{"id":636,"date":"2006-09-28T06:30:00","date_gmt":"2006-09-28T12:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/2006\/09\/gop-sues-to-get-balderas-off-ballot-others-on\/"},"modified":"2006-09-28T06:30:00","modified_gmt":"2006-09-28T12:30:00","slug":"gop-sues-to-get-balderas-off-ballot-others-on","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2006\/09\/gop-sues-to-get-balderas-off-ballot-others-on\/","title":{"rendered":"GOP sues to get Balderas off ballot, others on"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>The Republican Party of New Mexico has sued the secretary of state and attorney general, alleging that two Republican candidates were unfairly denied spots on the Nov. 7 general election ballot and that the Democrats illegally placed a candidate on the ballot. <\/p>\n

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

At issue is the secretary of state allowing Democrats to place Hector Balderas on the ballot for state auditor and denying Republican attempts to \"\"<\/a>place Roger Gonzales of Mora on the ballot for Balderas\u2019 House seat and Barbara V. Johnson of Albuquerque<\/st1:city> on the ballot for a district judgeship in Albuquerque<\/st1:city><\/st1:place>.<\/p>\n

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

The two joined the party in filing the suit Wednesday against Secretary of State Rebecca Vigil-Giron and Attorney General Patricia Madrid. Since ballots are already being printed, they requested an emergency hearing and will ask a judge in Santa Fe<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> to order that their candidates\u2019 names be placed on the ballot, and Balderas\u2019 name be removed.<\/p>\n

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

\u201cRepublican nominees have been disfavored and stricken from the general election ballot while a Democratic candidate has been illegally included,\u201d Marta Kramer, executive director of the state Republican Party, said in a news release<\/a>. \u201cThey have been irreparably harmed because Patricia Madrid and Rebecca Vigil-Giron are rewriting election law to favor their political party.\u201d<\/p>\n

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

The Democrats didn\u2019t place anyone on the ballot in the House District 68 race after Balderas withdrew from that race, so there is no candidate on the ballot.<\/p>\n

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

\u201cMore importantly, the voters of HD 68, which includes all or part of San Miguel, Mora, Guadalupe, Colfax and Taos counties, have been disenfranchised because they will not be allowed to vote for any candidate,\u201d Lyn Ott, election integrity director of the state Republican Party, said in the release. \u201cThe governor is simply going to appoint a replacement for HD 68 and rob the people of their right to vote for a representative.\u201d<\/p>\n

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

As for Balderas, the Republicans claim Democrat Jeff Armijo did not withdraw from the race by the statutory deadline of Sept. 5, so the vote by the Democratic State Central Committee to place Balderas on the ballot was \u201cillegal and therefore a nullity.\u201d<\/p>\n

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

Vigil-Giron, responding to the lawsuits, told the Albuquerque Journal<\/a> she is \u201cfollowing the laws the way they are written.\u201d<\/p>\n

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

In response to the Republican attempt to place Gonzales on the ballot, Vigil-Giron\u2019s office has said there was no vacancy on the Republican side because that party didn\u2019t run a candidate in the primary. That decision is based on a ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court in the 1980s upholding such an interpretation of New Mexico<\/st1:place><\/st1:state> law.<\/p>\n

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

Vigil-Giron told the Journal that Johnson didn\u2019t follow the proper procedures to get on the ballot.<\/p>\n

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

Armijo<\/st1:place> announced that he would drop out of the race in late August because of allegations that he made unwanted sexual advances toward a campaign volunteer. Though he claims the allegations are false, Gov. Bill Richardson pressured him to drop out.<\/p>\n

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

Armijo<\/st1:place> changed his mind before the deadline to officially withdraw and announced he would not file the signed, notarized withdrawal letter that had typically been required by the secretary of state\u2019s office. The governor\u2019s office and Democratic Party argued that Armijo<\/st1:place>\u2019s prior public statements and actions constituted a withdrawal, and the secretary of state took his name off the ballot. Armijo and his party sued each other in an attempt to resolve the issue, but Armijo<\/st1:place> gave up the fight before a court hearing.<\/p>\n

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

Republican Party spokesman Jonah Cohen told me 10 days ago the party was still considering whether to sue.<\/p>\n

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

\u201cWe are in a bit of a conundrum,\u201d he wrote in an e-mail. \u201cOn the one hand, we don\u2019t want to make the case for Armijo, since we don\u2019t like him and feel he would be bad for New Mexico<\/st1:state> should he somehow win; at the same time, we feel that Madrid<\/st1:place><\/st1:state>, Vigil-Giron and the rest of the Democratic Party hierarchy have abused their power and broken election law. They shouldn\u2019t be allowed to get away with this Scot-free. Our grassroots are furious and want something to be done.\u201d<\/p>\n

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

The inclusion of Madrid<\/st1:state> in the lawsuit may appear to be political because of her neck-and-neck race with Heather Wilson in the Central New Mexico congressional race, but Madrid<\/st1:state>\u2019s office did back Vigil-Giron\u2019s decision to take Armijo<\/st1:place> off the ballot. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Republican Party of New Mexico has sued the secretary of state and attorney general, alleging that two Republican candidates were unfairly denied spots on the Nov. 7 general election ballot and that the Democrats illegally placed a candidate on the ballot. At issue is the secretary of state allowing Democrats to place Hector Balderas […]<\/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-636","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/636","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=636"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/636\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=636"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=636"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=636"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}