Joseph M. Montoya

American politician and lawyer

• Born: September 24, 1915
• Birthplace: Peña Blanca, New Mexico
• Died: June 5, 1978
• Place of death: Washington, D.C.

Montoya served in the New Mexico legislature and as lieutenant governor before his election to Congress. His career in government spanned four decades.

Early Life

Joseph Manuel Montoya (mahn-TOY-yah) was born in Peña Blanca, New Mexico, on September 24, 1915. His father was the sheriff of Sandoval County; his mother was descended from eighteenth-century Spanish immigrants who settled in what became New Mexico.

Montoya attended Regis College in Denver, Colorado, and later enrolled at Georgetown University law School.

As a full-time student, Montoya worked for the Department of the Interior. In 1936, at age twenty-two and still a law student, he was elected to represent Sandoval County in the New Mexico House of Representatives. He earned his law degree in 1938, the same year he was reelected. In 1939, Montoya was admitted to the New Mexico Bar. Not only was he the youngest member of the New Mexico House, he became its majority leader. The next year, Montoya won a seat in the state senate, where he was once again the youngest member. During his tenure in the New Mexico Senate, Montoya was both majority whip and chairman of the Judiciary Committee. From 1947 to 1957, he served three terms as lieutenant governor.

Montoya married Della Romero on November 9, 1940, and fathered two sons, Joseph M. and Patrick James, and a daughter, Linda Jean. In addition to his political career, Montoya practiced law in Santa Fe and owned and managed a variety of business enterprises that included Western Freight Lines. His only political setback came in 1950 when he lost a bid for the U.S. House of Representatives in the Democratic primary.

Life’s Work

Montoya’s opponent in the Democratic primary, incumbent congressman Antonio Fernandez, died in 1956, and Montoya was chosen by the New Mexico Democratic Party to run in a special election for the seat. He defeated his Republican opponent by seven thousand votes and went on to win four consecutive congressional terms with more than 60 percent of the vote. Montoya served on the House Judiciary Committee and gained a reputation for bringing substantial federal monies back to New Mexico. Montoya sponsored legislation that provided New Mexico residents with farm subsidies, increased agricultural support for wheat and cotton, and vocational retraining for unemployed farmworkers. He was a strong supporter of programs for people in poverty, such as low-cost public housing, food stamps, and federal loans for economically depressed rural and urban areas. Montoya helped institute federal aid to urban rapid transit systems, increased aid to education, and pollution controls for the nation’s drinking water.

In 1964, Montoya ran for the U.S. Senate seat left vacant by the death of Senator Dennis Chavez and defeated his conservative opponent by almost thirty thousand votes. He spent his Senate years, from 1964 to 1977, working hard for his constituents, which included large populations of Native American and Hispanic voters. New Mexico’s largest newspapers received daily reports from Montoya’s Senate office detailing his activities. In the Senate, he continued to support legislation benefiting factory workers and farmers. Montoya was a significant contributor to the passage of the Wilderness Act (1964) that designated 9.1 million acres in thirteen states, including New Mexico, as wilderness preserves. He opposed President Richard Nixon’s nomination of Earl Butz to be secretary of agriculture because he saw Butz as a supporter of agribusiness, not the small farmer.

Montoya was a strong supporter of the Office of Economic Opportunity and voted to increase the minimum wage, extend jobless benefits, and offer migrant workers unemployment compensation. He actively campaigned to bring industry to New Mexico to increase employment opportunities. Montoya sponsored legislation that included regulations on truth in advertising, fair packaging, and proper labeling on products, and the registration of products containing toxic or corrosive substances. He also supported gun control, legal counsel for the poor, the Equal Rights Amendment prohibiting gender discrimination, and lowering the voting age to eighteen. Successful bills that Montoya steered into law included the Wholesome Meat Act (1967), the Wholesome Poultry Act (1968), and the Clean Hot Dog Act (1974). During his Senate career, Montoya served on the Appropriations Committee, the Public Works Committee, the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy, and the Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities (the Senate Watergate Committee). He was responsible for forcing Nixon to pay for his own legal expenses in the Watergate scandal.

In the era of Watergate and an increasing national suspicion of the government, Montoya became the target of a series of financial investigations that tarnished his image. He was habitually late filing his income tax returns, he was investigated for creating dummy committees to launder campaign contributions, and he failed to report out-of-state campaign contributions. A late filing of his net worth in 1975 indicated that he was a millionaire with extensive real estate investments that included a substantial number of lease agreements for United States post offices and federal buildings. Whether or not he used his political office to obtain these federal lease agreements could never be proved. Montoya was not convicted of any wrongdoing, but the suspicions probably helped kill his bid for reelection in 1976. After Montoya’s return to private life in 1977, he was implicated in the Koreagate scandal for accepting a cash campaign contribution from an unregistered foreign agent. He died in Washington, D.C., from liver and kidney failure on June 5, 1978.

Significance

Montoya is remembered for improving and expanding economic opportunity for the working poor, particularly minorities within his state; his support of Medicare and Medicaid legislation; and his social activism. His papers are held at the Center for Southwest Research at the University of New Mexico Law School. In 1986, the General Services Building, South Complex, in Santa Fe, New Mexico, was named for him. There is a small museum dedicated to his memory in the building.

Bibliography

Axford, Roger W. Spanish-Speaking Heroes. Midland, Miss.: Pendell, 1973. Montoya is featured in this reference work’s section on politicians.

Montoya, Joseph M. “The Silent People No Longer.” In Ripples of Hope: Great American Civil Rights Speeches, edited by Josh Gottheimer. New York: Basic Civitas Books, 2003. Transcript of an address Montoya delivered before Congress in November, 1967, in support of the civil rights of Latinos.

Vigil, Maurilio, and Roy Lujan. “Parallels in the Career of Two Hispanic U.S. Senators,” Journal of Ethnic Studies 13 (Winter, 1986): 1-20. A study of New Mexico’s Democratic senators Joseph M. Montoya and Dennis Chavez, who quietly and effectively promoted opportunities for Hispanic Americans.