An analysis of the county’s judicial races

This begins my analysis of the local races in Doña Ana County. I’ll have more throughout the weekend, so check back often. Keep in mind, my analysis is not an indication of who I want to win. I don’t do endorsements.

Here’s my analysis of the judicial races.

District Judge, Division 5

Newly appointed District Judge Lisa Schultz, a Democrat, is challenged by Republican Janetta Hicks.

Schultz has the advantage of being the incumbent. She’s only been on the bench a few weeks, but she’s able to urge voters to “keep Judge Schultz” in her advertising. Hicks, on the other hand, has been on leave from her job as a senior deputy district attorney and had more time to campaign while Schultz settled in to her new job.

Both have worked on campaigns in the past. Hicks has worked on more than one successful GOP campaign, so she knows what it takes for a Republican to win a county-wide race. She also has District Attorney Susana Martinez helping her, and Martinez is one of the most brilliant campaigners in the area.

Schultz has the advantage of being a Democrat in a Democratic county. She has more money and also has good people working on her side.

Both are running solid campaigns and have been visible in the community.

Some say Hicks’ weakness is her tie to Martinez, but Martinez got 58 percent of the vote in 2004 as a Republican in a Democratic county, so I don’t see it as an issue.

Others say the fact that Schultz is a lesbian – she’s been in a committed relationship with another woman for 31 years – might hurt her among conservative Democrats, of which there are many in Doña Ana County. Is this county ready to elect an openly homosexual judge to the children’s court? I’ve been asked that question by several Democrats in recent weeks.

I think voters in this county are ready for that, and I don’t see it as being much of an issue in this race. Though there are a lot of conservative Democrats in the area, Las Cruces also has a very high per-capita rate of gay and lesbian residents.

Though the two candidates are very different – one is obviously liberal and the other is clearly conservative – both are excellent candidates. This should be a close race.

District Judge, Division 8

Newly appointed District Judge Fernando Macias, a Democrat, is challenged by Republican Rita Nuñez-Neumann.

A strong Republican candidate could have run a tight race against Macias. Neumann was not that candidate.

Macias, a longtime politician, is vulnerable on some issues, particularly past decisions he made as a lawyer and county manager that affected people in the south county, a Democratic stronghold. Though he has reasonable explanations for the choices he has made, a strong opponent could have used those choices against him.

Neumann has run a negative campaign against Macias, which until this election season had been almost unheard of in Doña Ana County. But her attacks haven’t been effective. She has portrayed Macias as a political hack, and talked about all the awards she has won, but has provided little insight into the type of judge she would be.

Macias has effectively responded by agreeing that he is a politician, and sharing why he believes that experience will help him lead a reform of the children’s court.

To top it off, Neumann doesn’t have the respect of the legal community in Doña Ana County, and has been passed up by bipartisan judicial nominating commissions several times when she sought appointments to the bench. Judicial races get little attention from the public. Many Republican attorneys won’t vote for Neumann and, when asked, will recommend that others don’t, either.

Both candidates are controversial within their own parties. Expect there to be fewer votes by members of both parties in this race than in other races on the ballot.

Magistrate Judge, Division 2

Newly appointed Magistrate Judge Joseph Guillory, a Democrat, is challenged by Republican Steven Foldy.

If you want to talk about a Democratic stronghold in Doña Ana County, it’s the magistrate court. It takes a rare candidate or circumstance for a Republican to win a magistrate race. Currently, all five judges on the court are Democrats.

This race has had little visibility, making it even harder for Foldy to counter Guillory’s advantage of being a member of the majority party.

Foldy planned to work a lot of overtime in his job as a corporal at the sheriff’s department to help finance his campaign, but the federal Hatch Act put an end to that, and Foldy’s campaign has suffered as a result.

Probate Judge

Like the other incumbents in contested judicial races, Democrat Alice Salcido was appointed, not elected, to the position. The county commission gave her the job in early 2005, so she has a lot more experience than the other incumbents in judicial races. Salcido is challenged by Republican Patrick Curran, a former magistrate judge (one of the few Republicans to hold that position). Curran is a valid challenger, but he ran for clerk two years ago and was blown away by Democrat Rita Torres.

In addition, Salcido is running a more active campaign. In a low-visibility race – most people don’t even know what the probate judge does – it’s important to be actively campaigning. That’s especially true when you’re an Anglo, male Republican running against a Hispanic Democrat in Doña Ana County.

***

It’s no coincidence that all incumbents in the contested judicial races in Doña Ana County were appointed. The judiciary has been rocked by repeated scandal in recent years, and three of the four vacancies these candidates filled were created as a result of scandal.

Though none of the incumbent judges in these races have been implicated in judicial scandals, this is the X Factor: Will these new judges, but incumbents nonetheless, be viewed as part of the problem and, if so, will they lose votes because of it?

If there is an anti-incumbent judicial wave, it’s most likely to help Hicks, because that should be the closest of all these races.