Graciela Lopez
I am grateful and honored to say, come June 5th, no matter the outcome of the election, my father will continue to have his integrity.
I am absolutely appalled by the attacks targeting my Dad – Judge Victor S. Lopez, who is running for N.M. Court of Appeals right now – one week before Election Day, clearly a desperate last minute effort.
Inaccurate statements and misleading statistics are being thrown around by my Dad’s opponent regarding his disqualification record. And yet no one has bothered to ask the question of who is doing the disqualifications or what is wrong with the workers compensation system that they are allowed to disqualify my Dad without stating a reason.
If you look at his background, he was a workers compensation attorney, defending workers who have gotten injured on the job sites. That is why, if you were to see who is doing the disqualifications, most of them would be the insurance companies who assume he would likely side with the workers. When Judge Lopez took office, he made a vow to be impartial and fair, and he has done that throughout his career.
But what has remained unfair is the fact that insurance companies have the right to disqualify any judge they think may rule against them, so they don’t have to pay for the workers’ medical expenses that would save a worker’s life, limbs and livelihood. They have taken the liberty quite a bit to disqualify my father because he understands the human face behind many of the cases that come before him.
He has seen workers lose their lives because of the flaws in the current system of justice. He wants to correct those flaws. He would make a great contribution to the Court of Appeals based on his background and his passion for a fair and impartial system of justice.
He chose not to take the big-time money from lawyers, special interests or corporations who may go before him. He only accepted $5 from New Mexicans who chose to contribute.
He understands the struggles that New Mexican workers face. He is truly the people’s judge. And he is choosing to run a clean race based on his merits, no dirty fact distortion.
Some facts
Even though his opponent is making choices that would make it easy to bash her, my Dad is choosing not to pursue negative campaigning. I am so outraged by what I have seen coming from his opponent that I would like to point out some facts. She is choosing to distort facts and make misleading accusations; she is taking big money from out of state, including a $5,000 check from a law firm in Texas; her campaign money comes from large contributions from lawyers who may go before her, her wealthy family, and about $20,000 from her own pocket, most of which went to hiring out-of-state firms; she even spent some of it on a private investigator to spy on my father to dig dirt and distort statistics.
My Dad is running a clean and fair campaign, she is choosing to run a dirty campaign; I would expect this kind of behavior from a Republican presidential candidate, not a Democrat judicial candidate.
My Dad, Judge Victor S. Lopez, is running a clean campaign on his merits rather than pointing out his opponents’ glaring flaws. Who would you rather have sitting on your Court of Appeals bench, a fair and impartial people’s judge running a clean campaign, or a judge who accepts money from people who appear before her, throws tons of money away from the New Mexicans she is supposedly trying to serve, distorts facts, and is selling her integrity to win this race?
I am grateful and honored to say, come June 5th, no matter the outcome of the election, my father will continue to have his integrity.
Please vote with your conscience; vote for Victor S. Lopez for N.M. Court of Appeals.
This letter is coming from my heart. This message was not endorsed by Victor S. Lopez for N.M. Court of Appeals.
Graciela Raquel Sedillo Lopez was the commencement speaker for her graduating class of 2010 from the School of International Service at American University in Washington D.C., with a degree in peace and conflict resolution and a minor in women’s and gender studies. Since graduating she has found a balance of living her dream and selflessly serving her family by helping her Dad, Victor S. Lopez, in his bid for the N.M. Court of Appeals.