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SANTA FE - Former astronaut Harrison Schmitt resigned Thursday from Gov. Susana Martinez's cabinet after refusing to submit to a background investigation as part of the Senate confirmation process.
State senators said they would not have confirmed Schmitt unless he agreed to the investigation and it turned up no problems.
"If you ask everybody else to undergo an investigation, he has to do it, too," said Sen. Stuart Ingle, R-Portales.
Schmitt, who walked on the moon and has a Ph.D. In geology from Harvard, was Martinez's most celebrated cabinet designee.
She appointed him last month to run the Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources Department. But his nomination to the $105,000-a-year job was subject to confirmation by the Senate.
Sen. Linda Lopez said she met with Schmitt on Monday, and he told her he would not undergo the required background check.
Lopez, D-Albuquerque, on Thursday afternoon announced Schmitt's refusal to comply and said she would not support his nomination. He was to appear Monday before the Senate Rules Committee, which Lopez chairs.
Schmitt, 75, did not respond to requests for comment.
Martinez said Schmitt underwent a thorough background check by the state Department of Public Safety as part of the nomination process. As for the Senate's planned inquiry, she said, he was willing to allow a private investigator access to his personal information, but was "not willing to waive that investigator's liability for any improper actions
Ingle said in his 27 years in the Senate he had seen a handful of nominees for high-tier state jobs refuse to be investigated. Their candidacies ended because of it.
Ingle said senators would have scotched Schmitt's nomination on Monday unless he consented to the background investigation.
Sen. Mary Jane Garcia, D-Dona Ana, said she had been inclined to support Schmitt. But, she said, she would not have voted for him without his completing the background check.
"If you're clean, clean, you shouldn't have any fear," Garcia said. "You have to be totally vetted. That's what we expect."
Garcia said Democrats in the House and Senate had talked of sending a letter to Martinez encouraging her to pull Schmitt's nomination.
Sen. Eric Griego, D-Albuquerque, said he favored that tactic. He called Schmitt "a bad choice."
Griego said this was not a slap at Martinez, as he is carrying her nominee for secretary of the Taxation and Revenue Department. But Schmitt, Griego said, had made "stupid comments" on immigration, race and the environment.
Former governor David Cargo, a Republican who calls Schmitt by his nickname of Jack, said this controversy provided an opportunity for Schmitt to step aside.
"I know Jack very well. He's gotten a little strange in recent years, talking about environmentalists being communists," said Cargo, 80. "I said, Jack, I'm an environmentalist and I'm not a communist.' He said, 'but you're different.' "
Garcia said Schmitt could have salvaged his nomination by agreeing to the background investigation. She said she probably would have voted for him had he respected the process.
Lopez said she was sympathetic to a degree with Schmitt's discomfort about being investigated. She called it an "extensive review" that would turn up criminal convictions, verify claims about finances, and review disclosure statements on conflicts of interest and business ownership.
Lopez, though, said background checks were vital and could not be sidestepped by any nominee.
"The 40 or so individuals we confirm to these top positions are responsible for expenditures in the billions of dollars," she said.
Schmitt, as a member of the Apollo 17 mission, walked on the moon in 1972. Though trained as a scientist, he was familiar with bare-knuckles politics, having won a U.S. Senate race as a Republican in 1976.
A native of Silver City, he lasted one term. Schmitt lost his seat in 1982 to another Silver City politician with a Harvard pedigree, Democrat Jeff Bingaman.
With Schmitt's nomination derailed, Martinez said she had begun looking for a replacement.
Santa Fe Bureau Chief Milan Simonich can be reached at msimonich@tnmnp. com or (505) 820-6898. His blog is at http://elpasotimes.typepad.com/newmexico.
