{"id":237,"date":"2006-05-30T00:17:00","date_gmt":"2006-05-30T06:17:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/2006\/05\/house-republicans-set-to-pick-new-leaders-and-sources-think-lujan-will-remain-speaker-for-now\/"},"modified":"2006-05-30T00:17:00","modified_gmt":"2006-05-30T06:17:00","slug":"house-republicans-set-to-pick-new-leaders-and-sources-think-lujan-will-remain-speaker-for-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2006\/05\/house-republicans-set-to-pick-new-leaders-and-sources-think-lujan-will-remain-speaker-for-now\/","title":{"rendered":"House Republicans set to pick new leaders, and sources think Lujan will remain speaker, for now"},"content":{"rendered":"

Republican leadership positions in the House are up for grabs.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Sources tell me to expect that Brian Moore of Clayton will be the new minority floor leader and Dan Foley of Roswell will be the minority whip when the legislature convenes in January.<\/p>\n

Those positions are up for grabs because current minority leader Ted Hobbs is retiring. The current minority whip, Terry Marquardt of Alamogordo, wants to replace Hobbs.<\/p>\n

Two sources tell me that won\u2019t happen.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>House Republicans have been ineffective for years because there are several factions, one source said. Many Republicans view Marquardt as an unsuccessful whip and don\u2019t want him as leader.<\/p>\n

He was elected whip the last time over Foley by a one-vote margin after a few tie votes. Since then, many Republicans have been trying to replace Marquardt with Foley.<\/p>\n

Moore is a choice upon which most House Republicans can agree, two sources said. And though Foley is a controversial legislator with a hot temper, enough Republicans are fed up with Marquardt that they\u2019ll vote for him, they said.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The main criticism of Marquardt is that he has made deals with the governor to save his own capital outlay requests, often at the expense of the Republican agenda, infuriating many.<\/p>\n

Marquardt apparently sent out an e-mail immediately after Hobbs announced he was retiring seeking support for his bid to replace the leader.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s almost like he is oblivious to all this,\u201d one source told me.<\/p>\n

Another source said most Republican House members are uniting behind Moore and Foley in an attempt to make a stand. Democrats have accomplished much in the past few years, despite disunity caused by a polarizing governor, in part because the Republicans have been even more disorganized.<\/p>\n

\u201cExpect a dramatic different from the minority party,\u201d the source said. \u201cExpect a closing of the ranks.\u201d<\/p>\n

Since they don\u2019t have opponents this year, Moore and Foley can focus on lobbying for the leadership positions. Marquardt has a potentially tough re-election battle ahead of him against Democrat Nate Cote. The Do\u00f1a Ana County Democrats think this is one legislative seat they have a chance of taking from Republicans, and the three Democratic House members from the county who are unopposed are working hard to help Cote.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not convinced that Cote will win, but Marquardt will have to spend a lot of time campaigning in the next few months. There is some discontent among Do\u00f1a Ana County Republicans with their party\u2019s leadership, but I don\u2019t think it\u2019s bad enough that Cote will take Republican votes from Marquardt.<\/p>\n

I also don\u2019t think the House leadership deal is done, at least in the case of minority whip. Foley is a polarizing figure, disliked by some members of his party who will be hesitant to give him more power.<\/p>\n

Which leads to Roswell, Foley\u2019s home. There\u2019s been a nasty battle between Republican Party factions seeking control of things in Chaves County, which has boiled over publicly in the stealing and trashing of campaign signs and attacking letters to the editor of the Roswell Daily Record.<\/p>\n

Foley is out to show he holds the power in Chaves County. If he can do that, he\u2019ll probably pick up the votes he needs for minority whip. If he can\u2019t, he risks appearing weak, one source said.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Meanwhile, the two sources who spoke with me about Republican leadership think the move among some House Democrats to oust Ben Lujan as their speaker won\u2019t go anywhere, at least this year.<\/p>\n

Lujan has been under fire since he slipped a $75 million appropriation into the capital outlay bill in this year\u2019s session without the knowledge of most of his colleagues. The governor later vetoed the money because he wasn\u2019t told about it, either.<\/p>\n

One source predicted House Democrats will keep Lujan as their leader as long as he wants to stay despite the distrust many have of him. The other said Democrats may force Lujan out, but will allow him to exit gracefully. They\u2019ll keep him as speaker for the next two years but force him, in exchange, to retire from the legislature at that time, so it will appear that he opted to go.<\/p>\n

Nothing has been decided, but Lujan has a fight ahead of him.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

Thanks for reading today. The primary election is only a week away. If you\u2019re a Democrat or Republican, why don\u2019t you go vote now? Get it over with. Ensure that you actually do it.<\/p>\n

Come back tomorrow for the latest political news.<\/p>\n

An earlier version of this posting had Chaves County misspelled.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Republican leadership positions in the House are up for grabs. Sources tell me to expect that Brian Moore of Clayton will be the new minority floor leader and Dan Foley of Roswell will be the minority whip when the legislature convenes in January. Those positions are up for grabs because current minority leader Ted Hobbs […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-237","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237","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=237"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=237"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=237"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=237"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}