{"id":4033,"date":"2008-12-02T12:07:00","date_gmt":"2008-12-02T18:07:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/2008\/12\/did-guv-intervene-in-senate-leadership-fight\/"},"modified":"2008-12-02T12:07:00","modified_gmt":"2008-12-02T18:07:00","slug":"did-guv-intervene-in-senate-leadership-fight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2008\/12\/did-guv-intervene-in-senate-leadership-fight\/","title":{"rendered":"Did guv intervene in Senate leadership fight?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Did Gov. Bill Richardson<\/a> go against his own word and step into the leadership battle in the state Senate?<\/p>\n

He isn\u2019t saying, but some Democratic senators say they believe he\u2019s doing just that by pushing some senators to back Carlos Cisneros<\/a>, D-Questa, instead of Tim Jennings<\/a>, D-Roswell, to be Senate president pro tem. The caucus on Sunday nominated Cisneros to replace Jennings<\/a> in the job, but Jennings says he intends to seek GOP support to keep the position.<\/p>\n

\u201cEverybody tells me that he did,\u201d Jennings was quoted by the New Mexico Independent<\/a> as saying about Richardson\u2019s alleged intervention. \u201cWhether they have the courage to tell you I don\u2019t know. People tell me he called people up to the office.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sen. Mary Kay Papen<\/a>, D-Las Cruces and a Jennings supporter, also said she had heard about such meetings, but she didn\u2019t know the names of any who had met with Richardson.<\/p>\n

A Richardson spokesman didn\u2019t return two phone calls for comment, according to the Independent\u2019s article. He also has not responded to an e-mail request for comment from me.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s what Richardson said on Nov. 5, the day after the election, according to the Independent:<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t interfere in legislative leadership races. But I think the Sen. Jennings is going to have to answer to his caucus in how he interfered in race that the Democrat won,\u201d Richardson said.<\/p>\n

Jennings recorded a robocall and radio ad decrying negative attacks against outgoing Senate Minority Whip Leonard Lee Rawson<\/a>, R-Las Cruces, who narrowly lost to Democrat Steve Fischmann<\/a> on Nov. 4.<\/p>\n

Sen. Dede Feldman<\/a>, D-Albuquerque, told me that there\u2019s something else behind the leadership battle.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe New Mexico Senate is the last stand for Republicans,\u201d she said. \u201cThey\u2019ve lost every other office in the state, and so now they have a chance to gain the New Mexico Senate and they\u2019re going to go for it, and they have their allies.\u201d<\/p>\n

Whether they have enough allies to defeat Cisneros is the question. Sen. Majority Whip Mary Jane Garcia<\/a>, D-Do\u00f1a Ana, told the Independent that she supports Cisneros and he has \u201cthe bulk of the Democratic votes in the caucus.\u201d Papen, on the other hand, said there were \u201cquite a large number of votes that went to Sen. Jennings.\u201d<\/p>\n

The tally from the secret vote hasn\u2019t been released publicly, so no one seems to know with certainty what will happen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Did Gov. Bill Richardson go against his own word and step into the leadership battle in the state Senate? He isn\u2019t saying, but some Democratic senators say they believe he\u2019s doing just that by pushing some senators to back Carlos Cisneros, D-Questa, instead of Tim Jennings, D-Roswell, to be Senate president pro tem. The caucus […]<\/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-4033","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4033","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=4033"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4033\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4033"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4033"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4033"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}