{"id":931,"date":"2006-11-29T12:12:00","date_gmt":"2006-11-29T18:12:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/2006\/11\/cervantes-stewart-battle-for-majority-leader\/"},"modified":"2006-11-29T12:12:00","modified_gmt":"2006-11-29T18:12:00","slug":"cervantes-stewart-battle-for-majority-leader","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2006\/11\/cervantes-stewart-battle-for-majority-leader\/","title":{"rendered":"Cervantes, Stewart battle for majority leader"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Now that Ken Martinez<\/a> of Grants is vying for speaker of the House, Joseph Cervantes<\/a> of Las Cruces and Mimi Stewart<\/a> of Albuquerque are battling to be the next House majority leader.<\/p>\n

Cervantes announced his intention to Do\u00f1a Ana County\u2019s other six House Democrats during a meeting over the weekend called by Rep. Mary Helen Garcia<\/a> of Las Cruces.<\/p>\n

Reps. Garcia and Andy Nu\u00f1ez<\/a> and Representative-elect Nate Cote all confirmed that Cervantes said he will seek the majority leader position if Martinez does not. I\u2019ve been unable to reach Cervantes for comment.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Garcia and two other sources confirmed that Stewart will also seek the No. 2 position in the House. I\u2019ve been unable to reach Stewart for comment.<\/p>\n

Garcia said the chances of Martinez ousting Ben Lujan<\/a> as speaker and of Cervantes becoming majority leader are good. She is working hard to make that happen.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we\u2019ve got strong support for Ken and Joseph,\u201d she said. \u201cWe\u2019ve been trying to count up our votes, and all I can say is that it\u2019s promising.\u201d<\/p>\n

She said the weekend meeting of area Democrats had several purposes \u2013 to discuss the strength of the county\u2019s seven House Democrats as a group, to talk about issues and projects they might support, to educate the new members, and to discuss the leadership battles.<\/p>\n

As to the leadership positions, there was no consensus, Garcia said.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome members were not ready to commit, and they\u2019re entitled to that,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Cote said he is leaning toward supporting Lujan for speaker, and said he doesn\u2019t know who he will support for majority leader.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m leaning my support toward the speaker right now, although I still have a couple of weeks to go,\u201d he said. \u201cHe has experience. \u2026 I\u2019m leaning that way, but I definitely have to feel comfortable as far as ethics.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lujan has been criticized for ruling with an iron fist, making deals behind closed doors and repeatedly disregarding House rules. He has also come under fire since last week\u2019s report in the Albuquerque Journal<\/a> that one of his top aides has been living rent-free in a home owned by the Region III Housing Authority.<\/p>\n

Another factor in who will lead the House has to be that the campaigns of new representatives Cote and Jeff Steinborn and others who were up for re-election this year were heavily financed by Lujan and the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee. That group is led by Stewart, a close ally of Lujan.<\/p>\n

I was unable to reach Steinborn for comment.<\/p>\n

Nu\u00f1ez said he has pledged support for Lujan. Garcia said Nu\u00f1ez announced at the weekend meeting that he will support Lujan because the speaker pledged to make him chair of the Agriculture and Water Resources Committee.<\/p>\n

Nu\u00f1ez would not confirm that.<\/p>\n

Cote said his perception of the weekend meeting was that its primary intent \u201cwas to organize our seven Democrats into a cohesive group for support when we go to Santa Fe.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cJoseph did announce of course that he\u2019d be seeking majority leader,\u201d Cote said. \u201cThere were different thoughts, and I don\u2019t recall any particular commitment one way or the other.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nu\u00f1ez also said that is what happened, but said he and Rep. Antonio Lujan<\/a> of Las Cruces left the meeting early.<\/p>\n

\u201cAntonio Lujan was a little concerned that we had too many lawyers seeking leadership positions,\u201d Nu\u00f1ez said, referring to Martinez and Cervantes, who are both attorneys.<\/p>\n

In the several years I\u2019ve covered politics, Antonio Lujan has never returned my phone calls. That includes two calls I placed this week.<\/p>\n

Rep. Joni Gutierrez<\/a> of Las Cruces, who said last week she supports Ben Lujan, would not comment further, other than to say that what\u2019s taking place is healthy.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think it\u2019s negative. It\u2019s the cycle of the political process,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s happened in the past, where you have these situations, and you\u2019ll have them in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Now that Ken Martinez of Grants is vying for speaker of the House, Joseph Cervantes of Las Cruces and Mimi Stewart of Albuquerque are battling to be the next House majority leader. Cervantes announced his intention to Do\u00f1a Ana County\u2019s other six House Democrats during a meeting over the weekend called by Rep. Mary Helen […]<\/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-931","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/931","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=931"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/931\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=931"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=931"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=931"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}