Clerk candidate discloses drunken-driving arrest

Doña Ana County Elections Supervisor Lynn Ellins, one of five people running for county clerk this year, was arrested for drunken driving in November 2006.

Ellins’ blood-alcohol level was 0.14 at the time of his arrest in Santa Fe – well above the legal limit of 0.08. He pleaded no contest to the charge of drunken driving and received a deferred sentence.

After paying a fine, having an ignition interlock device installed in his vehicle for a year and completing the other terms of the deferred sentence, the charge against Ellins is on its way to being dismissed, he said in an interview. Assuming that happens, that means the incident won’t appear on his permanent record.

Ellins called me on Tuesday to disclose the arrest and ask me to write about it. He’s bringing it up as he begins his run for county clerk, he said, so that there’s no appearance that he’s trying to hide anything.

“I basically wanted to get this out in the open because I want my candidacy to be as transparent as the office I run,” he said.

Ellins was in Santa Fe for work but wasn’t on county time when he was arrested at about 8 p.m. on that night in 2006, he said. He had dinner at a friend’s house and was pulled over after he left.

“I thought I was OK. I wasn’t,” Ellins said. “… It was a very psychologically devastating thing for me.”

Ellins said he spent a couple of hours in jail before a friend bailed him out. He said this was his first drunken driving offense. He hasn’t driven after drinking since, and doesn’t intend to again.

Ellins was hired by the county on a temporary basis to run the Elections Bureau a few months before his arrest. He said the county was aware of his arrest but Clerk Rita Torres chose to make him the permanent elections supervisor in early 2007 in spite of the drunken-driving incident.

Ellins said he believes many will react to news of his arrest by thinking about times when they might have had too much to drink before driving.

“I think a lot of people are going to think, ‘There but for the grace of God go I,’” Ellins said.

Ellins is a former committee counsel to the New York State Legislature, a former Regent for the University of Colorado and a former Deputy Secretary of State in Colorado. Since he was hired to run the county’s elections, Democrats and Republicans alike have praised the elections staff, under his leadership, for professionalism and competence.

The Democrat has three opponents in the June primary – Torres, former Mesilla town Clerk Yolanda Lucero and Martha Lucero, another employee of the county clerk’s office. The winner will face former county Republican Party Chair Sid Goddard in November.