At the end of the night Democrats had 19 safe seats, while Republicans had 17, according to the Secretary of State’s website.

But that means that most of the 34 House seats up for grabs in November – 26 — belong to Democrats. Only eight are are currently in Republican hands.

That disparity between targeted Democratic and Republican seats signals that the GOP is trying to seize momentum this election cycle to regain legislative seats the party has lost in recent years, said Brian Sanderoff of Research & Polling, Inc., a leading pollster of New Mexico politics.

“Some Republicans feel, like Democrats felt in 2008, that 2010 is their year,” Sanderoff told The Independent. “Somebody’s making a play, yeah, but that’s the idea. It’s a two-party system. Republicans will be the first to admit they have dropped the ball in candidate recruitment. They’re doing a better job” this year.

The Republicans won’t wrest control of the House from Democrats, Sanderoff said, because there aren’t enough vulnerable Democrats.

Democrats hold a 45-25 advantage in the chamber. (Lawmakers in the House are the only ones up for re-election this year. Lawmakers in the Senate run every four years, meaning they aren’t up for re-election until 2012.) But the GOP has a real shot at regaining a few House seats that were considered safe Republican posts until they unexpectedly lost them, he said.

The most cited example is House District 30, which Democrat Karen Giannini won in 2008 in a shocker by beating GOP lawmaker Justine Fox Young.

It was one of the bigger surprises in 2008, which by almost any measure was a decidedly Democratic year in New Mexico.

Democrats swept the state’s congressional races and added seats in the state House and Senate.

This year Republicans are hoping to repay the favor, and are attempting to surf voter discontent and anger that polls have been picking up on nationally.

Giannini faces GOP opponent Nate Gentry in November.

“You don’t pick up seats unless you run someone,” Sanderoff said.

A recap of Tuesday night

There were few shockers among Tuesday night’s legislative races. But there were surprises. Unofficial returns show two-term Democrat Elias Barela, D-Belen, losing to fellow Democrat Julian Luna.

Eight-term Republican Gloria Vaughn, R-Alamogordo, probably won’t return to the Legislature either. She appears to have lost to GOP challenger Yvette Herrell.

Both Luna and Herrell face opponents in November.

Meanwhile in Santa Fe, House Speaker Ben Lujan’s had an up-close-and-personal experience with an election night scare. Lujan appears to have eked out a victory over challenger Carl Trujillo. But the battle isn’t quite over as Santa Fe County Clerk’s Office counts provisional ballots in that race and Trujillo appears poised to ask for a recount if the election doesn’t go his way.

Vaughn and Barela might have been the only lawmakers to lose Tuesday, but first-term Democrat Sandra Jeff, D-Crownpoint, almost joined them.

Jeff’s profile rose this year, in part, due to her open challenge of Lujan and other powerful lawmakers on key pieces of legislation during this year’s regular and special legislative sessions.

Jeff barely fended off two challengers Tuesday night, including former lawmaker Irvin Harrison, whom Jeff replaced in 2008 after Harrison departed the Legislature.

In another closely watched race six-term Democrat Richard Vigil won a four-way primary to face GOP challenger Mel Root in November.

Deciding not to run

Besides Barela and Vaughn other lawmakers won’t be back in January, but they’re not returning of their own choice.

Veteran lawmakers Jose Campos, a Democrat, and Republicans Janice Arnold-Jones and Kathy McCoy all chose not to run for re-election.

Campos sought unsuccessfully to become his party’s lieutenant governor nominee Tuesday night. He came in third in Tuesday’s voting, behind Brian Colon and Lawrence Rael.

Campos’ seat will be contested in November. Democrat George Dodge Jr. faces Republican Melinda Joy Russ.

But replacements for both Arnold-Jones, who ran unsuccessfully for the GOP’s gubernatorial nomination Tuesday night, and McKoy were chosen Tuesday night. Republicans Conrad James and James Smith won the seats in GOP primary elections.

They face no Democratic opposition in November.

Afterward “The Line” guest panelists Phil Marquez of KIVA AM 1550 and UNM law professor Antoinette Sedillo Lopez will discuss the race.

During a Sunday session, the House passed a measure to reconsider the bill and put it back on the table. The bill’s sponsor, Rep. Antonio “Mo” Maestas, D-Albuquerque, told the House “it’s not a crime to be an addict. It’s a crime to posses a drug. We need to attack the root cause of the crime, which is the addiction.”

The bill would let judges and defendants choose treatment in lieu of jail time on the charge of possession. If the defendant completes the treatment, the charges would be dropped. If a defendant fails to complete the treatment the state can bring the charges again.

“We cannot mandate a person getting clean, whether its drug abuse or alcohol abuse,” said Rep. Candy Spence Ezzell, R- Roswell. “In my opinion its a get out of jail free card.”

Opponents argued that a defendant could get away with just a few months of treatment and then have the charges dropped, instead of facing the 18 months in jail that usually comes with the charge.

The bill will now head to the Senate after the change of fortune in the votes. Looking at the first vote, in which the measure failed, 11 representatives changed their vote.

Those who first voted no on the bill’s first vote, but voted yes Tuesday are:

• Rep. Ray Begaye
• Rep. Andy Nunez
• Rep. Don Tripp
• Rep. Luciano “Lucky” Varela

Those who first voted yes, but changed their votes to no are:

• Rep. Jose Campos
• Rep. Rudy Martinez

Those who were present for the first vote, but not for the second were:

• Rep. Janice Arnold-Jones
• Rep. Rhonda King
• Rep. Tom Taylor
• Rep. Patricia Lunstrom
• Rep. James Madalena

]]> http://newmexicoindependent.com/47830/treatment-not-jail-bill-is-paroled-moves-on/feed 0 http://newmexicoindependent.com/47804/house-votes-to-ban-contributions-from-lobbyists-contractors http://newmexicoindependent.com/47804/house-votes-to-ban-contributions-from-lobbyists-contractors#comments Tue, 16 Feb 2010 23:21:45 +0000 Larry Behrens http://newmexicoindependent.com/?p=47804 After two days of turmoil, over four hours of heated debate and lots of procedural wrangling, the House on Tuesday passed a major piece of ethic legislation. HB 118 would ban campaign contributions from lobbyists and big state contractors from giving money to state-wide candidates and political parties.

The bill now has less than 48 hours to try and get through the Senate.

“It has a good chance,” said sponsor Rep. Jose Campos, D-Santa Rosa, “it’s a good bill.”

The debate became heated at times and House Republicans at one point requested a ‘call of the House,’ meaning the chamber doors are locked and those members are not allowed to leave until it is lifted.

As it stands now, a lobbyist can collect money from several clients and then “bundle” them into a contribution to a candidate. But because of the bundling, the public–and sometimes the candidate–don’t know exactly where the money came from.

“I think it would better to make things more professional and not have contributions from lobbyists,” Rep. Brian Egolf, D-Santa Fe, said during the debate.

Supporters of the bill say it will allow everyone to know who’s giving money to whom. While lobbyists would not be able to directly donate, lobbyists would be permitted to deliver un-bundled donations from their clients.

The 46-24 vote came after Rep. Janice Arnold-Jones, R-Albuquerque, tried to move a substitute that  would have prevented bundling of contributions from lobbyists’ clients and exempted lobbyists’ from the ban.

”Our constituents are absolutely furious about pay-to-play,” she said, pointing a number of state scandals and arguing “there is nothing, absolutely nothing in this bill that would’ve stopped that.”

Those who have a state contract worth over $250,000 dollars would also be banned from making contributions. But opponents of the measure argued the bill would drive the political money in the state underground and not prevent the pay-to-play scandals it aims to stop.

They argue the recent pay-for-play concerns had to do with companies who sought state contracts after making sizable donations to candidates, and again said HB 118 wouldn’t stop it.

Opponents also argued that the bill wouldn’t stop contractors from using a third party to make the contributions to candidates or parties.

HB 118 has had a long fight to this point. House committees revised it and also required it be combined with a similar bill.  Tuesday’s vote came after the bills sponsor stopped debate on Monday to revise the bill again.

The full House debated the bill for over an hour on Monday before the sponsor asked for it to be ‘rolled over,’ or delayed.

During Monday’s debate, House Republicans raised issues of fairness and freedom of speech.

“Obviously this is an issue we must look at to clean up the appearance of corruption,” Campos said.

Campos said he would bring the bill back on Tuesday, and said that he has passed bills this late in the session before.

The bill has already dropped a couple of provisions from the first time it was introduced, and its been joined with a similar bill backed by the Governor.

“I believe this unprecedented investment shows that New Mexico has not only become the center of the North American solar industry, but is ready to take its place as a global player in the production of renewable energy,” Richardson said during a late morning press conference.

The project, funded by Corporacion Gestamp, will produce 300 construction jobs during the estimated four years needed to build the facility, state officials said. Once up and running, the solar array will stretch over 2,500 acres and generate 300 mega-watts of electricity, or enough electricity to power 50,000 households for a year, said the company’s CEO Juan Riberas.

Rep. Jose Campos, and mayor of Santa Rosa, welcomed the news Wednesday.

“We have strived to become the Silicon Valley of renewable energy in the nation and now these companies are finally recognizing the state of New Mexico for all the resources and assets that we have. Obviously we do have a lot of wind. We have a lot of sun. And we have a lot of biomass opportunities. The one challenge we do have is to create better transmission.”

Facilities such as the one envisioned by Corporacion Gestamp can generate electricity but require transmission lines of a certain capacity to get that power out.

Campos later said he knew of no problems the company would encounter in transmitting its power from the facility. A large transmission line owned by the Public Service Company of New Mexico runs about 15 miles north of the proposed facility, state officials said.

Richardson and state economic development officials touted Tuesday’s announcement as another sign of New Mexico’s growing reputation in the world’s renewable energy market.

Corporacion Gestamp has more than 20,000 employees in 22 countries around the globe, Riberas said.

“They’re for real,” added Clark Krause of the New Mexico Partnership. The state began talks with the multinational firm a year ago in San Diego and has been courting the company since, officials said.

Over the past14 months, New Mexico has announced plans for several solar facilities, including Schott Solar in Albuquerque and Signet Solar in Belen, would around New Mexico.

Not all the solar facilities are finding an easy path, however.

Signet Solar in Belen has run into challenges getting its facility up and running, according to published reports.

The $840 million solar manufacturer was unable to secure a loan guarantee for the first phase of its project, the Valencia County News Bulletin reported Wednesday.

Here’s an excerpt from the story:

Earlier this month, the U.S. Department of Energy rejected a loan guarantee for Signet Solar Inc., an assurance on a bank loan that was meant to back 80 percent of the $220 million for the initial phase of the four-part expansion, according to Jim Wood, vice president of Coast Range Investments, the developer of the project.

The candidates in the race for Lieutenant Governor are Santa Fe County Sheriff Greg Solano, Albuquerque state Sens. Linda Lopez and Gerald Ortiz y Pino, and state Rep. Jose Campos of Santa Rosa. Former state Democratic Party Chairman Brian Colón and veteran politico Lawrence Rael are raising money but haven’t officially announced — thought both Colón and Rael look to be included in the Santa Fe Democratic Party’s count of seven.

Law student and former Naval officer Matthew Padilla is also considering a run.

Campos, who is also the mayor of Santa Rosa, “will formally announce his candidacy” on Tuesday at 11 a.m. at the Rudolfo Anaya/Bless Me Ultima monument in Santa Rosa, according to a news release. Click here for a map.

Campos’ goals include “job growth, economic stability and improved quality of life through the expansion of renewable energy, innovation in education and vocational training, and the promotion of high quality, accessible, and affordable health care,” the news release states.

Campos has been a lawmaker for six years — he chairs the House Voters and Elections Committee — and the town’s mayor for almost 12 years. He briefly entered the 2nd Congressional District race in November 2007, but dropped out two days after he announced, saying a ruptured disc in his back needed immediate surgery that would have prevented him from campaigning.

Already in the lieutenant governor’s race are Santa Fe County Sheriff Greg Solano and state Sens. Linda Lopez and Gerald Ortiz y Pino of Albuquerque. New Mexico State University Regent Javier Gonzales; Lawrence Rael, who heads the Mid-Region Council of Governments; and former U.S. Navy officer and current law student Matthew Padilla have said they are also considering entering the race.

And Brian Colón, chairman of the Democratic Party of New Mexico, is expected to resign from the party position later this week to join the lieutenant governor’s race.

There are no declared Republican candidates for the job.