New Mexico parties certify 5 GOP candidates for June presidential primary amid challenge to Trump - By Morgan Lee Associated Press
Donald Trump is among a slate of presidential candidates New Mexico's major political parties certified Friday to appear on the state's June 4 primary ballots, amid uncertainty about whether any state can bar the former president from contention under anti-insurrection provisions of the U.S. Constitution.
Trump is among five contenders for the GOP nomination who a presidential primary nominating committee certified for New Mexico's primary ballot. The Republican Party reserved the option to withdraw candidates from the primary until mid-February if any drop out of national contention.
For now, the certified Republican candidates include former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley and businessman Vivek Ramaswamy.
"If nobody drops out, fine, we'll keep it the way it is," state Republican Party Chairman Steve Pearce said.
New Mexico Supreme Court Chief Justice C. Shannon Bacon oversaw the committee meeting with one or more representatives from each party, including the Libertarian Party of New Mexico that earned major party status with a strong showing in the 2016 presidential election. Lars Mapstead was presented as the sole contender for the Libertarian presidential nomination.
Party-certified presidential candidates will be vetted in February by the New Mexico secretary of state's office to ensure they meet administrative requirements to run for the office. New Mexico Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver, a Democrat, said she won't exclude candidates that meet administrative requirements — unless a court with jurisdiction intervenes.
The Colorado Supreme Court on Tuesday barred Trump from the state's ballot under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, which prohibits anyone from holding office who swore an oath to support the Constitution and then "engaged in insurrection" against it. It's the first time in history the provision has been used to prohibit someone from running for the presidency, and the U.S. Supreme Court is likely to have the final say over whether the ruling will stand.
Little-known presidential candidate John Anthony Castro has challenged Trump's eligibility to appear on the ballot in New Mexico and Arizona in federal court based on anti-insurrection provisions of the 14th Amendment. The Arizona lawsuit was dismissed earlier this month and a ruling is pending in New Mexico. Trump lost the New Mexico vote in 2016 and again in 2020 by a wider margin.
Pearce, the GOP chairman, said Trump should be allowed to compete for the nomination in New Mexico regardless of litigation, arguing that the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol was not an insurrection.
"Even if (Trump) gets convicted of something in all of these cases, that doesn't prohibit him from running and serving," Pearce said after Friday's meeting. "Everybody should be treated fairly under the law, and I don't think that's occurring."
A county commissioner in southern New Mexico last year was removed and banished from public office by a state district court judge for engaging in insurrection at the Jan. 6, 2021, riots that disrupted Congress from certifying Joe Biden's presidential victory.
Former Otero County commissioner Couy Griffin has appealed that ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court after the New Mexico Supreme Court declined to hear the case based on missed filing deadlines. It's unclear whether the U.S. Supreme Court will take up Griffin's case once it's fully briefed next year.
The constitutional provision used to bar Griffin — and now Trump in Colorado — has only been used a handful of times. It originally was created to prevent former Confederates from returning to government positions.
"These are constitutional issues and it is not the secretary of state's role to make this kind of a legal finding in New Mexico," said Alex Curtas, a spokesperson to Secretary of State Toulouse Oliver. "As long as a candidate meets all the administrative requirements to be placed on the ballot in 2024, they would not be excluded from the ballot unless a court with jurisdiction made a legal finding and ordered that person to be excluded."
Democratic Party-certified candidates in New Mexico include not only President Joe Biden but also Minnesota Congressman Dean Phillips and self-help author Marianne Williamson.
N.M. State Land Office raises record revenues - By Danielle Prokop, Source New Mexico
The New Mexico State Land Office received a record $2.75 billion dollars in revenue and distributed more than $2.71 billion for schools, universities and other grantees this year, officials said.
The revenues collected from the land office were driven primarily from oil and gas royalties on public lands.
New Mexico Land Commissioner Stephanie Garcia Richard promised to focus on diversifying how public lands generate revenues, according to a written statement.
That effort takes priority with recent predictions of a slowdown in oil and gas revenues, said Joey Keefe, the spokesperson for the agency.
“Oil and gas revenue will continue to play a major role in the coming years,” Keefe said in an email to Source NM. “However, we know that these are finite resources, and we have to have a variety of stable funding mechanisms in place to support the long-term health of our permanent funds.”
The State Land Office oversees about 9 million acres of land across New Mexico and manages its 13 million acres of mineral-rights ownership.
Revenues earned by the agency are distributed into two funds.
When money is made from non-depletion sources such as agriculture or renewable energy, that money is deposited to beneficiaries in the state government each month through the Land Maintenance Fund.
Solar and wind power generated a little more than $4.4 million in revenues combined, or just 1% of the total. Keefe said the projects will generate more money over time, because the revenues now are mostly from bids on leases.
“While the renewable energy revenue is in the millions now, it will be in the hundreds of millions in the future,” Keefe said.
From that source, just over $102 million dollars were distributed directly to 21 state entities over fiscal year 2023, which ended June 30. Non-depletion revenue sources account for just over 3.7% of total revenues the state land office brought in last year.
Those payouts included: $82 million to public schools, $4.9 million to the University of New Mexico, and $2.8 million for public buildings around the state.
Additional beneficiaries from New Mexico Land Office royalties included other universities, schools for the visually impaired, blind and deaf children, hospitals, the State penitentiary and water reservoirs.
Revenues from the permanent depletion of a resource such as oil and gas royalties, Keefe said, is sent to the Land Grant Permanent Fund on behalf of public schools, higher education institutions and hospitals.
After investment, it is distributed to the state beneficiaries based on a five-year rolling average. Oil and gas revenues totaled more than $2.6 billion, more than 96% of total revenues in 2023.
The vast majority of that goes to public schools. This year, more than $2.4 billion from state land royalties was sent to the Land Grant Permanent Fund on behalf of the public schools in New Mexico. State public offices ($71M), the New Mexico Military Institute ($22.4M) and the State prison ($20M) received the next largest investments from the land office for the fiscal year.
Bernalillo and Sandoval Counties offer Uber rides for Christmas to reduce DWI - By Nash Jones, KUNM News
As many residents of Bernalillo and Sandoval Counties imbibe at Christmas gatherings, the local governments and their partners are offering a limited number of free or discounted Uber rides to help make the roads safer by cutting down on the number of people driving under the influence.
The “Take a Ride on Us” campaign returns Friday, Dec. 22, through Tuesday, Dec. 26. A total of 2,000 vouchers are available on a first-come first-served basis. They’re worth $10 each and are good towards two rides.
To access the promotion, people in the Albuquerque Metro Area can enter the code ABQMERRY23 in the Uber app.
The program was founded in 2017 by Cumulus Media Albuquerque. Bernalillo County allocates $80,000 from liquor excise taxes to the effort each year.
Other partners include Sandoval County DWI Prevention, Glasheen Valles and Inderman Injury Lawyers and the New Mexico Department of Transportation.
State loses millions in federal dollars meant for outdoor recreation projects - Elizabeth Miller, New Mexico In Depth
This story was originally published by New Mexico In Depth.
New Mexico has forfeited more than $5 million in federal funding for outdoor recreation projects over the last three years because employees at New Mexico’s State Parks Division missed deadlines to distribute the money to projects around the state.
The money is the state’s share of the Land and Water Conservation Fund, a five decade-old federal program that funnels revenue largely from offshore oil and gas leases to outdoor recreation and land conservation efforts. The fund supports several programs, including one in which communities and tribes around the nation can apply for up to $250,000 each.
Roadblocks to distributing the funds, state staff say, included lack of staffing, a maze of bureaucratic requirements, and simple missteps, like neglecting to update an email address online. Grant applications for those funds filed by New Mexico communities two years ago still await submission for federal approval.
“Money is just flying out of our hands,” Rep. Kristina Ortez, D-Taos, said at a Water and Natural Resources Committee in November when state lawmakers were briefed on the lost funds. “I can’t contain the anxiety I feel about that and how that money could have gone to communities.”
Robert Stokes, chief of the Program Support Bureau at state parks and currently covering the job of Land and Water Conservation Fund program coordinator, blamed a lack of employees. The work was “a big task for just one person,” he said during the committee meeting.
Since 1965, federal dollars have funded 1,200 projects in New Mexico, building trails, acquiring land, and improving city parks. But the state parks division, which administers the grants, has not supported any community-based projects since 2005, when money went to a swimming pool in Lovington. Instead, New Mexico’s allocation since then has gone to state parks: building campsites, picnic tables, footpaths, bathrooms, and water systems.
The State Parks division says the Land and Water Conservation Fund’s erratic history led them to stop running a community grant program. Congress used to dictate how much the national fund received each year, and underfunded it for years. The share for state and local assistance grants heading to New Mexico dwindled to less than $500,000 annually for a few years. So State Parks decided to utilize the money rather than call for community grant applications, Stokes said.
However, the agency focused on state parks maintenance rather than community projects even in years when the funding increased to $1 million or more. Stokes declined to comment on that decision, which preceded his arrival at the department.
The financial stakes really shifted in 2020 when, amid great public fanfare, Congress committed $900 million annually to the Land and Water Conservation Fund so long as revenues kept it fully funded at that amount. New Mexico’s share of the $900 million for local grants worked out to about $2.5 million per year. The National Park Service also required that states appoint a dedicated administrator, which New Mexico did in late 2020 and called for grant applications in late 2021.
“It did take a while for the state to be able to get all of those pieces in position that are required … to start moving forward with the application process,” Stokes said.
But state parks already lagged behind. The National Park Service makes money available for up to three fiscal years. After that time, any portion not dedicated to an approved project reverts to a federal contingency fund spent at the secretary of interior’s discretion.
New Mexico lost access to nearly $1 million of the $1.9 million awarded in 2019, and then most of the $2.5 million allocated in 2020, according to documents obtained in response to a public records request. Stokes told lawmakers during the November hearing that New Mexico lost another $2.1 million in 2023 but was likely to get those dollars back. The National Park Service’s Land and Water Conservation Fund regional program manager told New Mexico In Depth that might not be possible.
“There were state parks projects that were occurring and they did use up some of that money that was set to expire, but not the totality of it,” Stokes said. “And before the first open application period was announced in late 2021, we didn’t have community applications either to potentially use some of that money.”
But 11 communities and two tribes submitted applications for funding by the end of 2021. Another 14 communities applied in 2022. The press release announcing that call for proposals erroneously stated that 13 projects the previous year had been awarded $2.5 million. In reality, those applications have not been submitted for federal approval yet.
The delays worry Kay Bounkeua, New Mexico deputy director for The Wilderness Society, an environmental organization that campaigned for full federal funding and then encouraged communities to apply.
“People will be like, ‘Well I’m not going to apply for that. I did once and didn’t hear for five years,’” Bounkeua said. “There’s a lot of other issues that are going to come out of this because of the struggles of standing this program up.”
In 2021, Luna County applied for $250,000 to build batting cages as part of a growing recreation center in downtown Deming. The county applied again in 2022 for basketball courts, said Bryan Reedy, the county’s grants and projects director, but “I’ve given up on that one.”
The dirt has been leveled and ready for a while. But Reedy said he’d rather tap other funding and move on than continue chasing a string of requests for more information about this grant, the latest of which asked for details he’d submitted in previous emails.
“I have no trust in even waiting for them—I’ve got to get this project done,” Reedy said. “We’ll be done with the project before they tell us if we’ve been accepted or not.”
Meanwhile, rising prices downsized the county plan from six to five batting cages. It might shrink again. Between the emailed clarifications and modifications as the project has evolved over two years, he said, “We’ve rewritten this grant like three times. It’s frustrating.”
The Pueblos of Acoma and Santa Clara both applied for funding in 2021, the first for an outdoor recreation center, and the second for picnic areas, restroom facilities, and day-use cabins to replace a campground destroyed by the Las Conchas wildfire in 2011. If awarded, these tribally led projects would be the first in New Mexico to receive Land and Water Conservation Fund support since 1989.
Santa Clara Pueblo has worked for a decade to restore the ecology of Santa Clara Canyon after the wildfire, said Garrett Altmann, a GIS coordinator and project manager for the tribe. This grant marked a first move toward recovering recreational spaces that allow people to reconnect with that landscape. The tribe has secured millions in other federal support since that wildfire, but this process is more cumbersome, requiring detailed estimates that are difficult to provide.
“Now we’re like, is it worth $200,000 to go through all this?” he said.
The process includes internal reviews and state parks staff transferring applications onto paperwork for the National Park Service, which can total more than 20 forms.
At this point, five communities have withdrawn their 2021 applications, citing reasons such as insufficient matching funds. The Land and Water Conservation Fund requires that communities identify other sources for 50% of the project cost.
In 1973, the state created and allocated the equivalent of millions in 2022 dollars to a supplemental fund for that matching requirement, but lawmakers haven’t deposited money into it since 1994, according to an analysis by Western Resource Advocates.
“I had reached out to folks at state parks on when the last time money was appropriated [to that fund],” said Jonathan Hayden, a senior policy advisor with Western Resource Advocates. “They didn’t even know it existed.”
Hayden is working with Sen. Pro Tem Mimi Stewart, D-Albuquerque, on a bill to address some of the program’s issues, including directing money to that fund. The changes might also allow the state to spend some of that financial support on outreach and administrative time and training, including technical support for rural communities, and perhaps ease some eligibility requirements so more communities qualify.
“Because we already have the fund, because we have experience using it and because it’s really designed to help rural areas of the state, I just think this could be a real benefit,” Stewart said.
The eight applications remaining from 2021 were ready to submit this July. But the state had changed its email address format, and no one had updated the federal web portal for uploading applications. State staff didn’t recognize the problem until they tried to submit documents, and were unable to log-in until after the deadline. Those applications may finally be submitted in January, and New Mexico does have funds remaining to cover their requests.
Staff are now starting on the federal forms for applications from 2022.
Requests for additional information, from a missed signature that takes mere minutes to correct, to more exhaustive environmental inquiries, are common, according to the National Park Service’s Land and Water Conservation Fund regional program manager. It’s also not unheard of for a state to leave some money unspent, but losing millions is “unusual.”
The state’s Land and Water Conservation Fund program coordinator position—the full-time employee dedicated to administering these grants—has been vacant since October. Stokes anticipates a new full-time program coordinator starting in January and perhaps, eventually, a second employee or interns. Even without a program coordinator, the state issued another call for grants this fall, with applications due at the end of December.
US historians ID a New Mexico soldier killed during WWII, but work remains on thousands of cases - By Susan Montoya Bryan, Associated Press
After years of combing through military records and making some key deductions, a team of U.S. government historians and researchers has finally put a name to case file X-3212, identifying an Army private from eastern New Mexico named Homer Mitchell who died during World War II.
The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency this week announced the findings, which were confirmed by laboratory testing and brought closure to Mitchell's family members.
Mitchell is one of nearly 160 service members who have been accounted for over the last fiscal year as part of a massive, yearslong effort headed by the federal agency. The list of service members from various conflicts who have yet to be accounted for tops 81,000, but officials say more than 37,000 of those — mostly from WWII — are considered to be recoverable.
Each case can take years and involves poring through old reports and medical records, said Sean Everette, a spokesperson for the agency.
Work on Mitchell's case began in 2018. Researchers determined that X-3212 had to be one of three soldiers who went missing in the Pachten Forest along Germany's western border, with Mitchell being the strongest possibility.
"It took nearly three years just for the historical research part. It then took the lab almost two more years before Mitchell could be positively identified," Everette said.
Hearing the news was surreal for Mitchell's family, many of whom are military veterans themselves. Scattered from New Mexico to Oklahoma and Texas, they will be gathering next spring in Portales to bury the soldier.
Mind-blowing is how his great niece, Sonja Dennin, described the news, noting that it's been nearly 80 years since Mitchell died.
Mitchell, the youngest among his siblings, had enlisted in 1943 and underwent training at military bases on the other side of the country before shipping out to Europe.
His parents were devastated by his death and the lack of information back then added to the grief, Dennin said Wednesday during a phone interview.
"He was so young and it was so painful to them — the way he was lost and not being able to properly bury him," she said.
Mitchell, 20, was killed on Dec. 10, 1944, as his battalion was hammered by heavy fire from German forces. The battle came just months after he and tens of thousands of other troops landed in Normandy and began their push toward Germany.
The intensity of the mortar and artillery strikes during that December battle made recovering the casualties impossible. It wasn't until after the war that the American Graves Registration Command was tasked with investigating and recovering missing American personnel in Europe.
They conducted investigations in the area between 1946 and 1950. They were unable to identify Mitchell's remains among what was found and officially declared him Killed in Action in November 1951.
It was learned that after the battle someone buried Mitchell along with three other soldiers at the civilian cemetery in Hüttersdorf, Germany. Those unidentified remains were eventually interred in France, where they had remained until 2021 when historians were able to solidify the link to Mitchell.
Work by the agency's laboratory then ensued.
"They do have a methodical way of going about it," Dennin said. "But, yes, it was comforting to know that when he was initially buried, whoever it was, took care to make sure that he was laid to rest."
Despite remaining family members never getting the chance to know Mitchell, Dennin said they all know of him. An old oval framed portrait of him hung in the home of Dennin's great-grandmother until her death. It was passed down to her grandmother and then to her father, who insisted that she take it one day.
That portrait will accompany Dennin and her family for the trip to Portales in the spring so it can be displayed during Mitchell's burial.
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This story has been corrected to reflect Everette's title as spokesperson, not leader of outreach and communications for the agency.