Former Las Cruces Mayor Bill Mattiace has decided he won’t contest the results from the election that tossed him from office earlier this month and won’t sue those who made comments about him that he claims may have been defamatory.
At least, that’s what he told the Las Cruces Bulletin for an article published today.
It seems likely this is the final chapter in the back-and-forth about whether Mattiace will contest the election. It began when Mattiace called new Mayor Ken Miyagishima on election night and conceded the race.
“Mayor-elect Miyagishima, congratulations. This is Mayor Mattiace,” he said at the time. “Unofficially, it looks like you are now mayor by a margin of about 74 votes. All of us here say ‘congratulations.’ We’re one team again, a united city. Thank you.”
Actually, after a few votes were added to the count, Mattiace lost by 80 votes out of more than 11,000 cast.
But Mattiace announced days later that he would challenge the results and would also sue a number of people for defamation related to election campaigning.
“I don’t want to sound like sour grapes, but it’s very close,” he said at the time about challenging the results. “… I think the outcome will probably be the same. … I think my opponent will be happy to know that there’s no shadows, there’s no rumor, there’s no innuendos.”
About the defamation lawsuits, he said the details would come out later, and added, “Boy do I have a lot to share.”
Then, he said days later that he would not challenge the election results, but he would seek a recount of absentee ballots to ensure the integrity of the process. Now he apparently doesn’t even plan to do that.
Mattiace explained his newest decision to the Bulletin by saying there were some problems on Election Day, but the last time a vote was successfully contested, the process took four years.
“I don’t have the time or energy for a court battle,” Mattiace said.
Mattiace said that’s the same reason he won’t sue people for defamation, even though he’s upset that some said he’s in the pocket of developers and a Democrat. (He’s a Republican.) The reality is that, if that’s all he has, he probably wouldn’t have won a defamation lawsuit anyway. It’s very, very difficult for a public official to win a defamation suit. While the second comment is factually inaccurate, the first is someone’s opinion, not defamation.
If that’s all he had to share, there was very little to his claim that he was defamed. He would have to prove that a comment was factually inaccurate, that the person making it knew it was inaccurate, that the person intended to damage his reputation in making it and that his reputation was, in fact, damaged.