{"id":17855,"date":"2010-05-27T09:03:58","date_gmt":"2010-05-27T15:03:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=17855"},"modified":"2010-05-28T07:51:18","modified_gmt":"2010-05-28T13:51:18","slug":"vote-for-anyone-but-powell-lyons-tells-democrats","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2010\/05\/vote-for-anyone-but-powell-lyons-tells-democrats\/","title":{"rendered":"Vote for anyone but Powell, Lyons tells Dems"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Democratic Land Commissioner candidate Ray Powell, left, and Republican Land Commissioner Pat Lyons<\/p><\/div>\n

Republican Land Commissioner Pat Lyons<\/a> is inserting himself into the other party\u2019s primary in the race to replace him by telling Democratic voters they should pick anyone but Ray Powell<\/a> on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe commissioner\u00a0of public lands is integral to the fiscal solvency of New Mexico\u2019s schools, which is precisely why now is not the time to elect Ray Powell,\u201d Lyons wrote in a guest column<\/a> submitted to NMPolitics.net and published today.<\/p>\n

\u201cMr. Powell says he proudly stands by his record of public service. If this is the case, then New Mexicans shouldn\u2019t vote for someone with such low standards,\u201d Lyons wrote.<\/p>\n

Powell responded with his own guest column<\/a>, also published today, that defends his record and says it\u2019s the Lyons administration that \u201chas been a disaster.\u201d<\/p>\n

Powell preceded Lyons in office, serving as land commissioner from 1993 to 2002. After serving for eight years, Lyons is term-limited from seeking re-election this year and is instead running for a seat on the New Mexico Public Regulation Commission.<\/p>\n

Powell faces two primary opponents on Tuesday \u2013 Sandy Jones<\/a> and Harry Montoya<\/a>. Powell was leading both candidates in two publicly released polls of the race, though one showed him in a tight contest with Jones<\/a> while the other showed Powell significantly ahead<\/a>.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The winner will face one of two Republicans \u2013 Bob Cornelius<\/a> or Matt Rush<\/a>, who led in the only publicly released poll<\/a> of that contest.<\/p>\n

Asked why he felt it necessary to insert himself in the other party\u2019s primary days before the election, Lyons said education funding from state trust lands is critical to the state\u2019s future, and he believes that funding will drop if Powell is elected.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the time we need to be thinking about finding more money for education, not hurting education,\u201d Lyons said.<\/p>\n

Asked who he supports in the land commissioner race, Lyons responded by saying \u201canybody but\u201d Powell.<\/p>\n

Powell suspects there are other reasons.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can only imagine that the reason Commissioner Lyons has inserted himself into the Democratic primary race for land commissioner is because he knows I am the strongest Democrat candidate to oppose a Republican candidate in the November general election,\u201d Powell said. \u201cIt also gives him publicity for his Public Regulation Commission race.\u201d<\/p>\n

In addition, perhaps Lyons \u201cdreads what I find upon returning to the land office,\u201d Powell said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs I\u2019ve said many times, one of the reasons I am running is because I\u2019ve been appalled at how the Land Office has been managed the last eight years,\u201d Powell said. \u201cIt has been the focus of controversy, audits, and has demonstrated a lack of transparency, public inclusion and accountability.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is my intention to clean house and restore credibility to this important institution,\u201d Powell said.<\/p>\n

You can read Lyons\u2019 commentary by clicking here<\/a>, and Powell\u2019s response by clicking here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Republican Land Commissioner Pat Lyons is inserting himself into the other party\u2019s primary in the race to replace him by telling Democratic voters they should pick anyone but Ray Powell on Tuesday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,1],"tags":[108,107],"class_list":["post-17855","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","category-uncategorized","tag-2010-election","tag-roundhouse"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17855","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17855"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17855\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17855"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17855"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17855"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}