New Mexico

Egolf resigns from PRC committee after ethics panel rules he violated law

14 Comments / New Mexico, News, Politics / By

Retiring New Mexico House Speaker Brian Egolf (D-Santa Fe) has resigned from his position on the Public Regulation Commission Nominating Committee after appointing himself to the post. The committee was formed after voters in 2020 changed the PRC from an elected board to a governor-appointed board. A legal challenge to the constitutional amendment was thrown out by the majority Democrat Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham-appointed New Mexico Supreme Court.

The move comes amid an ethics complaint filed by state Rep. Miguel García (D-Bernalillo), who charged that Egolf broke the law and the state Constitution with his self-appointment. 

According to the State Ethics Commission (SEC), García’s charges were found to be valid. SEC executive director Jeremy Farris wrote that the Commission “has determined that probable cause supports allegations asserted by the complainant [García] … that you violated the Governmental Conduct Act.”

The Santa Fe New Mexican further reported, “Farris wrote that Egolf could ‘correct the violation’ by resigning from the nominating committee in 10 days. Otherwise, he wrote, Hearing Officer Alan Torgenson would preside over a public hearing ‘to determine whether a preponderance of the evidence establishes a violation of the Governmental Conduct Act.’”

Now that Egolf has resigned no hearing on the matter will occur, according to House Democrats’ spokeswoman Camille Ward.

The resignation came the same day the committee had nominated nine individuals for Lujan Grisham to pick from for the PRC. The previous five-member elected commission is now a three-member panel — all of whom Lujan Grisham will select.

Results are in for NM GOP’s state officer election

31 Comments / New Mexico, News, Politics / By

On Saturday, members of the New Mexico Republican Party’s State Central Committee (SCC) met in Las Cruces to vote on state leadership positions in the GOP.

Running for his third term as party chairman, former Congressman Steve Pearce of New Mexico’s Second District won the race, taking 213 votes (55.2 percent) to Bernalillo County GOP officer Sarah Jane Allen’s 80 votes (20.7 percent). Attorney Robert A. Aragon garnered 51 votes (13.2 percent), Eddy Aragon had 40 votes (10.4 percent), and Rodney Tahe got two votes (0.5 percent).

Following the chairmanship results, newly reelected Chairman Pearce wrote in a press release, “This was a spirited campaign, and I thank the grassroots Republican leaders from across New Mexico for trusting me to lead for another term as RPNM chairman. An overwhelming number of these leaders agree that our data-driven approach to identifying and turning out conservative leaning voters is working, proven by the fact that Republican candidates are getting closer and closer to defeating the Democrats in competitive races.”

“Turning New Mexico red is a marathon, not a sprint, and as we look toward 2024, I am excited about helping our future Republican nominees be successful in their campaigns.”

For the first vice-chairman spot, members selected newly elected Otero County Commissioner Amy Barela with 291 votes to Torrance County GOP Chairman Richard Lopez’s 100 votes.

SCC members selected Leticia Munoz Kaminski for the second vice-chair position, with 305 votes to Santa Fe County Republican Party chairman Robert “Bob” Graham’s 87 votes.

Maricela “Mari” Trujillo-Spinelli won the secretary spot, with 288 votes to former Doña Ana County Commissioner Isabella Solis’ 78 votes.

Members picked Kim James Kvamme for party treasurer with 257 votes to Leonard-David Chavez’s 106 votes.

For each congressional district’s vice-chairmanships, SCC members selected Donelle Inventor for the First Congressional District with 74 votes to Eric Lucero’s 25 votes. In the Second District, state Rep. Rebecca Dow ran unopposed with 107 votes, and in the Third District, Drew Degner clenched the spot with 120 votes versus Anita Statman’s 37 votes and Paul Morrison garnering no votes.

Regarding the other officers’ election results, Pearce wrote, “I am so pleased that Republicans chose this outstanding team of young and diverse leaders who represent the future of our party.”

MLG’s health dept. declares RSV emergency, pushes masks, COVID jabs

51 Comments / New Mexico, News, Politics / By

On Thursday, Democrat Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s New Mexico Department of Health (NMDOH) issued an emergency public health order regarding the rise of the respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), declaring masking is recommended.

Dr. David Scrase, the head of the NMDOH, wrote, “It is recommended that New Mexican families exercise additional precautions this holiday season to prevent transmission of RSV, including wearing masks when in indoor public settings and refraining from meeting with friends and family when experiencing respiratory disease symptoms.” 

He also declared, “New Mexican families are strongly encouraged to obtain vaccinations and boosters for influenza and COVID-19 to prevent additional illness.” 

Scrase’s order erroneously claimed, “the use of masks during the COVID-19 Pandemic was shown to reduce exposure and transmission of pathogens.” 

However, there is not a single scientific study proving masks work to prevent any disease, much less COVID-19, with recent studies finding no significant difference between N95 and medical masks, casting even more doubt on the effectiveness of masks in preventing disease.

Even the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) wrote, “The real-world effectiveness of face coverings to prevent [the] acquisition of SARS-CoV-2 infection has not been widely studied.”

Sen. Gregg Schmedes, M.D. (R-Albuquerque), wrote that the New Mexico Department of Health “recommends indoor masking for RSV today. They also recommend bivalent Covid vaccination for healthy people. They did not, however, cite any evidence.” 

Antifa tries to violently shut down Charlie Kirk event at UNM

3 Comments / New Mexico, News, Politics / By

On Wednesday, the University of New Mexico’s chapter of the conservative group Turning Point USA hosted the organization’s founder, Charlie Kirk, to talk on campus. 

The event was met with violent protests from far-leftists, including Antifa and members of the extremist Party for Socialism and Liberation. Some demonstrators slung anti-American sentiments, such as one person who said, “Americans, f**k Americans.”

“It’s really interesting when you try to show up on a college campus and do an optional, voluntary event, how angry the other side gets. But it’s a very important moment for people to recognize and understand that the other side — the left, the radical left — they’re acting like the very same domestic violent extremists that the entire federal government is now organized to go after, and we’re told that’s on the American right,” Kirk told Fox News’ Tucker Carlson in response to the violent protest.

According to KRQE News 13, “Three people were detained before being given summons and escorted off campus. There has been no word on the charges they’re facing as of 10 p.m. Wednesday.” 

Previously in September, a violent mob formed around conservative activist Tomi Lahren’s event at UNM, shoving police officers down and attempting to bang down the door to Lahren’s talk.

Watch a video of Kirk’s event at UNM here: 

Violent Antifa ‘terrorist’ mob storms Tomi Lahren’s UNM event

MLG-appointed NM Supreme Court upholds giving her dominion over PRC

22 Comments / New Mexico, News, Politics / By

On Monday, the New Mexico Supreme Court denied a court challenge to the 2020 constitutional amendment that gave the governor full authority over the Public Regulation Commission (PRC), the most powerful regulator of utilities in the state.

The five-member, all-Democrat state Supreme Court is nearly entirely comprised of Democrat Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s appointees. 

Justices C. Shannon Bacon and David K. Thomson were appointed by Lujan Grisham in 2019, Justice Julie J. Vargas was appointed in 2020, and Justice Briana H. Zamora was appointed to the Court in 2021. The only justice not appointed by Lujan Grisham is Chief Justice Michael E. Vigil, who was elected by the voters in 2018.

The amendment transformed the formerly elected commission to a three-member panel appointed by the governor. According to the Santa Fe New Mexican, the petition was filed by the Indigenous Lifeways, New Mexico Social Justice & Equity Institute, and the Three Sisters Collective.

“This case presents a unique circumstance where there’s a real risk of abuse of power,” said the groups’ attorney Sarah Shore. “There’s a transfer away from the people who in their own constitution reserve rights to themselves to the political branches. This is not a circumstance where the Legislature is proposing to change rights that the people already delegated.”

“Shore argued that the amendment should be struck from the state constitution because it illegally rolled several reforms into one ballot question for voters to decide. She said most voters are neither lawyers nor lawmakers and were misled since the ballot measure did not reference the effect on the public’s right to elect commission members,” reported the Associated Press.

The justices denied the request, claiming they did not believe the amendment amounted to logrolling, which would have been illegal. 

Now, the PRC will be entirely controlled by the Democrat governor, who is sure to use it as a political weapon, as she has done in the past with her hostility toward energy producers. 

More businesses forced to go ‘cashless’ due to robberies, skyrocketing crime

27 Comments / New Mexico, News, Politics / By

Many small businesses are being forced to go “cashless” after a string of robberies that have left them with thousands of dollars swiped by criminals. 

Santa Fe’s Rowley Farmhouse Ales was robbed on November 8 of over $2,000 and a safe that costs about $1,000. 

“They ripped out our safe and about two grand. Plus the safe cost about a grand,” co-owner Jeffrey Kaplan told the Santa Fe New Mexican. This was the second time the establishment has been robbed, the first robbery also netting the criminals about $2,000. Now, the taproom is forced to go cashless.

The criminals  know restaurants have money,” Kaplan said, adding, “We said, ‘Let’s make this less of a target.’ ”

Albuquerque’s Burritos Alinstante restaurants are also cashless now due to crime.

The New Mexican reported, “The reason? Too many robberies where people with guns and wrenches and other weapons or tools came into the restaurants threatening employees and demanding cash,” according to Mary Ellen Chavez, who runs the restaurant chain.

“We had been robbed six or seven times in one of our stores in a very short period of time — six or eight weeks — and my employees were terrified,” Chavez said. “We were trying to figure out how to keep them safe and keep them going [to work]. And our solution helped everyone in that location feel a whole lot better.”

The move results in restaurants and other establishments having to pay three to four percent per transaction to credit card companies. But according to Chavez, after the implementation of the cashless policy, there haven’t been any burglaries as of yet. 

Carol Wight of the New Mexico Restaurant Association told the New Mexican that restaurants “are very concerned for their employees and staff, and they don’t want them handling cash and being vulnerable to burglaries,” adding, “We’ve had people held up and shot at gunpoint in restaurants. … You put somebody at risk every time you take money out of the safe and send it to the bank; you put them at risk just by having it on the premises.”

New Mexico has the second-highest violent crime rate in the entire nation, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s statistics. In 2021, for every 100,000 New Mexicans, law enforcement reported 2,189 crimes against persons or affecting 2.92% of the population. The only state with worse overall crime was Arkansas, with 2,276 crimes per 100,000 people.

2021 FBI data shows NM has second-worst crime rate in the nation

Pro-energy group sounds the alarm on Biden slowing down oil leasing in NM

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Joe Biden, in recent weeks leading up to and after the November 8 midterm election, has been sending mixed messages about American gas prices, which have continued to be setting records throughout his time in the White House.

Energy in Depth, a project of the Independent Petroleum Association of New Mexico, wrote regarding Biden’s continually changing rhetoric on gas prices, “At a rally in New Mexico earlier this month, [Joe] Biden claimed that there has been no slowdown in leasing in the state – although the facts say otherwise. But while campaigning for Democrats in New York state, President Biden bragged that there will be ‘no more drilling’ under his tenure.” 

“These mixed messages have real effects, particularly in states like New Mexico, where a large part of oil and natural gas production takes place on federal lands. In 2021, New Mexico became the second-largest producer of oil in the country, with approximately 54 percent of that production taking place on federal lands. Royalties and other payments from the oil and natural gas industry make up approximately 35 percent of New Mexico’s budget, which funds essential infrastructure, education, and healthcare priorities.”

Biden erroneously claimed at the rally for the reelection of anti-energy Democrat Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, “I know we have a lot of leases out here in New Mexico for oil companies. And we haven’t slowed them down at all. They should be drilling more than they’re doing now. If they were drilling more, we’d have more — more relief at the pump. But the oil industry hasn’t met their commitment to invest in America and support the American people.”

But according to an analysis from the group, the Biden regime has significantly slowed down leasing in New Mexico, right in the middle of a global energy crisis. Energy in Depth “took the total number of parcels offered by the Bureau of Land Management in New Mexico during a given Presidential administration and divided it by the number of years each president was in office to get the average number of parcels offered each year – and the results are startling.”

Biden has offered massively lower numbers of parcels for sale than the past two presidential administrations. The group said the Biden administration has offered 90.7 fewer parcels annually than the Barack Obama administration and 93.7 fewer than the Donald J. Trump administration.

“[T]he Obama and Trump administrations held an average of 3.25 and 3.5 lease sales in New Mexico per year, respectively, as President, while the Biden administration has only held or scheduled a total of two sales, with a current average of 0.67 lease sales per year. Even if the Biden administration were to hold three lease sales in 2023, it will have only offered an average of 1.7 lease sales per year in New Mexico – significantly less than the Obama and Trump administrations,” wrote the group.

Under the administration of New Mexico Gov. Lujan Grisham, many anti-energy bills have passed the state legislature, including the state’s version of the Green New Deal, which will wipe out the energy industry in New Mexico.

Rep. Herrell, narrowly defeated by Democrat, files paperwork for 2024

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On Wednesday, it was revealed that Congresswoman Yvette Herrell (R-CD-2), who narrowly lost reelection to far-left Democrat Gabe Vasquez, had filed with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) for the 2024 election.

Vasquez’s campaign wrote about the news, “Gabe is preparing to serve New Mexico’s working families in Washington this January, but in the meantime, we need to rebuild our campaign’s funds to prepare for the rematch ahead.”

The campaign claimed Herrell is a “far-right extremist” in an email, despite the Congresswoman not being extremist in the slightest. Vasquez used this type of rhetoric on the campaign trail to attempt to discredit Herrell.

Herrell hinted at another run in a November 17 email, writing:

No doubt, we are heartbroken for New Mexico, especially knowing we lost this seat by LESS THAN 1% in a district that was intentionally re-drawn to take me out of office by a much greater margin. In fact, we had amazing gains in every Democrat county – including Dona Ana County where we took 43% of the vote – which was a five point gain from just two years ago! 

I can assure you, it wasn’t for a lack of effort by our amazing campaign team. We knocked over 100,000 doors, made over 75,000 calls and made countless trips throughout the District. Unfortunately, the slim margin did not trigger an automatic re-count of the vote total, and our team could not identify any irregularities that would have warranted requesting one. 

After reviewing the outcomes, we can see by our data that voter turn out, by both parties, was lower than anticipated, but sadly, lower in some of the large Republican counties that could possibly have tipped the scale. 

It has been my greatest honor serving the people of New Mexico in the capacity as their US Representative in Congress. We were able to deliver solid results for our state – even while serving in the Minority. Our Constituent Services team closed over 2000 cases with a 98% success rate! I could not be more proud of how our team made a difference.

We know our work in Washington was not completed, and hundreds of people from all over the District and colleagues in Washington have asked me to stay in the fight…all options will be on the table – so stay tuned.

Again, thank you for your support, prayers and kindness, and thank you for believing in me the way I believed in myself!

The report from Herrell’s campaign was filed on November 22, 2022, right before the Thanksgiving holiday break.

Herrell won the election in 2020 against Democrat incumbent Rep. Xochitl Torres Small. She lost reelection to Vasquez in the November 2022 election by around a mere 1,000 votes after far-left Democrats in the state legislature gerrymandered New Mexico’s three congressional districts to favor Democrats.

The gerrymandered maps are currently in litigation and could be overturned, returning the Second District from favoring Democrats by four points to the previous map, which had the Second District favoring Republicans by 14 percentage points.

Democrat gerrymandering ends in win for anti-police Gabe Vasquez

 

Teacher’s union chief uses tragic death of UNM student to push for gun grabs

35 Comments / New Mexico, News, Politics / By

On Saturday, 19-year-old Brandon Travis was fatally shot by a 21-year-old NMSU student-athlete at around 3 a.m., according to the Albuquerque Police Department. 

KOB 4 reports:

During the altercation, both students were shot. The 21-year-old was rushed to a hospital. At this time, we do not know his condition.

State police say Travis had conspired with a 17-year-old female and two other UNM students to lure the 21-year-old to campus and assault him.

Once on campus, Travis confronted the student and shot him. The NMSU student fired back. 

The University of New Mexico is a gun-free zone. The University’s policy states that except for small exceptions for peace officers, “no person may use or possess a weapon on any part of campus.” 

Despite no solid details available immediately after the shooting, far-left American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten used the death of Travis and others in a recent Colorado shooting to push for more anti-gun bills.

“Hatred and guns are a toxic combination. We must get weapons of war out of our communities and off our streets, and protect our most vulnerable so they can feel safe and live free from the never-ending threat of gun violence,” she wrote in a statement.

“And while these two shootings are the ones we’ve heard about, on any given day in this country, more than 100 lives are lost to gun violence. This madness must stop, and we must commit to expanding and building on the commonsense gun safety reforms of the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act that a majority of Americans—including gun owners—support, including a ban on high-capacity magazines and military-grade assault rifles.”

She then went on to erroneously claim if more unconstitutional anti-gun laws are passed, more lives will be saved. 

She said, “And while these two shootings are the ones we’ve heard about, on any given day in this country, more than 100 lives are lost to gun violence. This madness must stop, and we must commit to expanding and building on the commonsense gun safety reforms of the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act that a majority of Americans—including gun owners—support, including a ban on high-capacity magazines and military-grade assault rifles.”

Nationally, Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives are unlikely to get their anti-gun bills across the finish line with a divided Congress as the GOP takes back control in January. In New Mexico’s state legislature, Democrats have already pledged to fund radical anti-gun bills, including one to make people felons if they do not lock up their guns and others to expand “Red Flag” gun grabs.

In shocking move, NM House GOP elects all new leadership

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On Saturday, the New Mexico House Republicans elected new leaders of the GOP caucus, propelling three new faces to all of the leadership positions. 

In a surprise move, GOP Caucus Leader Jim Townsend (R-Artesia) decided not to seek a third term in the position, although he will still remain a representative in the New Mexico House. The caucus elected Rep. Ryan Lane (R-Aztec) to succeed him in the vacant position.

House Republicans elected Rep. Jason Harper (R-Rio Rancho) to succeed GOP Whip Rod Montoya (R-Farmington) for the caucus whip position. 

Rep. Gail Armstrong (R-Magdalena) was chosen for the House GOP caucus chair position, succeeding retiring Rep. Rebecca Dow (R-Truth or Consequences), who did not run for reelection and will be leaving the chamber. Republicans now hold 25 seats in the 70-member lower chamber, a net pickup of one seat.

Rep. Lane told the Santa Fe New Mexican, “I think Jim thought it was a natural transition and the time to help new leadership come on board, you know, and finish out sort of the work that [Jim Townsend] begun.”

The shocking move by the New Mexico House Republicans comes as Democrats are making significant shakeups in their own caucus, with Speaker Brian Egolf retiring from the chamber at the end of his term and Rep. Javier Martinez (D-Bernalillo) the favorite to succeed him in the Democrats’ caucus. 

The Democrats also selected Rep. Gail Chasey (D-Bernalillo) as the new majority floor leader, succeeding Martinez, and newly elected Reena Szczepanski (D-Santa Fe) as their new majority whip. They also chose Rep. Raymundo Lara (D-Bernalillo) as their new caucus chairman.

NM House Dems nominate far-left racist Javier Martínez for speaker
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