{"id":2705,"date":"2008-01-08T11:50:00","date_gmt":"2008-01-08T17:50:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/2008\/01\/speaker-will-support-legislation-to-ease-ballot-access\/"},"modified":"2008-01-08T11:50:00","modified_gmt":"2008-01-08T17:50:00","slug":"speaker-will-support-legislation-to-ease-ballot-access","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2008\/01\/speaker-will-support-legislation-to-ease-ballot-access\/","title":{"rendered":"Speaker will support legislation to ease ballot access"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>House Speaker Ben Lujan<\/a> said today he will support changing a law that limits ballot access for some major-party candidates during the upcoming 30-day session. <\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, I will support any possible way of getting more people to be able to participate in the process,\u201d Lujan said. \u201cThe more the merrier.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Under the previous law, Democrats and Republicans could get on the ballot by receiving the votes of 20 percent of delegates at their party\u2019s preprimary nominating convention or, if they failed to do that, by submitting petitions containing enough signatures to qualify. The 2007 change, approved unanimously by lawmakers and signed by the governor, got rid of the second provision, and was designed to increase the power of those who control the major parties.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Third Congressional District candidate Don Wiviott<\/a> is suing to challenge the law, and a number of legislators, including Senate Majority Leader Michael Sanchez<\/a> of Belen, Minority Leader Stuart Ingle<\/a> of Portales and Rep. Jose Campos<\/a>, D-Santa Rosa, are proposing changing the law to provide an alternate path to the ballot \u2013 changes that would take effect immediately because of the preprimary conventions that will be held in March.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Lujan said he supports providing an alternate path to the ballot.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

\n

There are some hurdles to approval. Such a change can\u2019t be considered unless Gov. Bill Richardson<\/a> agrees to let the bill be heard during the session, and the governor hasn\u2019t said whether he\u2019ll do that. In addition, Lujan said the emergency clause means two-thirds of House and Senate members would have to approve the change for the bill take effect immediately.<\/p>\n

\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Lujan said he thinks it can be done.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s very, very possible to happen. I\u2019m glad to see the Republicans are supporting it, because initially they were not,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Speculation has been rampant that Lujan would try to block changes to the law during the session because his son is one of a number of Democrats running for the Third Congressional District seat. Many politicos believe the current law helps his son, because it makes it more difficult for opponents of the powerful speaker to get on the ballot.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

But Lujan said he is a proponent of ballot access.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t have any problem with having an alternative way of getting people on the ballot if they so desire,\u201d he said. \u201cI feel that people should have an opportunity if they\u2019re interested in running for office.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

Update, 4:40 p.m.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

In a news release, state GOP Executive Director Adam Feldman said this about Lujan\u2019s assertion that it was the GOP that originally wasn\u2019t supporting an alternate path to the ballot.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

\u201cThe Republican Party has been steadfast in its criticism of Lujan\u2019s restrictive ballot law, and supportive of allowing another path onto the ballot for those who do not meet the 20 percent threshold at the pre-primary convention,\u201d he said. \u201cFurthermore, we have advocated a legislative fix to the problem, something that most political observers believed would not happen because of Lujan\u2019s heavy-handed, patron-style politics. Throwing blame on Republicans is deceptive and disingenuous, and Lujan should stop doing so immediately.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

House Speaker Ben Lujan said today he will support changing a law that limits ballot access for some major-party candidates during the upcoming 30-day session. \u201cYeah, I will support any possible way of getting more people to be able to participate in the process,\u201d Lujan said. \u201cThe more the merrier.\u201d Under the previous law, Democrats […]<\/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-2705","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2705","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=2705"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2705\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2705"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2705"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2705"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}