Did Gov. Bill Richardson go against his own word and step into the leadership battle in the state Senate?
He isn’t saying, but some Democratic senators say they believe he’s doing just that by pushing some senators to back Carlos Cisneros, D-Questa, instead of Tim Jennings, D-Roswell, to be Senate president pro tem. The caucus on Sunday nominated Cisneros to replace Jennings in the job, but Jennings says he intends to seek GOP support to keep the position.
“Everybody tells me that he did,” Jennings was quoted by the New Mexico Independent as saying about Richardson’s alleged intervention. “Whether they have the courage to tell you I don’t know. People tell me he called people up to the office.”
Sen. Mary Kay Papen, D-Las Cruces and a Jennings supporter, also said she had heard about such meetings, but she didn’t know the names of any who had met with Richardson.
A Richardson spokesman didn’t return two phone calls for comment, according to the Independent’s article. He also has not responded to an e-mail request for comment from me.
Here’s what Richardson said on Nov. 5, the day after the election, according to the Independent:
“I don’t interfere in legislative leadership races. But I think the Sen. Jennings is going to have to answer to his caucus in how he interfered in race that the Democrat won,” Richardson said.
Jennings recorded a robocall and radio ad decrying negative attacks against outgoing Senate Minority Whip Leonard Lee Rawson, R-Las Cruces, who narrowly lost to Democrat Steve Fischmann on Nov. 4.
Sen. Dede Feldman, D-Albuquerque, told me that there’s something else behind the leadership battle.
“The New Mexico Senate is the last stand for Republicans,” she said. “They’ve lost every other office in the state, and so now they have a chance to gain the New Mexico Senate and they’re going to go for it, and they have their allies.”
Whether they have enough allies to defeat Cisneros is the question. Sen. Majority Whip Mary Jane Garcia, D-Doña Ana, told the Independent that she supports Cisneros and he has “the bulk of the Democratic votes in the caucus.” Papen, on the other hand, said there were “quite a large number of votes that went to Sen. Jennings.”
The tally from the secret vote hasn’t been released publicly, so no one seems to know with certainty what will happen.