Magistrate candidate's petition signatures challenged

Posted 3/31/2008 06:44:00 PM

A Democratic voter has filed a challenge in district court to the petition signatures filed last week by Frank Rivera, a candidate for Doña Ana County magistrate judge.

Nancy Abeyta is seeking to disqualify Rivera, a Democrat, from the race on the grounds that he didn’t submit enough valid signatures to qualify for the ballot, her attorney Greg Valdez said. Valdez filed the request in district court in Las Cruces on Friday.

A hearing has not been scheduled.

Valdez said there are three problems with Rivera’s signatures. Many are from individuals who aren’t registered Democrats, at least two are duplicates, and one includes a signature but no other information about the person who signed.

Valdez said he didn’t know offhand how many signatures on the petition are invalid, but said it was enough to remove Rivera from the ballot, if a judge agrees with his legal arguments. To get on the ballot in the magistrate race, a candidate had to file 128 signatures of registered Democrats living in the county. Rivera filed 182 signatures.

Rivera said he didn’t gather most of the signatures himself but was surprised to learn of a potential challenge when one of his opponents, Democrat Maria Rodriguez, asked to meet with him a week ago. The two met at a restaurant in Las Cruces. Rodriguez went over his petitions with him and showed him what she said were problems, Rivera said.

She then asked how he wanted to handle the situation, and if he wanted to drop out of the race. Rivera said he told her he would think about it. When she called him Wednesday evening, he told her to challenge the signatures if she wanted to.

“We just decided we’re going to let this run its course and see what happens,” Rivera said.

Rodriguez said she’s not involved in the challenge to Rivera’s signatures, but confirmed that she met with Rivera last week and that Abeyta spoke for her at a meeting of the Progressive Voter Alliance in January. She said Abeyta brought the signature issue to her attention, so she sought the meeting last Monday with Rivera.

“It could have the appearance that I tried to strong-arm him, but I didn’t,” Rodriguez said. “It’s just that when I found out about it, I wanted to share it with him so he could have an opportunity to decide what to do. Even when we looked at it, he admitted that some of the signatures weren’t valid.”

Rodriguez said she told Rivera she wouldn’t personally challenge the signatures but didn’t know what others would decide to do. State law gives any registered Democrat living in the county the right to challenge a petition in this Democratic primary, should he or she choose.

“My focus is to campaign and win an election that I believe I’m qualified to win,” Rodriguez said.

The other candidates in the Democratic primary for magistrate judge are Francisco Ortiz and incumbent Kent Wingenroth.

Newman unveils lengthy video on Web site

Posted 3/31/2008 04:06:00 PM

Second Congressional District Republican candidate Monty Newman has unveiled a new, lengthy video on his Web site that is designed to give voters a deep understanding of the candidate.

The 14-minute video – an unusually long production – begins with a 40-second narrative about trees to paint the picture of Newman as a strong man with integrity.

“Strong, powerful, constant. The strongest trees have roots that reach deep down,” the narrator states. “… Deep roots. The foundation for all that they are. In times like this, America needs, New Mexico needs, a leader with the deepest convictions, with honesty and integrity. Monty Newman is just such a man.”

Newman goes on in the video to discuss his faith, background, philosophy on governing and the issues in his campaign. His wife also talks at length about some of the same topics.

You can watch the video here:

Rep. Garcia to challenge Gwaltney for DNC position

Posted 3/31/2008 02:31:00 PM

State Rep. Mary Helen Garcia, D-Las Cruces, is challenging Mary Gail Gwaltney later this month for the position of Democratic national committeewoman for New Mexico.

Garcia said this may be the first time Gwaltney has had a challenger in her 13 years as the state’s committeewoman. She said Gwaltney hasn’t done a good job of communicating with local and state Democrats about what’s happening on the national level or of taking New Mexico’s issues to the Democratic National Committee.

“I’ve always like challenges. I just feel that with leadership you involve people. It’s a participatory process, and I don’t feel we’ve had that with Mary Gail,” Garcia said. “I just think we need better representation.”

Democrats in each state elect a national committeewoman and a national committeeman to the DNC. In addition to being charged with representing the state’s issues to the national party and communicating national issues to the state’s Democrats, both are superdelegates to the Democratic National Convention in Denver in August.

Raymond Sanchez is the national committeeman for New Mexico’s Democrats.

Gwaltney and Garcia have both pledged their support for Hillary Clinton in the presidential primary, so Garcia’s challenge won’t likely affect that race. But it is causing a stir locally because both are from Las Cruces, and Garcia’s challenge is forcing local Democrats to take sides.

“It’s kind of thrown a curve ball to some of the delegates around here,” Garcia said.

Gwaltney could not immediately be reached for comment.

Democrats in the Second Congressional District meet on April 12 to elect delegates to the presidential delegate convention. At that statewide convention on April 26, some 400 delegates will elect leaders, including national committeewoman.

Garcia said she had been thinking about challenging Gwaltney for some time. She can focus on doing that this year because, though she’s up for re-election, no one is challenging her for her legislative seat this year.

Garcia said her candidacy for national committeewoman has drawn a lot of support, particularly from progressive Democrats, in part because she sponsored the bill that led to New Mexico’s switch to paper ballots several years ago, and also because she’s been active in the push for ethics reform. Garcia said she expects to receive a lot of support from communities including Santa Fe, Los Alamos, Corrales, Albuquerque and Doña Ana County.

“I have established a reputation that I am a hard worker and I do get things accomplished,” Garcia said.

Garcia is a lifelong resident of New Mexico who grew up on a farm in Doña Ana County. She and her husband George have two adult daughters. She is a former school teacher and principal, and has been in the Legislature since 1997.

Gwaltney is currently serving her fourth term as national committeewoman and also serves on the executive board of the DNC. She has lived in Las Cruces for 48 years. Her husband served in the state Senate for 10 years.

A prior version of this posting contained incorrect information about Gwaltney’s husband.

Fundraising quarter ends today for federal candidates

Posted 3/31/2008 11:49:00 AM

Today marks the end of the first fundraising quarter of the year in federal races, and there are a lot of interesting questions that will be answered by finance reports that are released in the next two weeks.

In the U.S. Senate race, for example, Democrat Tom Udall raised more than Republicans Steve Pearce and Heather Wilson combined in the fourth quarter of 2007. Can he do it again, or will one or both of them keep up with Udall? In addition, Wilson began the first quarter of 2008 with more money in the bank than Pearce. Can he catch her?

For most U.S. House candidates in the state, this was the first full quarter raising money, so the reports will paint a good picture of the money game. Some things to watch:

• It will be interesting to see how much of a financial boost the winners of the March 15 preprimary conventions got in the last two weeks of the quarter. Most interesting will be the races in the Second Congressional District, where Bill McCamley won the Democratic preprimary and Aubrey Dunn won the Republican preprimary. Both were considered by many to be underdogs going into the preprimary conventions, so the finance reports will be the first indicators of whether their preprimary wins were game-changing events in the eyes of donors.

• In the GOP Second Congressional District primary, C. Earl Greer gained a respectable amount of support at the preprimary nominating convention. He didn’t enter the race until the start of this quarter in January, so this finance report will be the first real indicator of whether he has the funding to keep up in a race that features three candidates who have given hundreds of thousands of dollars to their own campaigns.

• Were others who aren’t considered by most to be in the top tier of candidates, including Republican Monty Newman in the Second Congressional District and Democrats Michelle Lujan-Grisham and Rebecca Vigil-Giron in the First Congressional District, able to raise enough money to compete with the top-tier candidates?

Reports will appear on the FEC Web site by April 15, but numbers may be released by campaigns earlier than that. I’ll report on them as they’re made public.

Articles give insight into lobbying and the Legislature

Posted 3/31/2008 08:23:00 AM

Over the last couple of months, the Albuquerque Journal has focused on the top lobbyist for the University of New Mexico, who is also the son of a powerful state lawmaker. That has produced a couple of interesting articles that give some insight into the way things work in Santa Fe.

A Feb. 10 article focused on Marc Saavedra’s $45,000 salary boost from March 2007 to February 2008. That was a 50 percent increase, from $90,000 to almost $135,000. During that same time, the average UNM employee’s salary jumped 7 percent.

The article contained a gem of a quote from UNM Executive Vice President David Harris.

“I don’t believe that,” he said when told Saavedra received the first of two raises – from $90,000 to $125,000 – in June 2007. “I don’t think he received a $35,000 increase.”

But the son of Rep. Henry “Kiki” Saavedra, D-Albuquerque and chair of the House Appropriations and Finance Committee, did receive the pay boost.

The younger Saavedra said the first and biggest raise was to bring his salary in line with that of his predecessor, who had been making just over $110,000 annually, and was also due in part to UNM’s success lobbying for funding from the Legislature. The second raise was apparently given when Saavedra took on additional supervisory duties, according to the article.

Both raises came after Saavedra’s August 2006 arrest for aggravated drunken driving, the Journal revealed in February. He was on unpaid leave and required to have an ignition interlock device to drive.

Examining the DWI

On Sunday, the Journal unveiled a second article examining Saavedra’s DWI. After he was arrested, he signed a “Last Chance Agreement” in which he agreed to not consume alcohol as long as he worked for UNM. He pleaded guilty to the DWI charge and received a deferred sentence.

But Saavedra, while agreeing to consume no alcohol, has spent at least $1,500 of UNM money on alcohol for those he was lobbying. Some of the tabs obtained by the Journal reveal the purchase of quite a bit of alcohol while listing only a few people present, but there may have been others drinking without a record of their doing it. Two dozen receipts Saavedra submitted to UNM for reimbursement weren’t itemized, so it’s not possible to know if or how much alcohol was served in those instances. And there are questions about whether some receipts were submitted for reimbursement in a timely manner.

Saavedra also, days after his arrest and while he was ordered to stay out of liquor establishments, met with some lawmakers and others at the Alley Cantina in Taos. You can buy food there, in addition to alcohol, so Saavedra’s attorney told the Journal his client’s visit was not a violation of the conditions of his release. The executive director of the DWI Resource Center, however, told the Journal she believes Saavedra did violate the conditions of his release.

To top it off, one event at a Las Cruces bar included a Public Regulation Commission member who told the Journal he was surprised the event showed up on an expense report because he thought it was a social event, not a business meeting.

The bigger picture

There are a lot of questions about the way Saavedra does business being raised by the Journal articles. But there’s a bigger picture here. KRQE-TV in Albuquerque aired a story recently about government agencies across the state spending millions of dollars to lobby the Legislature for funding.

The KRQE story includes a list of state agencies and local governments and how much they’re paying lobbyists. While much of the money UNM spends on lobbyists comes from private endowments, most governments are using taxpayer money to lobby the Legislature for more taxpayer money. The City of Las Cruces, for example, paid lobbyist Ray Davenport $52,500 in 2007, according to the KRQE database.

Of course, such investment often reaps rewards, or governments wouldn’t spend so much money doing it. But it’s important that the public know about it, and about connections like Marc Saavedra’s. He’s essentially lobbying his father, the top appropriator in the House, for funding for a public university that employs him and over which his father has a great deal of power.

Click here for the KRQE database of government agencies that employ lobbyists.

Most voters in poll say endorsement was a good move

Posted 3/31/2008 07:00:00 AM

The majority of those who voted in last week’s non-scientific poll on this site said endorsing Barack Obama was a good move for Bill Richardson.

Of 183 voters, 99, or 54 percent, said it was a good move, while 84, or 46 percent, said it was not.

Don’t forget to vote in this week’s poll, located at the top of the right column on this page.

Wiviott gains on Luján in new CD3 poll

Posted 3/28/2008 02:38:00 PM

A new poll of likely Democratic voters in the Third Congressional District has Don Wiviott gaining ground on Ben R. Luján.

The poll, conducted for Wiviott’s campaign by Lake Research Partners, has Luján up seven points, 23 percent to 16 percent. It places Jon Adams, Harry Montoya and Benny Shendo Jr. each at 4 percent, and Rudy Martin at 2 percent. Some 48 percent said they are undecided.

That’s much different than the results of a poll conducted at the end of January by the Luján campaign. That poll had Luján with 35 percent of the vote to Montoya’s 9 percent, Wiviott’s 6 percent, 4 percent each for Adams and Shendo, 2 percent for Martin and 3 percent for Derrith Watchman-Moore, who ended up staying out of the race.

In between the two polls, Wiviott became the first congressional candidate in the state to run television commercials.

“This race is wide open,” Celinda Lake, president of Lake Research Partners, said in a news release about the new poll. “Momentum is clearly on (Wiviott’s) side. Every day more and more voters are responding positively to his call for change.”

Wiviott said he is “humbled by the outpouring of support our campaign continues to generate.”

“People are desperate for change and leaders who can deliver it,” he said. “For too long, Congress has stood idly as Bush Republicans replace our government with divisive politics and right-wing ideology. New Mexico needs to elect leaders who will fight tooth and nail to move our country forward and put the interests of the American people first.”

You can read the memo on the Wiviott poll by clicking here. The Luján campaign has not provided me with a copy of the memo on its January poll.

But Luján Campaign Manager Carlos Trujillo confirmed the numbers from the January poll today in an interview. He pointed out that the numbers released in the Wiviott polling memo “don’t add up to 100 percent” and said they “don’t seem realistic.”

“We feel really good about where we are,” Trujillo said.

Wiviott Campaign spokeswoman Caroline Buerkle said the numbers provided in the Wiviott polling memo add up to 101 percent because of rounding, which is common in polls. She said Luján’s exact percentage was 22.5, Wiviott’s was 16.1, Montoya and Shendo came in at 4.3 percent, Adams was at 3.5 percent, Martin was at 1.6 percent and 47.6 percent were undecided.

Buerkle also said the poll included no pushing. The wording of the question was “And if the Democratic primary election for U.S. Congress were held today and the candidates were (their names were randomized here), for whom would you vote, or are you undecided?” She said that question was asked before, not after, a series of questions about issues and other topics.

Wiviott’s poll, which surveyed 500 likely Democratic primary voters, was conducted from Monday to Thursday. The margin of error is 4.4 percent. Luján’s poll was conducted by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research from Jan. 27 to 30. It surveyed 504 likely Democratic voters and had a margin of error of 4.4 percent.

Analysis

It’s no surprise that Wiviott has gained support after flooding television with ads. His name recognition has gone up significantly, and he’s beginning to get his message to voters. Luján will get on television at some point as well, and that will cause his numbers to climb.

But both polls had a very high number of undecided voters. I’ve thought all along that either candidate could win this primary, and the newest poll simply confirms that.

Both polling companies are reputable, though in New Mexico, Luján’s has a longer client list that includes the governor and lieutenant governor.

Wiviott will continue to outspend Luján in this race. Look for him to close the gap some more as undecided voters pick a candidate. But expect him and Luján to stay fairly close to each other in the polls. The support taken by the other four Democratic candidates may end up deciding this race.

New Mexicans are the first to see new McCain TV ad

Posted 3/28/2008 11:40:00 AM

John McCain began running today what his campaign is calling the first television ad of the general-election season, and he picked New Mexicans to be the first voters to see it.

The decision to air the ad first in New Mexico further highlights the importance of the swing-state to the 2008 election and indicates that New Mexico is set to gain a lot more national attention in the coming months.

The ad is coinciding with the GOP presidential nominee’s “Service to America” tour, in which he will travel the nation next week to give a series of speeches that are designed to help the American public get to know him. McCain’s schedule includes stops in Mississippi, Virginia, Maryland, Florida and Arizona.

Though McCain isn’t scheduled to visit New Mexico next week, as I reported on Thursday, his campaign manager, Rick Davis, will speak a week from today at the Republican National Committee’s 2008 state chairmen’s meeting at the Santa Ana Pueblo near Bernalillo. One of McCain’s top financial advisers, Carly Fiorina, will also speak at the meeting on Thursday.

The 60-second ad is airing statewide beginning today, according to a news release from the McCain campaign. The campaign chose to start the ad in New Mexico, according to the news release, because it is “an important battleground state.” It will air in other states in the coming weeks.

The ad begins with McCain speaking to an enthusiastic crowd.

“Keep that faith. Keep your courage. Stick together. Stay strong. Do not yield. Stand up. We’re Americans, and we’ll never surrender,” McCain says.

The ad, which is designed to introduce McCain as a war hero and tough would-be commander-in-chief, then goes to a narrator who suggests that a president must believe America and liberty and worth protecting, that America’s people are honorable and that its future is prosperous.

The narrator also suggests that people must believe the president has “walked the walk.”

Then it goes to now widely-viewed video of McCain being interviewed as a prisoner of war in Vietnam. He gives his rank and service number.

The ad concludes with the narrator saying, “John McCain. The American president Americans have been waiting for.”

Here’s the full ad:

Talk of a possible Obama/Richardson ticket increases

Posted 3/28/2008 10:12:00 AM

Chatter about the possibility of Bill Richardson becoming the Democrats’ vice presidential nominee is increasing now that he has endorsed Barack Obama’s candidacy.

For example, the Washington Post’s blog The Fix listed Richardson today as one of its five bets on a potential running mate for Obama.

“Richardson’s decision to weigh in for Obama even as the controversy over Rev. Jeremiah Wright bubbled threw the Illinois senator a lifeline when he badly needed one,” Chris Cillizza wrote in a posting earlier today on The Fix. “The New Mexico governor has an extremely deep résumé that would nicely complement Obama’s strengths. A Richardson pick could also serve as a symbolic olive branch to the Hispanic community, which has gone heavily against Obama in the primaries, and add to the historic nature of the ticket.”

Rightpundits.com calls Richardson “the leading candidate” to be Obama’s running mate, pointing out that Richardson helps Obama out West and in an important swing state, in the areas of foreign-policy and executive experience, and among Hispanics.

“Rarely can a VP pick bring so much to a ticket. In Richardson’s case, as Obama’s VP, he brings executive experience, foreign policy experience, geography and ethnicity to the Democrat ticket,” the site’s posting states.

And an unofficial blog started in January to promote Richardson for vice president is now touting an “Obama/Richardson 2008” ticket.

But the site The Presidential Candidates suggests there might be a negative to an Obama/Richardson ticket: It “would place even more emphasis on race in this campaign, and that makes white folks mighty uncomfortable.”

“That’s the sad reality. I think the more race is an issue in this campaign, the more difficult it will be for Obama to win,” a posting on that site states.

Of course, no one is talking at this point about Richardson being a possible running mate for Hillary Clinton.

Richardson isn’t, at least publicly, actively seeking the vice presidency, but he’s doing a lot to keep his name in the national news, and few believe he intends to stay in New Mexico. Many believe he’s more likely to be secretary of state or grab another cabinet-level position than become vice president if the Democrats win the White House.

Speculation on potential vice-presidential candidates changes with the news every week. But the talk of a potential Vice President Richardson is worth noting.

I like my president to be likeable

Posted 3/28/2008 07:43:00 AM

© 2008 Michael Swickard, Ph.D.

I got this question from a reader: “About two months ago I received an e-mail picture showing Obama not singing or holding his hand over his heart while they were playing the national anthem. Clinton and Edwards were. A footnote also said Obama would not salute the flag or say the Pledge of Allegiance. Is that true?”

I do not know if it is true, nor do I care if people act patriotic. Rather, I care about whether they are patriotic. One thing positive about Obama is that he took a principled stance about the flag. Not that I agree with him, but it is refreshing to have someone do what he does knowing that the media will show him not acting patriotic.

But I have another take on Barack. People say the issue with his minister is important since once a week he sat in the congregation and appeared to listen. Consider that every night he put his head on the pillow next to his wife Michelle. I suspect he has listened to her far more than the minister. If you want to know Barack, forget the minister. Look at his soul mate.

The only reason this story about the minister has any legs at all is that the press is bored beyond belief, since there are only so many stories you can write about a candidate and his dog, Waggles. Every day the press runs ink on paper and between all of those ads something has to be written. There are only so many late-breaking news items, “It appears he prefers hot dogs to hamburgers.”

It is serious that his minister perhaps does not like me sight unseen because of my race. How sad. But Obama has never come across as embracing that line of thought. Rather, he has come across, as the rocketry saying goes, all thrust, no payload. In fact, with all three candidates we have no real idea what they will do next year if elected, least of all Obama.

Bringing Obama’s wife into the fray will only last for a couple of news cycles. The spouse is important since the presidency is best conceived as a two-person job. One of the shining moments of World War II was when Eleanor Roosevelt, wife of then President Franklin Roosevelt, convinced him that black pilots would be appropriate in the military. This led to the formation of the Tuskegee Airmen.

It is appropriate to think of the possible good and bad that can be done by spouses. But it is way down on my list. My first item is that I want to like the president. I voted for Jimmy Carter the first time because I liked him better than Ford. I did not know what his idea of government was because he ran on platitudes, not unlike Obama who is long on words like hope and change and short on how he will stop our slide toward the economic latrine.

Carter was not a mainstream politician from Washington. Also, he had nice teeth and his opponent was a klutz. So I voted for Carter. After four years of economic chaos I could not wait to vote for Reagan. What seemed a good idea – to vote for the most likeable candidate – led to the truly worst economy in 50 years.

Carter did not really have a clue about the presidency. He was a well-meaning man, a man without scandal, but here is the core issue: Carter was a man who left the nation worse off than when he came in.

Not making the nation worse

That may be my first criteria. If the person elected president does not improve our country, could we at least have someone who does not make it worse? All the things that the last three standing presidential candidates talk about make me nervous. I wonder if we will look back at 2008 as the last good year.

There are four major areas the next president must not make worse. It is very unlikely the next president will fix any of these, since that would take guts, but, at the least, do not make things much worse. The first area: The next president cannot be all things to all people at all times and in all ways. The presidency is not located at the North Pole and it is not the president’s job to throw swag at every potential voter, though that is what each president does.

The president must deal with our security, then with our finances, then with the question of borders and immigration. Then with nothing else to do, the president needs to lead us to a worthy goal for this next century. Take us to Mars or lead us to some other worthy challenge. Could we be excited to go back to the moon? Perhaps.

A new president will in all likelihood not make things better. I look at the three candidates and find that I feel like voting for the most likable one of the three, but I know I will hate myself for four years if that candidate governs like Carter.

Swickard is a weekly columnist for this site. You can reach him at michael@swickard.com.

Wilson says Pearce trying to rewrite Cannon history

Posted 3/27/2008 05:32:00 PM

Republican Senate candidate Heather Wilson accused primary opponent Steve Pearce today of attempting to rewrite history while defending his vote to OK the mothballing of Cannon Air Force Base.

Wilson has often pointed out Pearce’s vote to support placing Cannon in “enclave” status. He was the only member of the New Mexico delegation to support the base realignment and closure plan that originally would have done that. But Pearce said today in an interview with 770-KKOB AM radio in Albuquerque that, shortly after Cannon appeared on the closure list, “all five of us, including Heather, signed a letter saying, ‘please let us mothball it.’”

“And then she’s saying Steve voted to mothball. That’s misrepresenting your position. If you didn’t want to mothball it, why did you sign the letter?” Pearce asked, according to the Wilson campaign.

You can listen to Pearce’s comments by clicking here.

The Wilson campaign said Pearce’s claim “attempts to rewrite history,” and said the delegation never asked the Pentagon to “please let us mothball” Cannon.

The Wilson campaign provided me with a copy of an Aug. 29, 2005 letter from New Mexico’s five members of Congress and the governor to then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. The letter, which the Wilson campaign said is the one about which Pearce was referring, does not ask that Cannon be mothballed. It instead states that, in light of the decision by the Base Closure and Realignment Commission to mothball Cannon, the delegation was anxious to work with the Defense Department to find a new mission for Cannon.

“Steve Pearce has a tendency to say odd things, but this one takes the cake,” Whitney Cheshire, communications director for Wilson’s campaign, said in the release. “The idea that Pete Domenici, Jeff Bingaman and Heather Wilson asked the Pentagon to mothball Cannon just doesn’t hold water.”

In October 2005, Reps. Wilson and Tom Udall voted to reject the BRAC recommendations that included closing Cannon, while Pearce voted to accept them. Senators, including Domenici and Bingaman, never got to vote, but both released statements after the House vote that indicated they would have voted with Wilson and Udall.

Differing explanations

The Wilson news release states that today’s is the fourth different response Pearce has given when discussing his vote to mothball Cannon. The release states that in Clovis on Feb. 5, Pearce explained his vote by saying the United States needed to “save billions of dollars because we had duplicative efforts.” He said in Alamogordo on Feb. 10 that his vote came because “this community asked me to vote for” the base closure plan because Holloman Air Force Base had escaped closure.

In Albuquerque on Feb. 23, the Wilson campaign said, Pearce explained his vote by saying he wanted to “modernize the military” and because White Sands Missile Range and Kirtland Air Force base had survived the base closure process.

I can verify that the explanation the Wilson campaign says Pearce gave in Alamogordo is accurate, because I was there and heard it. I can’t attest to the others.

Wilson said in the news release that Pearce’s vote in support of closing Cannon is an example of why New Mexico needs her leadership.

“I couldn’t have disagreed with him more,” she said. “New Mexicans deserve a senator who will fight for New Mexico’s contribution to our national defense. That’s the kind of commonsense leadership I will provide.”

I’ve requested a response from the Pearce campaign. If I get one, you’ll see it here.

Ellins' disclosure is an example others should follow

Posted 3/27/2008 02:50:00 PM

Transparency is always the best policy.

That’s why I was pleasantly surprised on Tuesday to get a call from Lynn Ellins, Doña Ana County’s elections supervisor, to tell me about his November 2006 drunken-driving arrest and ask me to write about it. He’s running for county clerk and said he wants his candidacy to be transparent.

Way to get ahead of the situation so it doesn’t become a scandal.

It’s similar to what New York’s new governor, David Patterson, has done in the last several days by disclosing past adultery and drug use. Especially coming on the heels of the Eliot Spitzer scandal, it was a wise move by Patterson.

Why is transparency so important?

First, it’s essential that public officials be trustworthy and have integrity. Transparency is one of the main avenues candidates for public office have to earn the trust of those they want to serve.

Second, these issues usually seem to come out anyway. When a journalist or a candidate’s opponent makes such an issue known publicly, there’s almost always an appearance that the candidate didn’t bring it up because he or she was trying to hide it. That creates scandal.

People like to know that their public officials are human and make mistakes. But they also like to know that officials learn from mistakes and are open about them. Too many public officials don’t understand this and try to hide their past. As a result, they create scandal, whereas if they had just admitted mistakes up front, before their opponents had the chance to attack them, their opponents would have little ammunition to use against them.

Ellins has shown the sense to get ahead of this so it doesn’t become a scandal, and the humility to admit his mistake publicly. Other candidates would be wise to follow his lead.

That’s not an endorsement of Ellins’ candidacy. Doña Ana County Democratic voters should consider the merits of all four candidates before voting in June. I’m simply saying that Ellins has done what all candidates for public office should do in similar situations.

Homans replaces Goodwin at Tax and Revenue

Posted 3/27/2008 01:31:00 PM

Former Economic Development Secretary and Spaceport Authority Director Rick Homans returned to state government today when Gov. Bill Richardson appointed him to lead the Taxation and Revenue Department.

The move comes a day after Jan Goodwin, the previous secretary of the department, was named executive director of the New Mexico Educational Retirement Board.

“I want to welcome Rick Homans back to state government, where I will count on his expertise at the Taxation and Revenue Department,” Richardson said in a news release. “Jan Goodwin did a great job of making the Taxation and Revenue Department more efficient and responsive to taxpayers, and I look forward to continuing that progress under Rick Homans’ leadership.”

Homans was economic development secretary from 2003 to 2007. His primary focus became Spaceport America, and he left the secretary position in May to run the spaceport.

But two months later he stepped down to take a job with a Malaysian company that planned to build a rubber recycling plant in Gallup. At the time, Homans said it was “clearly an opportunity I could not pass up.”

Plans for the rubber recycling plant soon fizzled out.

Goodwin had served as the Taxation and Revenue Department’s secretary since 2003. Richardson credited her with streamlining the department, helping him design tax cuts and collecting hundreds of millions of dollars in unpaid taxes.

RNC to hold chairmen's meeting in N.M. next week

Posted 3/27/2008 10:54:00 AM

The Republican National Committee will hold its 2008 state chairmen’s meeting next week in New Mexico, and speakers will include John McCain’s presidential campaign manager.

The meeting will be held Tuesday through Friday at the Hyatt Regency Tamaya Resort at the Santa Ana Pueblo near Bernalillo.

“New Mexico will be an important state for Republicans to carry this year, and one in which John McCain’s message of smaller and less intrusive government, lower taxes and a strong national defense has obvious appeal,” RNC spokeswoman Liz Mair said in explaining why the RNC picked New Mexico for its meeting.

A 1 p.m. session on Thursday will include speakers Robert M. “Mike” Duncan, the RNC chairman, and Carly Fiorina, the RNC Victory chairwoman.

On Friday at noon, the speaker during the chairmen’s luncheon will be Rick Davis, McCain’s campaign manager.

I’ll be interviewing Duncan about the importance of New Mexico to the GOP strategy on Tuesday. Check back after that for my article on the interview.

Update, 11:30 a.m.

State GOP Chairman Allen Weh said the party is honored to host Republican officials from throughout the nation next week.

“The selection of New Mexico for this important meeting is a testament to our battleground status, and to the well-held belief that some of the most competitive and important elections in the country will take place in New Mexico this year,” he said in a news release.

This site recognized by Washington Post blogger

Posted 3/27/2008 10:05:00 AM

The Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza, one of the top politics bloggers around, has named Heath Haussamen on New Mexico Politics as one of the best state-based politics blogs.

Cillizza is in the process of compiling a reader-generated list of the best state politics blogs on his own blog, The Fix. In his post soliciting the names of the best blogs, he listed three of his favorites – this site, Burnt Orange Report in Texas and GreenMountainPolitics1 in New Hampshire.

You can read Cillizza’s post by clicking here.