State Sen. Linda Lopez, D-Albuquerque, announced this weekend that she’s running for lieutenant governor next year.
Lopez is the second candidate to enter the race. Santa Fe County Sheriff Greg Solano, a Democrat, is also running.
Lopez formally jumped into the 2010 Democratic primary this weekend at the state Democratic Party’s central committee meeting by telling those in attendance that she’s running. The senator, who is in her 13th year in that position, later confirmed her candidacy to 770 KKOB-AM reporter Peter St. Cyr.
“I believe I can sit at the helm to run the Senate, knowing and having worked with my colleagues, but I also think I can bring a fresh perspective,” she said.
Lopez specifically cited economic development, health care, behavioral health services and education for Hispanics as among her key issues.
Lopez chairs the Senate Rules Committee, and was accused repeatedly during the session of stonewalling ethics reform. However, near the end of the session her committee and then the Senate approved a bill that, thanks to the governor’s signature, enacts campaign contribution limits in New Mexico for the first time. And Lopez carried on the Senate floor a bill to open legislative conference committees to the public that was sponsored by state Rep. Joseph Cervantes, D-Las Cruces.
That bill was approved by the Senate and signed by the governor.
Asked by St. Cyr about future ethics reform — an ethics commission is among the proposals that has died annually in her committee — Lopez said she is “very much” willing to “continue working on the issue of ethics reform.”
“We did get some measures through this year. The Legislature is a process and there’ll be some more coming out next year and the year after,” she said.
Lopez briefly entered the 2002 Democratic primary for lieutenant governor, but ultimately didn’t appear on the ballot that year.