Ex-U.S. Rep. Steve Pearce (Photo by David Alire Garcia)

Ex-U.S. Rep. Steve Pearce (Photo by David Alire Garcia)

Monday’s announcement that former U.S. Rep. Steve Pearce is aiming to knock off Democratic U.S. Rep. Harry Teague next year sets up a potential donnybrook between two oil-and-gas insiders.

Both Pearce, a Republican, and Teague hail from the oil patch region of New Mexico. They’re both wealthy. And they speak in the cadences of rural New Mexico.

It should also be noted that the two men are friendly, their paths crossing a few decades ago when Teague appointed Pearce to a local fair board, Pearce said.

Teague was a Lea County commissioner and Pearce, who later served in the New Mexico House of Representatives, was his appointment.

But that personal connection won’t bar a vigorous electoral contest, Pearce told NMI on Monday.

“It’s just like we had good friends in Carlsbad when we played them in baseball, but we still wanted to beat them,” Pearce said, explaining his decision to run.

Teague’s office released a statement Monday a few hours after Pearce’s announcement that didn’t acknowledge the former congressman’s plans. Rather it trumpeted Teague’s accomplishments during his first six months in Congress and sought to frame the freshman congressman as transcending partisan politics.

“I ran for Congress because I felt the people of southern New Mexico needed someone to better represent them and their values in Washington, someone who understood and could deliver on their needs and priorities,” the statement read.

Teague’s statement ended with this:

One thing is clear from my travels throughout the second congressional district — people are tired of partisan politics being more important than progress for southern New Mexico.

Teague defeated Republican Ed Tinsley in November to become the first Democrat in nearly three decades to hold the 2nd Congressional District seat, helping the Democrats score a clean sweep in last year’s congressional contests.

U.S. Rep. Harry Teague

U.S. Rep. Harry Teague

But to some his party affiliation, with that big D behind his name, makes him somewhat of a marked man in the state’s most conservative congressional district. The freshman congressman also has taken at least one vote that has put him on the hot seat: his support for a controversial cap-and-trade legislation that cleared the House in late June. Supporters say the bill will help the U.S. battle global climate change. Opponents say it will cost jobs.

Teague already has come in for some criticism from the National Republican Congressional Committee.

Now Pearce is jumping on, saying that Teague’s vote on the cap-and-trade bill was what pushed him to run against Teague.

“The cap-and-trade thing was an absolute affront,” Pearce said. “And I just feel like that it is going to cost us jobs. There are 23,000 jobs in the oil and gas industry in New Mexico and they could very well be at risk like timber jobs were.”

Pearce, who lost to then-U.S. Rep. Tom Udall in last year’s race to replace outgoing Republican Sen. Pete Domenici, has often been the source of speculation, especially among New Mexico’s political class. His name has is often mentioned in the small group of potential 2010 gubernatorial candidates.

But Pearce said he decided to seek his old seat again after he and his wife conducted a months-long process answering two questions: whether to run again; and, if so, what to run for?

“Both of us agreed that to get to this level has taken a lot of work,” Pearce explained.

Pearce ultimately eschewed the governor’s race, saying Monday that he wants to be back in Congress where the “real fight for our freedoms are,” he said.

“The issues of liberty, the economy, those play out at the national level and I am more versed in those,” Pearce said.

Pearce acknowledged that winning a statewide race is much tougher than taking back his old seat in Southern New Mexico, as demonstrated by his double-digit loss to Udall.

“There’s absolutely no doubt about it,” Pearce said. “But I don’t shy away from hard fights because they are hard fights.”