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New poll declares ‘dead heat’ between Haaland and Hull

By Sherry Robinson

All She Wrote

When Ken Miyagishima, Democrat turned Independent, ended his campaign for governor recently and endorsed Republican Gregg Hull. A couple of days later Hull announced that polling conducted for his campaign found that the race for governor is a dead heat. Political junkies took notice.

The mid-July poll of 400 likely voters showed support for Democrat Deb Haaland at 46% and Hull at 45%, according to the Santa Fe New Mexican – a statistical tie. The margin of error was 4.9 percentage points.

“Gregg Hull is currently a more likeable candidate for governor over the polarizing Deb Haaland,” wrote survey research firm McLaughlin & Associates in a polling memo. “With the right resources, it’s clear that Gregg Hull can win the election.”

On the other hand, Sabato’s Crystal Ball, a nonpartisan political newsletter published by the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, recently changed its rating of New Mexico’s contest from “Likely Democratic” to “Safe Democratic.” Why? Democrats were “unified behind a nominee enjoying a fundraising edge,” but Republicans had chosen “a credible but financially and organizationally overmatched candidate.”

The newsletter said Miyagishima’s endorsement may provide a “modest boost” but “it’s not clear how many votes this endorsement will move.” And it noted “internal dysfunction” in the Republican Party of New Mexico. That’s a nice way of saying the Republicans here have imploded. The court ordered its chair to step down, the party’s central committee is unable to muster the votes to even meet to choose a new one, and its now-former treasurer is accused in a car crash that killed a man.

I question the assumption of Democratic unity behind Haaland.

A Dem diehard and former elected official told me: “I got an email from Deb’s campaign early on saying, wouldn’t it be cool to have a Native American governor. Is that really the value proposition you want to offer? What ideas do you have for improving the state?” We still don’t have a clear answer. That and Haaland’s avoidance of debates and public comment leave a lot of Democrats cold. Could their ambivalence be turned into votes for Hull?

That’s where Miyagishima might come in. Both men were the longest-serving mayors of their cities – second-largest Las Cruces for Miyagishima and third-largest Rio Rancho for Hull.

I had great hopes for Miyagishima as spokesman for what I call the Sensible Center, but after leaving the Democratic primary he couldn’t meet the state’s high threshold of petition signatures for Independents.

In his gutsy endorsement Miyagishima said, “I have known Mayor Hull for almost 12 years. He is intelligent, hardworking and a man of integrity.” He promised to rally support for Hull in southern New Mexico.

Hull responded: “We both know what it means to lead a city, balance a budget, work with people from every background, and be held accountable for real results.” Potholes, he said, are not Republican or Democratic.

What’s the endorsement’s impact?

Former Republican gubernatorial candidate Mark Ronchetti talks about ballots. “I think the vast majority of Miyagishima’s votes would have been disaffected Democrats,” he said on his podcast. “By being in the race, he would have syphoned off votes for Haaland.”

Ronchetti adds that because Las Cruces is in the El Paso media market, “nobody knows Gregg down there. It’s helpful that Ken endorsed him, but unless he can promote that” it won’t matter. That means buying political ads.

Which comes back to money and Haaland’s much reported 7-to-1 cash advantage.

“With the right amount of resources, he can win,” said John McLaughlin, CEO of the New York firm that did Hull’s polling. “New Mexican voters like him. He’s got a successful record as mayor.”

The poll found that 40% of respondents had a positive opinion of Hull, but 22% had never heard of him; Haaland was “unpopular,” with 42% of respondents in favor and 46% opposed.

Hull wasted no time touting the poll results to raise money. “The latest statewide poll shows our campaign begins in a statistical tie,” Hull posted on X. “But after voters learn about my record of proven leadership and results, we move into a 49% to 43% lead.”

In a fundraising email, he wrote: “This race isn’t close because New Mexicans want more of the same — it’s close because we haven’t finished telling my story yet… I need the resources to make sure they hear it — on TV, on the radio, in their mailbox, everywhere.”

In telling his story, Hull would do well to recognize the anger at Trump that’s animating Democrats and many Independents at the same time their response to Haaland is lukewarm. Potholes aren’t a bad place to begin.

Developers spell out needs to jumpstart affordable housing

By Sherry Robinson

All She Wrote

When it comes to building more housing to meet New Mexico’s great needs, we seem to get in our own way.

Recently, affordable housing developers – two for-profit and one non-profit – told a legislative interim committee that the market is paralyzed for a host of reasons.

The Housing Abundance Coalition (members include industry, housing and legislators) documents the need at 34,000 units statewide, an $11.9 billion problem, although Mackenzie Bishop of Abrazo Homes was quick to say, “Money alone won’t solve the problem.” He also said, “Government alone can’t fix it.”

Hence, the coalition.

Developers primarily described conditions in Albuquerque and Santa Fe, but discussion afterward made it clear that the situation is far worse in rural areas.

At a meeting of the New Mexico Mortgage Finance Authority Oversight Committee, Bishop described 20 years of underbuilding in New Mexico.

Why? Because approvals from local governments take so long (in Santa Fe, up to four years) that it drives up costs, uncertainty and risk for developers. As they wrangle approvals, they’re also competing for financing against less risky projects in other states, so capital costs rise.

It will take 12 months and $2 million to get permits and close on financing, said Felipe Rael, of the nonprofit Sol Housing. “We need certainty. When we get a no, that’s $2 million our organization is out. We can’t deliver units if we don’t start them.”

If developers get a project off the ground, they will face a shortage of contractors and subcontractors. With no subs bidding against each other for work, costs go up. And nobody has enough skilled workers.

New Mexico’s gross receipts tax on materials AND labor makes the developer’s sales tax burden twice as high as other states and adds $32,000 per unit, said Bishop, which is passed to renters or buyers. Costs have spiraled for insurance premiums and materials. Local impact and utility fees are up, along with the demand for off-site infrastructure, such as roads and water mains.

“We’re not looking for a free lunch,” said Bishop. “We just can’t keep buying everyone else’s lunch.”

When the project is finished, developers get hit with tax lightening. That’s when the county recalculates property taxes to correct for years of undervaluation and levies a giant tax increase. The owner then has to increase rents or sales prices to compensate.

“The market is frozen,” said Josh Rogers of Titan Development. “We’re not building and no one’s selling.”

Three alarming statistics: Between 2017 and 2023, the state increased homes by 2.9% while the nation added 5.1%. Rents here increased by 60% while the nationwide increase was 29%. And homelessness increased in the state by 87% compared with 40% nationally.

Legislators have spent $500 million in the last few years to help, but “one-time funding doesn’t allow us to make investments,” said Rael, and the program’s deadlines and restrictions are unworkable. “We need consistent, dependable funding grants.”

This year legislators passed SB 151 to remove gross receipts taxes on affordable housing projects, but the provision hasn’t yet taken effect and it sunsets in three years. Two bills that tried to address tax lightning failed and will be reintroduced in 2027.

Sen. Nicole Tobiassen, R-Albuquerque, said: “No developer in their right mind is going to invest in New Mexico when they risk losing everything. It’s the reason I’ve pushed the tax lightning bill for two years. We are in a downward spiral.”

She added: “I’ve noticed that if a bill is deemed an Albuquerque bill it doesn’t get a lot of traction, but if the largest city can’t figure it out, how will the rest of the state figure it out?”

Rural lawmakers observed that their communities had no new housing, and contractors and subcontractors were few and far between.

“We don’t build in rural communities,” Bishop responded. “It’s a huge risk,” meaning he was at risk personally.

The coalition proposes to help to get renters and buyers into affordable housing and into the next tier, workforce-priced homes, or what we used to call starter homes. These homes are the hardest to build profitably, so local developers build fewer every year; as inventory drops, prices spike.

Bishop doesn’t believe subsidies need to last forever and talks about subsidizing “to sustainability” and then phasing out subsidies.

Other proposals: Exempt workforce housing as well as affordable housing from gross receipts taxes. Municipalities must streamline processes, reduce risk, re-examine zoning, and see that fees are reasonable. Educators must rebuild the base of skilled trades. The state should follow other states’ lead in addressing tax lightning and adjust its financing program to operate effectively.

The developers deserve credit for making a clear, candid statement of obstacles to new housing. They’ve opened the door to problem solving.

Tax proposal may be more campaign fodder

By Sherry Robinson

All She Wrote

We’re having a public discussion I never thought I’d hear in New Mexico. After many years of tight budgets and hard decisions before the Legislature, we’re now talking about how to share the state’s $825 million oil and gas windfall from the Iran war with taxpayers.

The governor recently suggested a $250 rebate, and the Republicans countered with a proposal to eliminate personal income taxes.

By tossing out a number, the governor got the ball rolling in June. “President Trump’s reckless war in Iran” and the spike in oil prices, she said, was “padding the state’s bank accounts” and “draining New Mexicans’ wallets at the pump.” She noted the increase was especially brutal in rural areas, where people must drive longer distances for work and services.

The two candidates for governor didn’t jump on board. Republican Gregg Hull said he’d rather see a gradual elimination of the personal income tax. Democrat Deb Haaland offered campaign boilerplate about “lowering costs for New Mexicans” through investments in affordable housing, several tax breaks and healthcare reform.

Days later, state Republican leaders pushed the governor to “call an immediate special session for the Legislature to repeal the state personal income tax effective on July 1, 2026.” It would “dramatically increase the household incomes of many low-and moderate-income families who are struggling in paying their bills as higher gasoline prices continue at the pump,” wrote House Minority Leader Gail Armstrong of Magdalena and Reps. Rebecca Dow of Elephant Butte and Alan Martinez of Rio Rancho. And it would stimulate “economic growth and higher living standards.”

Such a repeal would cost the state – and return to taxpayers – about $2.2 billion, according to the Legislative Finance Committee, or about 16% of the general fund budget. That’s a lot. It would be a massive change in public finance.

Republicans made the same proposal in the last legislative session but offered no data and no studies and didn’t call for any. This time they offered a few numbers. The Legislature would “still have more than $12 billion in recurring General Fund revenues to finance the current $11.2 billion in recurring General Fund spending.” That covers ongoing necessities like education, Medicaid and law enforcement. In addition, the state has more than $11 billion in newly created trust funds and a future $2 billion payment from a recent oil and gas lease sale. Is all that enough to backfill the loss of $2.2 billion year after year after year?

The key phrase is this one: “With record levels of state revenues expected to continue over the next several years…”

Even the Republicans see a short-term limit to this windfall. And yet any economist or Roundhouse watcher can tell you the economy goes up and the economy goes down, and it takes state revenues with it. Now add to that the expenses piling up from natural disaster recovery and the so-called big beautiful bill. No wonder a governor’s spokesman told Source NM the Republicans’ proposal would have “recurring and significant budget implications that demand comprehensive analysis and rigorous debate” and that’s not going to happen in a special session.

Armstrong and Dow have been in the Legislature long enough to know this, so they, like Haaland, are just broadcasting political chatter.

The three Republicans wrote that they agree with the suggestion by Sen. George Muñoz, a Gallup Democrat who chairs the Senate Finance Committee, that “the Legislature should repeal the state personal income tax to provide New Mexico's taxpayers with significant long-term tax relief, not just a one-time rebate.”

On the same day as the Republicans’ letter, Muñoz clarified his position in an op ed: “Reducing – or ultimately eliminating – the personal income tax for working families would provide permanent relief that grows with every paycheck.” He’s previously indicated he doesn’t have much use for rebates.

Muñoz, who is also a businessman, has a keen understanding of the income and outgo of state finance. And he’s well aware of impacts from the Trump administration’s changes to Medicaid and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program eligibility for both families and state government. He made it clear that taking care of New Mexicans shouldn’t be sacrificed for a reduction in income taxes.

“As policymakers, we cannot eliminate every financial hardship. But we can make sure state government is making life easier instead of harder,” Muñoz wrote.

“Fiscal responsibility and compassion are not competing values.”

In this discussion Muñoz and Gregg Hull are the adults in the room.

Wind turbines will power the future

By Sherry Robinson

All She Wrote

As rancher Jim Berlier told it, he was in the Roundhouse representing his soil and water conservation district when he met wind-farm developers who were seeking the state’s permission to build. Talk to ranchers, he told them: We always say yes, and we don’t have to be re-elected every two years.

Two years ago, I was part of a tour group on Berlier’s historic San Pablo Ranch in Torrance County, home to cattle, people and 53 wind turbines. A woman asked him how he slept with the constant whooshing sound outside.

“I sleep like a baby,” he said.

Wind farms, which lease land from the state and private land owners, have been a blessing to the state’s ranchers. Now that Pattern Energy Group’s massive SunZia Wind Project began commercial operations in June, many more ranchers will sleep well.

The $11 billion SunZia is the nation’s biggest wind project by far with 916 turbines spinning in Lincoln, Torrance and San Miguel counties. They generate 3,650 megawatts of electricity, enough for millions of homes, that will reach Arizona and California over 550 miles of new transmission lines.

The project’s epicenter was Corona, which has boomed since Pattern arrived. A few miles away at Clines Corners, the tourist stop’s RV park has been packed with workers. Pattern said the project created more than 2,000 jobs at its peak and more than 100 permanent jobs in operations. The economic impact on New Mexico and Arizona will be $20 billion, including $1.3 billion in payments to local governments and private landowners.

Let’s take a moment to celebrate New Mexico’s huge win – and it’s not just in wind turbines, it’s transmission too. I’ve written for years that if New Mexico expected to grow and prosper, we needed more electric transmission. Pattern Energy accomplished the near impossible by building both.

Which is why it took 18 years – three for construction and 15 for red tape. Pattern persevered. Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., who worked hard to ease roadblocks, recently called for regulatory reform, saying that if we want more projects like this “we need a permitting system that gets to yes — or no — faster while maintaining strong environmental standards and meaningful community engagement.”

A shout-out here to former reporter Kevin Robinson-Avila (no relation) who for years carefully chronicled Pattern’s ups and downs for the Albuquerque Journal.

By 2009, he wrote, the transmission line was embroiled in disputes over potential environmental impacts along with U. S. Defense Department concerns about its effect on operations at White Sands Missile Range. The developers moved a segment north to avoid White Sands but still faced an environmental storm over its crossing on the Rio Grande. Pattern negotiated mitigation measures to protect birds and other wildlife, financed wildlife conservation studies, and bought land to create avian safe havens in New Mexico and Arizona.

What I see is a company that chose to negotiate in good faith rather than fight at every obstacle. Pattern has also been a good corporate neighbor that’s invested generously in the communities where it operates.

Pattern has a big footprint in the state. Its Western Spirit project -- four wind farms in Guadalupe, Lincoln and Torrance counties plus an associated transmission line – has operated since 2022. Two older projects are in Curry County.

New Mexico now has 31 utility-scale wind farms producing more than 8,000 MW, according to the marketing intelligence firm Cleanview. This includes Avangrid Renewables’ Torrance County operation that serves PNM and supplies Facebook’s data center in Los Lunas. That means you can dial down the scary stories you’ve heard about data centers and their voracious energy needs that will somehow cost all of us. There is plenty of wind and plenty of power.

Here’s what else you can dial down – the president’s assertion that wind is “unreliable” and his belief that coal is somehow coming back. Even though his administration is phasing out tax credits and federal permits have slowed, experts say it won’t change anything. Wind turbines outcompete coal, and they’ve proliferated across the landscape, accounting for 63% of the growth in electricity production since 2019. In New Mexico wind now accounts for 45% of New Mexico’s power, while solar and natural gas are neck and neck at 19%, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. The coal train has left the station.

My husband and I recently had the experience of driving south at night toward Winslow, Arizona, and wondering about the necklace of red blinking lights across the horizon. An airport? Powerlines? Military installation? No, it was AES Corp.’s Chevalon Butte Wind Farm, two years old and replacing coal for Arizona Public Service.

Welcome to the future.

New Mexico: ‘A brilliant destiny awaits her’

By Sherry Robinson

All She Wrote

As we observe the nation’s 250th anniversary, historians focus on the East Coast, but New Mexico has proud moments too. Return with me to 1851, when New Mexico became a territory of the United States.

Five years after the United States claimed New Mexico as a prize of the Mexican-American War, Congress declared New Mexico a territory and President Millard Fillmore appointed James Silas Calhoun as governor.

Calhoun was a cut above the usual federal appointee; a former judge, legislator, merchant and banker from Georgia, he was highly ethical and conscientious. (I wrote his biography in 2021.) He was already serving as New Mexico’s first Indian agent. And he spoke Spanish.

New Mexicans had no experience with democracy. They had been under the thumb of Spain and Mexico for more than two centuries and in 1846 became wards of a corrupt U.S. military occupation.

Political debates were hotly divided. One faction demanded that Americans run everything, even though they represented a sliver of the population. And to avoid taxes they wanted to keep New Mexico dependent on the federal government. Calhoun’s faction argued for statehood and had the support of New Mexicans.

In his inaugural speech on March 3, 1851, he said: “An era in the history of New Mexico commences this day… The fate of New Mexico, under Providence, is in the hands of her own sons, and if wise and patriotic counsels prevail, a brilliant destiny awaits her.”

With Calhoun’s inauguration, New Mexicans became citizens – with rights – of a United States Territory. He understood that he must guide the creation of a just and stable government in this remote outpost and see that New Mexicans were closely involved in the process. His experience as a judge and legislator prepared him well for the job.

New Mexicans weren’t entirely unprepared. Prominent families had long sent their sons to the States to be educated, and among the American newcomers were a handful of lawyers.

On May 19 New Mexicans elected their legislators. The men chosen could be considered the fathers of New Mexico Territory, and most of them were Hispanic.

This high level of political participation was unusual for a conquered people, according to historian Phillip Gonzáles. The American political process gave New Mexicans a seat at the table and rewarded them as they submitted to the power of the United States.

Now, imagine 39 legislators settling into small chambers in the ancient, dilapidated Palace of the Governors on the Santa Fe Plaza. Their job was to create a government from scratch.

New Mexico then had about 57,000 people, not counting tribes, and seven in eight were illiterate. Only churches provided any education. Indian hostilities were rampant. And official Washington barely knew the territory existed.

Addressing lawmakers, Calhoun covered issues that are surprisingly contemporary, beginning with elections. He asked them to define the qualifications for voting and holding office so that “strangers temporarily residing in your midst” couldn’t interfere in elections and suggested requiring voters to register before elections to prevent fraud. Regarding taxation, it “should be borne alike, having a just regard to the means of each individual… Not one cent beyond the just wants of the government should be collected, and the most rigid economy should be practiced.”

On education, this father of two daughters said it was important to educate New Mexico’s girls as well as her boys. Agricultural laws should govern irrigation, sale of animals, and marks and brands. Improper use of weights and measures should be penalized. As for the poor, he said, “Let us, at the very commencement of our career in self-government, take special care of the weak and the innocent, and secure to them the means of an honest and virtuous independence…”

Issues of their day included defining relations between masters and peons, demanding that the military restore church property it had seized, exploring the territory, and persuading people to give up their Mexican citizenship and join the “political community of New Mexico.”

For 40 days the first territorial legislature tackled Calhoun’s priorities and their own. By adjournment new legislators had accomplished a great deal. They declared and established the people’s rights, decided who could vote, provided for punishment of crimes, regulated trade and interaction with the tribes, attempted to levy taxes, established the territorial treasury, standardized master-servant contracts, and regulated water and acequias. They passed mining and agricultural laws, and created judicial districts.

In just three months, Calhoun and the Legislature made a remarkable start on creating a territorial government that brought order and predictability. They reassured skeptical New Mexicans and welcomed their participation in the American democratic process.

Thanks to UNM’s Garnett Stokes for eight years of stability

By Sherry Robinson

All She Wrote

In 2006 I got an email from a savvy member of the business community. “Write an article about the UNM mess,” he wrote. “It is an ongoing story. After all, it’s our flagship research university.”

UNM had just gotten rid of Luis Caldera, a shouter, table pounder and top-down commander foisted on us by former Gov. Bill Richardson. I wrote: “Little in his professional background prepared him for university administration. He was personally aloof. He didn’t get New Mexico.”

Two more presidents followed. One provoked a vote of no confidence from the faculty over cronyism in a top-heavy administration. The other was forced out over vague insinuations of an abrasive management style.

Then there was the athletics department. A special audit documented nearly $700,000 in missing revenues, perks for insiders, mixing of public and private money, and years of overspent budgets.

By January 2018 UNM had cycled through seven university presidents in 20 years. In March regents hired Garnett Stokes as the institution’s first female president. This time they solicited input from stakeholders, and Stokes rode in with broad support. She hired such a capable new leadership team that after five years the faculty senate president said he had never experienced such stability.

UNM stopped being a mess for people like me to write about, although our institutions in Silver City, Las Cruces and Las Vegas have taken up the slack.

Now, sadly, Stokes is retiring after eight years in a notoriously difficult job. She led UNM through strained budgets, a pandemic, two campus murders, labor unrest and a new federal administration that’s not friendly to higher education.

Working in UNM’s public affairs office for four years, I marveled at the place every day. A university is like a small town with all the same issues – crime, traffic, housing, infrastructure, healthcare – only you have a population of students. You and your learned employees are challenged to keep that population safe as you prepare them for the future. Now, add to that a burgeoning medical complex, student athletics, scientific research, and student protests.

A lot can go wrong.

Garnett Stokes signaled from the get go that she wasn’t your usual academic executive by visiting all 33 counties and listening to people’s concerns. In a letter to alumni, she wrote about “the importance of building relationships with the citizens whom the institution serves.” She promised “a transition plan based on active listening, campus collaboration and a mutual expectation of excellence.”

When she arrived in 2018 enrollment had dropped for five years in a row, the Legislature had cut $27 million in two years, the state was investigating financial mismanagement in athletics, and faculty morale was at an all-time low, according to the Albuquerque Journal.

Months later Stokes backed a decision by the new athletic director to cut three programs, including the popular men’s soccer, because of millions in red ink. I was covering the Legislature at the time. Students and parents were furious, and so were some powerful legislators. Stokes stuck to her guns. The department has been in the black ever since.

Two years in, COVID forced a rapid transition to online classes as UNM’s health system was trying to vaccinate thousands and contend with overwhelming numbers of very sick patients.

Garnett Stokes has won some and lost some. One lost battle was against organized labor. After years of stagnant salaries, the faculty, adjunct instructors and graduate teaching assistants unionized. The latter (I used to call them the only legal slaves) hadn’t seen a raise in in years.

But she prevailed in bringing UNM proper and its health sciences campus under the same umbrella. Now UNM plans to double the size of the medical school by 2030, and it recently opened a new critical care tower to relieve overcrowding at the hospital.

Keep all this in mind while we think about complaints from the business community that regents didn’t seriously consider former ebay and Hewlett-Packard CEO Meg Whitman as Stokes’ successor.

I spent years covering New Mexico business for three newspapers, besides my time at UNM. A university and a company are much different operations for all the reasons you just read. Academics would look at a business executive, however worthy, as an outsider – not one of us. Let’s be honest. If you turn this situation around, and an accomplished academic wanted to head a major company, she or he would hear the same thing.

We’re thrilled to have Whitman among us and hope she stays engaged in public issues, but the regents did the right thing in sticking to their process and selecting Steve Goldstein, who brings his own academic chops plus experience in healthcare institution management.

We welcome him and wish him years of success.

Republican candidates need a functioning party behind them

By Sherry Robinson

All She Wrote

In January the president described New Mexico’s elections as “so corrupt it’s incredible.” He insisted he would “win by a lot” if they were cleaned up.

Amy Barela, chair of the state’s Republican Party, jumped in, claiming that the Secretary of State “can’t even comply with the most basic federal election integrity laws.”

Following national discussions throwing shade on election integrity, former Gov. Garrey Carruthers, a Republican, and two fellow members of the nonpartisan Observe New Mexico Elections advisory board wrote: “New Mexico’s elections are consistently recognized as among the most transparent and well-administered in the country… There is no credible evidence suggesting widespread irregularities in our state’s voting processes.”

Recent primary elections, by all accounts, were fair and efficient, thanks to the Secretary of State and the county clerks. So much so that when Amy Barela lost her race for Otero County Commission by 46 votes, instead of hollering about corrupt elections she told the Albuquerque Journal, “The people spoke – and that’s the way it works.”

This primary also anointed Gregg Hull, Rio Rancho’s popular former mayor, as the Republicans’ candidate for governor, giving the party its first serious chance at winning in 10 years.

But Hull will need his party behind him. For months the Republican Party under Barela has been too distracted by internal conflict to even field candidates, much less support them. The party must also come to terms with a candidate in the middle of the ideological spectrum when its current leadership is hard right.

At the center of the storm, soaking up energy and resources is Barela, a sitting county commissioner.

Jonathan Emery, her primary opponent (who won), and candidates Duke Rodriguez and Blair Dunn claimed in a lawsuit that she and other party officials violated the party’s own rules against choosing sides in contested primary races. Barela refused to leave the commission race even though the rules state clearly that when the state’s party chair “files as a candidate for public office and there is another Republican who has filed for the same office, the state officer shall immediately vacate the party office.”

Barela’s chief apologist is National Committeeman and state Sen. Jim Townsend, of Artesia, who argues, incredibly, that Barela wasn’t running against Emery – he was running against her.

Dunn, an unsuccessful candidate for lieutenant governor, said it was important to voters to “hold our own accountable.” Rodriguez, who hoped to be the party’s candidate for governor, said the lawsuit wasn’t about one person but about a small group running the party like a private club.

Days before the election a judge ordered Barela to step down as party chairwoman. The party is now appealing, but plaintiffs argue that Barela’s decisions as chair will affect the general election.

Meanwhile, the Journal reports, county leaders are trying to convene a state central committee meeting to elect a new chair. Robert Aragon, an Albuquerque attorney and central committee member who filed his own lawsuit to remove Barela, has said she doesn’t have the votes to continue. He and 246 other committee members supported a resolution in April saying Barela forfeited her chairmanship by competing in a contested primary.

Also weighing in, using his platform as a KKOB Radio talk-show host, is Brandon Vogt, who has hammered the party for not fielding candidates for three statewide offices and sliding with just a write-in candidate for the U.S. Senate race. Barela, he says, is an embarrassment. Because the Democrats have chased away their moderates and the Republicans are in disarray, “New Mexico is now being governed by the fringe left,” he recently wrote. “The GOP is in a coma.”

He’s right that democracy in New Mexico is poorer without two functioning major parties. And it’s more divided. Notice the GOP’s crack along the Albuquerque-southeastern New Mexico divide.

Now Gregg Hull enters the picture. His only path to the Roundhouse is to join Republicans with independents and pick up Democrat Sam Bregman’s supporters along with any other Dems who aren’t on Deb Haaland’s progressive bandwagon.

Although New Mexico’s Democratic Party is calling Hull the “MAGA mayor,” Hull has steered clear of the label. He says only that he can work with everyone. The Rs can quibble over whether he’s MAGA enough to suit them, but the reality of his campaign is that a Trump endorsement would be the kiss of death. Is the Republican Party’s current leadership equipped for such a campaign? I don’t think so.

Data centers can work for local communities

By Sherry Robinson

All She Wrote

Can we have a rational discussion of data centers?

I was hoping this could happen in Socorro, where New Mexico Tech agreed to consider participating in Green Data Center. Who better to look at the proposal than a place full of scientists and engineers?

What we’ve heard instead is so much hysteria that Tech decided not to involve itself in the project.

Data centers have become flashpoints all over the country. Nobody wants one because of their potential impacts, and yet they “power modern life—from telehealth and digital classrooms to banking, air travel, financial transactions, and online shopping,” said an official of The Data Center Coalition. “This infrastructure is not optional; it is foundational.”

The industry knows it has a bad track record and must do better. And if you listen through all the shouting, you might have heard companies make offers, besides jobs, that could greatly benefit the state.

Green Data, a Canadian company, wanted to build a 10,000-acre data center and solar array in partnership with New Mexico Tech. CEO Jason Bak said it would be the world’s largest “renewable-led” data center. Bak unveiled the project in March. Concerns soon erupted over water, energy demands and the environment.

Recently, locals packed Tech’s Macey Center for a town hall in which opponents repeatedly booed Jason Bak and Tech President Michael Jackson. For his part, Jackson tried to explain that all he did was agree to explore the proposal, according to El Defensor Chieftain, the local newspaper. The process would have examined the issues already raised and a few more.

Bak candidly acknowledged public concerns and said he wanted to create a “cleaner and smarter” data center than what the industry has built so far, and it involved 10 gigawatts of solar plus storage. Green Data proposed creating water with atmospheric water generation; if that succeeded in Socorro it could have become a global model and position Socorro as a center for commercialization.

OK, the idea of literally pulling water from desert air threw me, but such a concept is in Tech’s wheelhouse. It’s the kind of big idea that characterizes some of these data center proposals. In Las Cruces the developers of Project Jupiter abandoned natural-gas power in favor of costly fuel cells and promised to use non-potable water from a sod farm. In Gallup Teraplex Data Centers offered to run on wastewater. We shouldn’t dismiss these ideas without study, and we should keep an open mind.

Here's another important statement from Bak: “I think it’s up to us to convey more information.”

Bingo!

These are massive projects, and they seemed to come out of nowhere with too little effort to communicate. It scares people.

I don’t think the developers are trying to deceive anybody, but there’s a lot of engineer-think here. Engineers, bless them, are wired to tinker and cogitate and calculate and try stuff until they solve a problem. But they’re not the best communicators.

I learned this the hard way as an electric utility spokesperson assigned to a promising geothermal project that crashed on poor communications and public opposition. The engineers believed they had a good project and didn’t need to explain it.

Project Jupiter is also guilty of poor communication, made worse with a dark-money campaign by something called Elevate New Mexico. Colorful mailers pushed recipients to contact county officials in support of the project, according to Source New Mexico. It backfired.

Lately, Project Jupiter developers have stepped out with real communications, reports independent journalist Heath Haussamen, who has bird-dogged the project from the beginning (see haussamen.com). Recently, they answered every single one of his questions, and he had many. That type of response goes a long way toward reassuring doubters.

In his reporting, Heath discloses that he is married to Rep. Sarah Silva, a Las Cruces Democrat who supports the project because it could raise economic boats in southern New Mexico. They must have some interesting conversations at the dinner table. Another supporter is fellow Democratic Rep. Nathan Small, who married Silva and Haussamen. I’ve long considered Silva and Small among the Legislature’s most sensible people on this and other issues. The two are pushing Project Jupiter to be greener and more transparent.

And that, I think, is the right move. These data centers will be built somewhere because it’s economic suicide to not build them, but we have some leverage.

Ask yourselves if you want your kids and grandkids to find jobs in New Mexico or keep leaving the state. If we want them here, we will figure out how to make data centers work, for the companies and for us.

New Mexico reckons with economic impact of federal job cuts

By Sherry Robinson

All She Wrote

A recent headline tells us that New Mexico lost 2,700 federal jobs between March 2025 and March 2026. It’s actually worse than that.

Late last year the number of unemployed federal employees hit 2,900 and stayed at that level for months, pushing up our unemployment rate.

I spent years at newspapers where we reported – and lamented – the loss of even 100 jobs in this state. These numbers are breathtaking on a lot of levels.

First, about one in 20 jobs in New Mexico is, or was, in the federal government. A dollar spent by a federal employee has the same economic impact as a dollar spent by anybody else. But we now have thousands of newly unemployed who are not eating out, not buying furniture, who struggle to make their house payment. Second, the kinds of jobs we lost should give everyone pause. And third, the government refuses to say how many workers it’s fired.

Let’s take a closer look. Beginning in February 2025, 800 federal workers were out of work here. That rose to 1,000 in March and April and increased steadily through September to 1,600. In October there was no jobs report from the state Department of Workforce Solutions because federal funding was suspended. When the report returned in November, the number had soared to 2,900, a 9.8% cut in the federal workforce over the previous year. The totals stayed high through January and February of this year and stood at 2,500 in April.

More than half the losses were in Albuquerque, but Rio Rancho, Las Cruces, Alamogordo, Clovis, Carlsbad and Farmington also took hits.

Who did we lose? Forest rangers, park rangers, fire fighters, scientists, land managers, wildlife refuge managers, fish biologists, weather forecasters, and nuclear safety managers, to name a few.

A lot of jobs disappeared from land agencies like the National Park Service, which protects the crown jewels of the tourist industry. Some of the chaotic and haphazard firings of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency were reversed in court, and some agencies, finding themselves too thinly staffed, did some rehiring. But thousands of jobs went away.

Last year, Carlsbad Caverns National Park (visitation: 400,000) lost more than 20% of its employees, according to media reports and members of Congress. That led to the abrupt cancellation of guided cavern tours and after-school programs, as well as reduced hours at the visitor center.

The U.S. Forest Service lost a quarter of its employees last year, many of them red-card holders, which means they’re certified for firefighting. We know that Gila National Forest, Sacramento Ranger District and Cibola National Forest lost trail and campground maintenance crews.

Wrote Justin Schatz, of Silver City: “Those recently terminated were not the ‘fat’ or ‘excess’ that the administration says it is targeting. We were the boots on the ground, the ones sweating and toiling under the New Mexico sun, with many of us getting paid just enough to make ends meet.”

The Deseret News wrote this month that New Mexico lost 855 public lands jobs; of those, 481 were in the Forest Service. The Bureau of Land Management is down 108 people, and the Fish and Wildlife Service, 78. Most affected: wildlife management.

We are without these people going into tourist season and as natural disasters get worse each year because of climate change. Those who stay are stretched and demoralized. A friend who spent his career in the Forest Service said he saw tears day after day. Another friend emails from Lincoln County that the mountain air was smoky, and she could smell smoke. Who is protecting her and her neighbors?

The situation is similar at Social Security, IRS and Veterans Affairs offices. Heavy layoffs lit up phone lines in congressional offices, as wait times grew longer and constituents couldn’t get services. Sen. Ben Ray Lujan and Rep. Gabe Vasquez warned that the Veterans Affairs Department was decimated. Many who lost jobs were themselves veterans.

Elon Musk promised that his DOGE would eliminate $2 trillion in fraud and waste but then whittled that number to $175 billion, offering little proof. Recent analysis indicates that DOGE will cost money. Just two of many reasons: It gutted the IRS, all but encouraging tax evasion, and hamstrung the revenue-generating national parks. Agencies had to replace some fired workers at a higher cost and couldn’t replace those with high-demand skills. Then there’s the higher risks of wildfire managed by a skeletal Forest Service.

Finally, there are the wasted skills of former employees who show up as statistics in unemployment reports.

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