Powdrell-Culbert

Several under the radar legal hearings made loud political news Monday. When they were over, a Democratic state representative lost his bid to stay on the June primary ballot, a GOP state representative's future was up in the air and a Dem state Senator was breathing a sigh of relief after withstanding a court challenge. Now the details.

At the conclusion of this year's legislative session Republican State Rep. Jane Powdrell-Culbert said of the 2020 election: "We're declaring war!"  But Powdrell-Culbert could become one of the first casualties of that rhetorical war.

When all was said and done at a district court hearing Powdrell-Culbert, a fixture at the Roundhouse since 2003 representing a Sandoval County district, appeared to come up short in the number of valid petition signatures needed to be placed on the June 2 primary ballot.

The judge did not rule immediately after the hearing, but the attorney for Democrat Gary Tripp, who is seeking the Powdrell Culbert seat, argued she did not have enough signatures because some of her petition forms did not list the number of her legislative district (44). After those signatures were disqualified she failed to have enough to make the ballot.

The judge will make the decision, but petition gathering is now conducted under what's known as  the "strict liability" standard that was set into law by the 2017 legislature and clearly enunciated by Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver. Also, the requirement of listing the district number is listed on the petition forms.

If Powdrell fails to qualify for the ballot it won't be a free ride for Tripp, a former director of the NM  Activities Association. Libertarian Jeremy Meyers is running and Republicans could rally around that candidacy to keep what has been a safe R district in their column. If not, the Dems could score a major coup, getting a seat they never expected to have.

It was a similar story for Democratic Rep. Patricio Ruiloba of ABQ's South Valley. He failed to list his House district number (12) on his petition forms and the district court ruled he failed to qualify for the ballot. Political consultant Sisto Abeyta says Ruiloba told him he will appeal the ruling.

Ruiloba's heavy Dem seat features no Republican candidate. However, write-in and independent candidates have until June 25 to file petitions to get on the ballot and someone most surely will.

A further wrinkle is that a person filing an independent candidacy has to be registered as a "decline to state" voter since January 25. That makes it more difficult for the Dems to slip in a candidate to replace Ruiloba, but they'll work on it,

Then there's veteran ABQ Dem Senator Jerry Ortiz y Pino. His petition signatures were challenged by Republicans who claimed some signatures were not from valid voters but after the hearing the court found that Ortiz y Pino, who represents a downtown/ABQ Valley seat, had a sufficient number. He has held the heavy Dem seat since 2005. Republican Lisa Meyer-Hagen is running unopposed for the GOP nomination.

MOVING TARGET

It's a moving target on whether NM will have in-person voting for the June 2 primary. SOS Maggie Toulouse Oliver's office told us late last week that plans were still moving forward for such voting, but Monday a large group of county clerks (including BernCo's Linda Stover) asked the NM Supreme Court for an emergency order that would make the election an all-mail election with no in-person early voting or Election Day voting.

More than two dozen county clerks asked the state Supreme Court for an emergency order that would allow them to move to a mail-in election for the June 2 primary. The clerks said they otherwise face an impossible choice — putting voters’ and election workers’ lives at risk or violating their oath of office. “The state of New Mexico faces a public health emergency unprecedented in modern times,” the clerks said in an their emergency petition, An attorney for Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver, New Mexico’s chief election officer, also signed onto the petition. The 27 clerks — mostly Democrats but also including five Republicans — argued that poll workers are scared to work and that election sites, such as schools, are already closed with no plans to re-open.

Canceling in-person voting would be a huge challenge and immediately raised questions about the impact it would have on Native Americans and others.

ABQ Dem State Senator Daniel Ivey-Soto, the attorney who filed the petition, says the movement for an all-mail election came together over the weekend. Under the plan absentee ballot "service centers" would be established where voters could pick up and drop off their absentee ballots but where only disabled voters could cast ballots.

The plan would be to mail absentee ballots to all registered voters. However, when that was done in the 2019 ABQ school bond election tens of thousands were returned because the addresses were wrong. The voters had moved.

No one knows what health conditions will be mid-May when early in-person voting is scheduled, but the high court has a doozy of a case on its hands. We'll blog more about it in the days ahead.

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(c)NM POLITICS WITH JOE MONAHAN 2019