in her favor. A trailblazer with many “firsts” in a long career in public service, Madrid is known as a zealous advocate for working people, crime victims, and consumers, and she plans to take these fights to the national level. “People are so desperate to have a change in this country,” she says.
Madrid has deep roots in multi-cultural New Mexico. She grew up on a family ranch in Las Cruces, then a small farming city in the valley south of Albuquerque. Her mother raised Madrid and her siblings with a lot of love, and “warm tortillas” from the oven. Her father, a Tewa Indian, talked to his children about the Trail of Tears, when the Cherokee nation was forced off its land east of the Mississippi and moved to present-day Oklahoma, and the importance of standing up for people and their civil rights. “We had debates at the dinner table, and no TV!” she says. Her father’s belief in equal rights and fairness planted the seeds for her lifelong commitment to the law.
After she graduated from the University of New Mexico School of Law in 1973, Madrid went to work as an appellate public defender before joining a labor law firm, where her clients were New Mexico’s biggest labor unions. In 1978, she won the race for district court judge, becoming the first woman to hold that position in New Mexico.

Attorney General Madrid speaks with local radio talk show host Larry Ahrens about the pervasive problem of Internet predators. Madrid recently released an Internet Safety Guide, and has taken a stand on this issue in New Mexico.	Madrid announces new payday loan regulations for New Mexico. In the background is Edward Lopez, New Mexico Regulation and Licensing Division Superintendent, whose division crafted the new regulations.	Attorney General Madrid speaking to students about the dangers of underage drinking during a tour of universities around the state.

Madrid’s first two tries for statewide office, for attorney general and lieutenant governor, ended in defeat, but taught her important lessons. “Those losses were probably the most important part of my political career. They made me so much tougher and spurred me on to get up and do it again,” she says.
Madrid won election for attorney general in 1998, becoming New Mexico’s first female AG, and the first Latina AG in the nation. As chief law officer in the state, she heads an office with 150 attorneys working in ten divisions, including civil, criminal, and consumer protection divisions. One of her first initiatives was the Violence Against Women Interventions and Prevention Division, a special unit to protect victims of sexual assault, stalking and domestic violence. She also started a special unit to prosecute capital crimes. In 2004, Madrid took on the exploitation of children on the Internet with a new task force.
Protecting consumers is another goal for Madrid. This year, she successfully pushed the state to clamp down on predatory lenders charging high interest rates for short-term loans, or payday loans, a common practice in low-income communities.
Concerned about the 30 percent of New Mexicans who lack health insurance, Madrid developed a program to help consumers buy affordable prescription drugs. In her campaign for Congress, Madrid sharply criticizes the new Medicare Plan D drug plan, the controversial program to help seniors buy prescription drugs.
Meanwhile, Madrid’s office has worked to protect New Mexico’s precious water supply by prosecuting dumpers of illegal waste near irrigation ditches. On another front, several major lawsuits by the AG’s office against large corporations for price-fixing, non-payment of state revenues, and other violations, brought the state nearly $100 million.
An outspoken critic of the Bush Administration, Madrid jumped into the race for Congress last fall. She is hoping to turn the tide in Washington DC. “I think it’s time for a change. People feel like this country is going in the wrong direction, and it is,” she says. Calling the Iraq War “misguided and unfortunate,” she favors an exit strategy with definite benchmarks. Concerned about working people, she is also campaigning for a national minimum wage. “We have families that constitute the working poor who cannot make a living on minimum wage,” says Madrid. High gas prices have hurt New Mexicans, she adds, and she is against any tax breaks to oil and utility companies while prices at the pump inch higher.
Even with such a high-powered career, Madrid remains devoted to her family. “I’ve always thought that I’ve had the best of all worlds,” she says. Madrid and her husband, Albuquerque attorney Mike Messina, just celebrated their 31st anniversary; he is a strong supporter of her campaign. Their son, Giancarlo, 25 is a graduate of the University of New Mexico. Madrid talks like any proud mother. “My son is the best thing in my life,” she says.
The balancing act has become harder as Madrid juggles the AG’s office and the demands of the campaign. She works seven days a week, reading legal documents late into the night. She would like more family time and time to exercise, but November looms on the horizon, and she still has something to prove.
Madrid has won many awards in her career, including Latina Lawyer of the Year from the Hispanic National Bar Association and Trailblazer Award from New Mexico’s Commission on the Status of Women, yet she has noticed that people don’t always expect a lot from her. “Many people assume we are not tough enough, we are not smart enough, and we are not aggressive enough,” says Madrid. “People tend to underestimate what I can do. It’s fun to surprise them.”