{"id":29037,"date":"2011-05-05T05:36:00","date_gmt":"2011-05-05T11:36:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=29037"},"modified":"2011-10-10T08:36:34","modified_gmt":"2011-10-10T14:36:34","slug":"sunland-park-mayor-running-for-congress-cote-might-too","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2011\/05\/sunland-park-mayor-running-for-congress-cote-might-too\/","title":{"rendered":"Sunland Park mayor running for Congress; Cote might too"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Former State Rep. Nate Cote, left, and Sunland Park Mayor Martin Resendiz. <\/p><\/div>\n

Sunland Park Mayor Martin Resendiz<\/a> says he\u2019s running for the 2nd Congressional District seat currently held by Steve Pearce<\/a>, and former State Rep. Nate Cote<\/a> says he may also jump into the race.<\/p>\n

Pearce, a Republican, hasn\u2019t yet said whether he plans to seek re-election to his House seat or run for the U.S. Senate seat<\/a> being vacated by Jeff Bingaman<\/a>, but most expect him to stick with his Southern New Mexico House seat. Resendiz, a Democrat and the first candidate to enter the race, said he\u2019s running regardless of what Pearce decides.<\/p>\n

And though he\u2019s going to announce the formation of an exploratory committee in about a week, Resendiz said that step is a formality.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrankly, the decision has already been made,\u201d the mayor told NMPolitics.net. \u201cWe\u2019re going to form the exploratory committee first, but I\u2019m pretty much committed to the run.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cote, a Democrat who represented parts of Do\u00f1a Ana and Otero counties in the state House<\/a> for four years, said he\u2019s likely to run either for Congress or try to retake his old state House seat next year.<\/p>\n

Cote said he\u2019s \u201cseriously looking at\u201d running for Congress and is trying to put the pieces together to form an exploratory committee.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve asked some people to be on this exploratory committee and they\u2019ve agreed. No one has said that it\u2019s not a good idea,\u201d Cote said.<\/p>\n

One other Democrat has publicly expressed interest in the race. Edgar Lopez of Las Cruces, who heads\u00a0a real estate company<\/a> and is a longtime political insider, told NMPolitics.net in February<\/a> that he was considering running. However, he\u2019s made little noise since.<\/p>\n

Resendiz isn\u2019t intimidated by Pearce<\/h3>\n
\"\"<\/a>

Steve Pearce<\/p><\/div>\n

If he opts to seek re-election, Pearce is considered by Republicans and many Democrats to be quite formidable. He held the House seat from 2003-2009 before giving it up to run unsuccessfully for an open U.S. Senate seat, then retook the House seat from Democrat Harry Teague<\/a> last year.<\/p>\n

Like the state\u2019s other congressional districts, this district has more registered Democrats than Republicans, but it was represented by a Republican for more than two decades before Teague\u2019s brief tenure. And many speculate that redistricting later this year could add Republicans to the district.<\/p>\n

In spite of all of that, Resendiz said he isn\u2019t intimidated. He said the response to his intention to run has been \u201cfantastic.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou just have to take it to the grassroots level,\u201d Resendiz said.<\/p>\n

Resendiz served as a municipal judge in Sunland Park for 12 years before becoming mayor almost four years ago. The city, which has a population of just over 14,000, is located just west of El Paso, Texas. Resendiz is also the city\u2019s former director of elder care and a former police officer in El Paso.<\/p>\n

He said he knows judges throughout the 2nd District, which will help him build a network, and also has connections to communities he\u2019s worked with as mayor, including Deming, Columbus and Lordsburg. Resendiz said he plans to campaign on helping the district\u2019s residents and communities with fiscal, infrastructure and quality-of-life issues \u2013 the types of issues he\u2019s familiar with as a mayor.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re basically going to try to bring the government down to a smaller level where it deals with people in their every day lives,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Cote says he can \u2018hit the ground running\u2019<\/h3>\n

<\/p>\n

Cote, who lost the District 53 State House seat in the November election to Republican Rick Little<\/a>, has been looking to get back into public office ever since. He sought, unsuccessfully, to get the governor\u2019s appointment<\/a> to the state Senate seat vacated in January by current Secretary of State Dianna Duran.<\/p>\n

Cote, who fought for ethics reform and veteran\u2019s issues while in Santa Fe, said his experience at the state level would be important in Congress and allow him to \u201chit the ground running.\u201d<\/p>\n

In addition, he\u2019s been working on a grassroots level on issues like community safety and food distribution since losing his House seat, and said he is \u201clearning a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI have a lot to bring to the table,\u201d Cote said. \u201cI have a lot of experience, I listen quite well and I am certainly a person of action.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cote said he believes Pearce is vulnerable because he is focused on appeasing the tea party and is ignoring the rest of his constituents.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sunland Park Mayor Martin Resendiz says he\u2019s running for the 2nd Congressional District seat currently held by Steve Pearce, and former State Rep. Nate Cote says he may also jump into the race.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[156,219,115,107,167,116],"class_list":["post-29037","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-2012-election","tag-2nd-congressional-district","tag-dona-ana-county","tag-roundhouse","tag-sunland-park","tag-washington"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29037","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=29037"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29037\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29037"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29037"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29037"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}