Miyagishima might not be done with politics

On the day after Christmas, Ken Miyagishima was at his office on S. Solano Drive, where he is district manager for Farmers Insurance. He walked a visitor through memorabilia of over three decades in public office: photographs and front pages of newspapers, trophies and plaques, hard hats from groundbreaking ceremonies and many pictures of him with his father as well as presidents, congress members and celebrities in and out of politics.

He was elected as a Doña Ana County commissioner in 1992 when he was 28 years old, later as a Las Cruces City Councilor and then as mayor in 2007, when he defeated incumbent Bill Mattiace by fewer than 100 votes. (Mattiace returned to city hall this week after winning a seat on the city council in November’s elections.)

The district Miyagishima supervises for the insurance company has grown during his time in office: He oversees 56 agents in 20 cities now.

“I’m not getting younger,” he said. (Miyagishima is 60.) “It was hard to do justice to both jobs.”

His first run for office was in 1990, as a Democrat against Republican Lee Rawson for a state House seat representing the 37^th District. Miyagishima, then 26, lost by 330 votes, yet claimed 48 percent of the vote.

“I didn’t know what a state Rep. was,” he recalled. “All I knew was, I wanted to serve in office.”

His father and brother both served in the military during the Vietnam War, and he recalled worrying for his brother after his dad came home in 1969. He noticed that the people in a position to help were in government offices. Besides public service, he seemed to develop an interest in competitive politics while young: He told a story of talking to friends in eighth grade about wanting to run for governor. He recalls individual elections from years past, the candidates’ names and vote spreads with ease.

On the other hand, he argues partisan elections are an obstacle to governance. Miyagishima said he saw the difference when he joined city government after serving on the county commission, where elections are partisan.

“I couldn’t believe how efficient they were,” he said, referring to the city. “I think I had PTSD, coming from the county. If you want to stop Congress from fighting, just make it nonpartisan.”

At the start of his political career, it wasn’t that simple: After becoming the first New Mexican of Japanese descent to hold public office, and during his campaigns for city council and mayor, he recalls encountering discrimination over his ethnicity.

And after overcoming that to be elected to the council, he often found himself the odd man out. “I was always ignored … I was always a little more strict. I’m no saint, but I try to do the right thing.”

Miyagishima upset Mattiace to be elected mayor in 2007 during public controversy over city growth and development, including a scandal over state trust lands leased to private developer Philip Philippou and a fight between the city and the developer over infrastructure culminating in a 2009 legal settlement. He attributes his victory in that election to making ethical development policy a campaign issue.

Over the years, Miyagishima would take other lonely stands or defend unpopular policies backed by the council. He championed the city’s humanitarian response to large releases of asylum-seeking migrants in the city in 2019, including the lease of an unused building upgraded for use as a processing center, facing angry residents repeatedly in open session. He was also the lone critic on the dais of cannabis legalization, citing public safety and quality-of-life concerns. Serving through the first years of the Covid-19 pandemic, he supported digging into reserve funds to infuse millions of dollars into the local economy.

In recent years, he found himself seated next to a more progressive city council while he positioned himself as a pro-business Democrat – he publicly endorsed Michael Bloomberg for president in 2020. Miyagishima alleged that 2016 bail reforms exacerbated property crime in Las Cruces, and he got into a public spat in 2022 with Municipal Judge Joy Goldbaum over handling of cases involving repeat defendants, particularly among the unhoused.

In a wry wink to his occasional solitary stands, he voted “no” on a motion to adjourn his last meeting as mayor on Dec. 18.

In 2019, Miyagishima was elected to his fourth and final term as mayor in the city’s first ranked-choice election. He defeated nine challengers, ultimately defeating Mattiace in the ninth round of voting. (In ranked choice elections, voters are permitted to rank their preferred candidates by first choice, second choice, etc.)

On Dec. 26, at the end of the hallway outside of Miyagishima’s business office, boxes of memorabilia and effects from city hall were waiting to be unpacked.

Asked about speculation he would run for office again, he said he wanted to devote more focus to his business, but didn’t rule out another run. He did not disclose whether any particular office attracted him. Federal office seemed to be out: He called Congress “dysfunctional” and too partisan to be effective. When asked about issues he might like to work on, he spoke of statewide benefits for senior citizens if and when Social Security are cut in the future, improving financial literacy and workforce development and other issues that would align with a seat in the legislature or the governor’s office.   

“I’m going to take some time off, see my agents that I haven’t seen in a while,” he said. “The country is going to have a lot of challenges and the state is going to have some, too. Whether or not I want to try to help in the future…”

He seemed to be leading up to “we’ll see,” but did not even venture that far before another entertaining political story came to mind.