Benny Shendo, Jr., cabinet secretary for the state’s Indian Affairs Department, confirmed today that he will run for the Third Congressional District seat being vacated by Tom Udall.
He has been considering the race for some time.
“We’re beyond the thinking stage,” he said today. “We are going to move forward.”
Shendo, a Democrat, said he hasn’t set a date to formally announce his candidacy, but hopes to make the announcement “within the next couple of weeks.” He said his campaign budget will be “$500,000, minimum.”
Raising that amount of money will help him keep pace with the bar that has been set by Santa Fe green builder Don Wiviott, who has pledged at least $325,000 of his own money to the race.
The only other announced candidate is Santa Fe County Commissioner Harry Montoya. Several other Democrats, including Public Regulation Commission Chairman Ben Ray Lujan, Santa Fe County Sheriff Greg Solano and former state Rep. Patsy Trujillo say they’re considering the race, and Lujan is expected to run.
No Republicans have entered the race, but Los Alamos National Laboratory engineer Ron Dolin and state Rep. Brian Moore are among those considering running.
Shendo said he hopes to have “several thousand people contributing small amounts of money” to his campaign, and said he has a plan to make that happen.
“We’ll do well,” he said. “There will be the big-money people but you also have to involve people who don’t have lots of money in the campaign.”
He said his platform will include environmental issues but will be centered on education. Most of his career has been in education.
“Certainly, education will be my core, and from there we’ll build,” he said. “Everybody talks about education, but I’ve done it. It’s an easy thing to talk about but the hardest thing to do.”
Shendo, a native of the Jemez Pueblo, was appointed to his current position by Gov. Bill Richardson in 2004 and is the first to hold the relatively new cabinet position for Indian affairs. He has served in various management positions, including running the Native American program at the
He has served as 2nd and 1st lieutenant governor for his pueblo and co-founded there the first charter school on an Indian reservation in the state.
Shendo has two children, Eileen and Benjamin, and is a graduate of the