{"id":37144,"date":"2012-02-24T11:21:13","date_gmt":"2012-02-24T18:21:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=37144"},"modified":"2012-02-25T00:04:30","modified_gmt":"2012-02-25T07:04:30","slug":"open-government-champion-retiring-from-senate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2012\/02\/open-government-champion-retiring-from-senate\/","title":{"rendered":"Open-government champion retiring from Senate"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Heath Haussamen \/ NMPolitics.net<\/p>

Sen. Dede Feldman (Photo by Heath Haussamen)<\/p><\/div>\n

Feldman joins one other Democrat and two Republicans who aren\u2019t seeking re-election to the Senate this year; Democrat Bill O\u2019Neill says he\u2019ll give up his House seat to run for Feldman\u2019s Senate seat.<\/h4>\n

State Sen. Dede Feldman<\/a>, a longtime champion of government transparency, announced today that she won\u2019t seek a fifth term this year.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow it is time for me to move on into new fields, and clear the way for someone\u00a0new\u00a0to carry the torch for Senate District 13 in Santa Fe,\u201d the Albuquerque Democrat wrote in an e-mail to constituents this morning. And in a news release, she said it had been \u201ca great honor to represent the people of the North Valley for 16 years.\u201d<\/p>\n

State Rep. Bill O\u2019Neill<\/a>, D-Albuquerque, quickly announced that he plans to give up his House seat to run for Feldman\u2019s Senate seat. He was expected to face a tough re-election battle in a contested district. Feldman\u2019s seat is generally considered safe for a Democrat, though that doesn\u2019t mean O\u2019Neill won\u2019t have a tough primary fight.<\/p>\n

His decision may make it easier for Republicans to pick up his House seat, since they won\u2019t be facing an incumbent.<\/p>\n

Feldman said she plans to restart her consulting business and work on writing and journalism projects, including a book \u201con how the New Mexico legislature really<\/em> works.\u201d<\/p>\n

Feldman joins Republican Sens. Clinton Harden<\/a> of Clovis and Vernon Asbill<\/a> of Carlsbad in announcing in recent days that they won\u2019t seek another term this year (read more about Harden\u2019s departure here<\/a>). Like those two, Feldman plans to serve out the remainder of her term, which runs through the end of the year.<\/p>\n

Sen. Peter Wirth<\/a>, D-Santa Fe, tweeted<\/a> that all three retirements are a \u201cbig loss for NM.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sen. Eric Griego<\/a>, D-Albuquerque, is also leaving the Senate at the end of the year. Instead of seeking re-election, he\u2019s running for the 1st Congressional District seat<\/a> in the U.S. House.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u2018A tremendous ally\u2019<\/h3>\n

In her news release, Feldman touted her work on health-care and campaign-finance reform in addition to her work on open-government issues.<\/p>\n

She was a leader in the push to open legislative conference committees<\/a> to the public. Last year she successfully pushed legislation to require more transparency<\/a> from health-insurance companies seeking rate increases. And this year she pushed, without success, to require webcasting of Senate committees<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Gwyneth Doland, a former reporter for this site and now the executive director of the N.M. Foundation for Open Government<\/a>, tweeted<\/a> that she was \u201cdevastated\u201d by Feldman\u2019s retirement. She called the senator \u201ca tremendous ally.\u201d<\/p>\n

O\u2019Neill called Feldman a \u201cstrong advocate for all New Mexicans, especially in the areas of ethics and health care reform,\u201d and pledged to \u201ccontinue to champion these causes for the people of our district.\u201d<\/p>\n

Update, 4:20 p.m.<\/h3>\n

It sounds like O\u2019Neill will face a primary challenger. Laura E. Sanchez, former executive director of the Democratic Party of New Mexico, confirmed that she also plans to run for Feldman\u2019s Senate seat.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been a constituent of Senator Dede Feldman\u2019s for the past six years and, like many of her constituents, I\u2019m sad to learn that she is not seeking re-election. She has been a strong and effective leader, and I have been honored to have her as my senator,\u201d Sanchez said. \u201cI\u2019ve decided to run for her seat, Senate District 13, and will formally announce next week. I look forward to continuing the insightful and inspired leadership that she has provided to voters in our district. I look forward to working hard to follow in her footsteps.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

UPDATED: State Sen. Dede Feldman, a longtime champion of government transparency, announced today that she won\u2019t seek a fifth term this year.<\/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":[156,111,107],"class_list":["post-37144","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-2012-election","tag-open-government","tag-roundhouse"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37144","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=37144"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37144\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37144"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37144"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37144"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}