I am writing today to announce the closure of the New Mexico Independent. After three and a half years of operation in New Mexico, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news…
While environmental activists played their part yesterday during demonstrations at the capitol building, going so far as to dress up as solar panels and to sing the tune of “You Are My Sunshine,” their counterparts, the anti-cap-and-trade contingency who has…
Roughly one quarter of University of New Mexico students are unimpressed with the state’s flagship public school, according to a survey that questioned college students about their higher education experiences.
Photo by Peter St. Cyr
Unlike Democrats, who are rallying around Lt. Governor Diane Denish’s solo campaign for the party’s 2010 gubernatorial nomination, Republicans and Tea Party members are still vetting five candidates ahead of the June 1st election. And, on Saturday night, 400 Albuquerque Tea Party members heard from four of them at CNM’s Smith Brasher Hall. Doña Ana County District Attorney Susana Martinez was unable to attend, because she was visiting her father at an El Paso, TX hospital after he was diagnosed with cancer.
Candidates, including Allen Weh, state Rep. Janice Arnold-Jones, Pete Domenici Jr, and Doug Turner, addressed a wide-range of topics and generally agreed on topics such as support for gun rights and opposition to raising taxes to balance the state’s budget. All four said they would develop policies to curb illegal immigration, they support requiring photo ID at the polls and want to stop the state’s practice of issuing driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants.
Three candidates have admitted trying drugs
None of the Reublican primary candidates mentioned drug use during the forum, but it was clearly the elephant in the room after Pete Domenci Jr. first admitted to smoking marijuana and using “recreational” cocaine in the ’70s and ’80s during a local radio talk show on February on 770KKOB.
Just days after Domenici’s admission, two other candidates, Doug Turner and Janice Arnold Jones, admitted to trying marijuana.
While Turner originally told the same radio station only that he had not used “hard drugs,” he later admitted to NMPolitics.net that he had tried marijuana between high school and college. Arnold-Jones, also admitted that she smoked a part of a “marijuana cigarette with her boyfriend” while attending college at UNM, but didn’t like it and never smoked it again.
Those candidate’s admissions appear to be influencing some Tea Party members, including Sarah Fetty, who told The Independent that news about the admissions by Domenici, Turner and Arnold-Jones has her concerned.
In this Independent video, Fetty says if someone can be coerced to use drugs then they can be coerced to do other things later in life.
“It follows you no matter how old you are,” Fetty said.
Fetty said she was undecided on a candidate before the forum, but after listening to all four she is going to support Weh.
“I heard a lot of things from the candidates that impressed me,” Fetty said. “They all have good ideas for changing government policies and getting rid of excess fat, but I liked Allen Weh’s personality — he’s very straightforward and doesn’t beat around the bush.”
Drug use admissions isn’t a factor for everyone, including 24-year-old Robert Biggs, who recgonized Fetty’s concern of coersion as “plausible.”
Biggs, who also walked away from the forum supporting Weh, says he’s become a tea party member because he’s “sick of taxes in this state and this government”
“I believe its wise and prudent for us as a nation, and especially as a state here, to minimize government.
Karen Schoendaller spent her Saturday night gauging where the GOP candidates’ stand on various issues.
She said she appreciates Arnold-Jones legislative experience, but likes Weh’s enthusiasm. And, like Biggs, she’s not worried about some of the candidates past drug use.
“What they did back then I don’t care about,” Schoendaller said. “As long as they don’t use them now.”
Arnold-Jones and Weh had one of the evening’s only candidate disagreements–over the issue of how to eliminate the state’s pit rules for oil producers, stronger management rules implemented by the Oil and Gas Conservation Division in 2008. Arnold-Jones said the only way to deal with the regulations–which oil and gas producers say are expensive and arbitrary, but environmental groups say are some of the best in the country–is to sign a moratorium while the issue is studied; Weh said he would eliminate the pit rules by executive order.
Perhaps the most shocking statement of the evening came when Rep. Janice Arnold-Jones mentioned nuclear weapons had been transported out of the country via three southern border crossings–including one in New Mexico. The remarks had many in the audience alarmed and confused, but Arnold-Jones was quick to clarify her remarks after the forum, telling reporters that she was referring to a 2007 report that revealed GAO Investigators had been able to sneak nuclear material and simulated nuclear weapons across the border while acting suspiciously.
To hear audio from the forum click the play button on the bar below or listen online here.
The five candidate field could be narrowed down following the Republican pre-primary convention in Albuquerque on March 13th.
Each candidate will need 20 percent of the delegate vote for an automatic ballot position. Pete Domenici Jr, who is still fielding a statewide staff and volunteer chairs, told The Independent on Saturday night he expects to have enough delegates for the automatic berth, but is committed to continuing. To win, he’d have to buck history, because no candidate has ever won the primary after failing to garner at least 20 percent of the party’s state delegates. But Domenici has gotten a boost, collecting at least $200,000 in just five weeks and topping two polls — one from Public Policy Polling and another survey conducted by students at New Mexico State University.
The ABQ Tea Party’s next event is a candidate “Meet and Greet” on Friday, March 5th. Candidates for Bernalillo county sheriff, state auditor, land commissioner, Congress and candidates for both lieutenant governor and governor will attend.
