The Roundhouse in Santa Fe (Photo by Heath Haussamen)
There are now two Democratic House members exploring the possibility of forming coalitions with Republicans to unseat Speaker Ben Luján, and Luján has also reached out to Republicans in an attempt to shore up support.
House Minority Leader Tom Taylor of Farmington said Saturday that Thomas Garcia of Ocate has talked with some Republican members about forming a coalition to become speaker. And Luján has called some Republicans to seek their support, Taylor said.
I’ve already reported that Joseph Cervantes of Las Cruces has been in touch with Republicans about possibly seeking their support to become speaker.
House Republicans discussed the situation during their meeting on Saturday. Taylor said they made no decision about which Democrat, if any, they might support.
Thomas Garcia
“From a caucus standpoint, we’re just kind of taking a wait-and-see attitude at this point,” he said.
Democrats meet Saturday to decide who they want to be speaker. Since they hold the majority of House seats, if members of the Democratic caucus come out of that meeting united, their choice will be speaker.
Republicans picked up eight seats in the recent election, meaning Democrats only hold a four-seat advantage, 37-33. Cervantes has received pledges of support from three of his Democratic colleagues, giving him enough votes to become speaker if all members of the Republican caucus – or even all Republicans except one – agree to support him.
No Democratic members have said publicly that they will support Garcia if he chooses to challenge Luján.
Ben Luján
How will this end?
Many sources have been reluctant to predict how this will end. The fact that Luján is exploring the possibility of forming his own bipartisan coalition to keep his job indicates that even he doesn’t know what will happen.
“The speaker obviously has some folks on the other side who have been verbal about not supporting him,” Taylor said. “I imagine he’s looking for three or four other folks on the other side.”
Neither Cervantes nor Garcia has formally declared an intention to run against Luján, but either or both might do so this week, in advance of the Democratic caucus meeting. Most Democrats – other than those who have declared their support for Cervantes – haven’t said much publicly about the situation. Cervantes has declined to comment, and Garcia hasn’t returned a call from NMPolitics.net.
Traditionally, leadership battles are treated as internal, private matters. The public vote for speaker – which takes place on the first day of the legislative session – is usually a formality because Democrats have already met in secret and announced their unanimous decision of who will be speaker.
Most sources see little chance that Republicans will agree to form a coalition with Garcia, but say the GOP might agree to support Cervantes if he runs. Many also don’t discount the possibility that Luján will win over enough GOP members with promises to make the entire discussion moot.
A prior version of this posting incorrectly stated that the House Democratic caucus meets Sunday.