Vigil-Giron wants to be lieutenant governor

Former Secretary of State Rebecca Vigil-Giron wants to be lieutenant governor.

You might be thinking that she’s looking to get on a ticket in 2010. Vigil-Giron, however, is thinking about next year.

She told me that during the Democrats’ convention in Las Cruces today.

There isn’t currently a way in state law to replace the lieutenant governor if the governor leaves office and the current lieutenant governor moves up. Voters would have to approve a constitutional amendment to set up a system.

A bill that would have proposed that voters allow the new governor to appoint a replacement with concurrence from the House and Senate died in this year’s legislative session because time expired.

But there’s still time next year. Vigil-Giron, a big supporter of Gov. Bill Richardson’s presidential run, says she’s hoping the Legislature will approve the bill next year and voters will OK the change in November. About that time, she believes, Richardson will be on his way to Washington, D.C. in some capacity.

That would allow current Lt. Gov Diane Denish, who would become governor, to appoint a new lieutenant governor.

“I’m going to throw my hat in the ring if that’s the case,” Vigil-Giron said.

There’s another potential scenario: If there’s a vacancy before November 2008 and no provision exists in the Constitution for replacing the lieutenant governor, Vigil-Giron said there would be a special election tacked on next November. The Republicans could also put someone on the ticket, but Vigil-Giron said she would try to be the Democrat in the race.

Vigil-Giron said she believes the governor’s campaign “is going to explode” and she thinks he has a good chance of winning enough of the early primaries that he can confidently step down from the governorship.

“If it looks like a good, sure thing for him, then yeah, I think he’d step down,” she said.

There is still some probing of a $3 million shortfall in the secretary of state’s office that resulted from expenses from last year’s election, which was run by Vigil-Giron before term limits forced her to leave office at the end of the year. The Legislative Finance Committee, state attorney general, governor’s administration and federal auditors are all looking into the situation.

The questions surround whether Vigil-Giron inappropriately overspent her state budget and whether she misspent federal funds.

Vigil-Giron said New Mexico is one of 25 states being audited by the federal government and that they’re standard audits, not the result of allegations of wrongdoing. As to the state investigations, she said she doesn’t expect anything to come of them.

Vigil-Giron contends that the Legislature required a shift to paper ballots and didn’t provide $4 million that was in the original bill, so it was an unfunded mandate. She says lawmakers told her to come back after the election and request the funds to pay for it – which is what she did with an emergency request just before she left office.

News of the shortfall broke around the same time the governor appointed Vigil-Giron earlier this year to head the state film office. Under pressure from Republicans and others, the governor put the appointment on hold and ordered his administration’s review of the situation.

Vigil-Giron told me today she’s no longer interested in the film job, saying the woman who currently runs the office, India Hatch, is doing a good job. Vigil-Giron says she expects Richardson to give her another job soon.

“We’re negotiating for something else right now,” she said.

She wouldn’t elaborate, saying it’s “kind of sensitive,” but said the position might be in the governor’s administration or might be working for his campaign.