State judge denies independent candidate Ken Miyagishima's ballot access petition - Dan Boyd, Albuquerque Journal
With just a few days until filing day, a state judge has declined to issue an order making it easier for independent candidates for statewide office to qualify for the general election ballot.
Independent gubernatorial candidate Ken Miyagishima filed a lawsuit this month arguing that current voter signature requirements for independents — or those who decline to affiliate with a political party — pose an unfair hurdle.
But District Court Judge Matthew Wilson on Monday rejected Miyagishima’s petition to lower those requirements after Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver’s office claimed doing so could lead to ballot “overcrowding.”
As a result of the judge’s decision, Miyagishima said he would likely fall short of gathering the necessary 14,200 verified voter signatures to qualify for the ballot. The filing day for independent and minor party candidates is Thursday.
“I’m disappointed, obviously, but I realize what I was up against,” Miyagishima told the Journal.
Miyagishima, the former mayor of Las Cruces, had previously planned to run for governor as a Democrat but announced in February he would run as an independent instead.
His attorney in the case, former state Sen. Jacob Candelaria, was more blunt in his comments, saying Tuesday the current requirements for independent candidates are proof of a rigged two-party system.
He also said the judge’s order would be appealed to the state Supreme Court, adding he believes it’s unlikely the Democratic-controlled Legislature would enact changes to state law without a court order to do so.
“Independents in our state are still treated as second-class candidates — and as second-class voters,” said Candelaria, who switched his own party affiliation from Democrat to independent while in the Legislature after clashing with leadership in his own party.
Under New Mexico’s election code, independents running for governor or another statewide office this year must submit more than five times more valid signatures than either Democratic or Republican candidates.
While independents running for office face a requirement of at least 14,200 verified voter signatures, Democratic candidates for governor this year were required to submit at least 2,505 signatures to preliminarily qualify for the primary ballot. Republicans were required to file at least 2,351 valid signatures — or 2% of the votes cast in their party's last gubernatorial primary.
The Secretary of State’s Office argued in its response to Miyagishima’s lawsuit that the current signature requirements ensure that independent candidates show a “modicum of support” among voters.
“State statute is very clear about the signature requirements for independent candidates,” Secretary of State’s Office spokeswoman Lindsey Bachman said Tuesday.
The number of independents in New Mexico has surged in recent years, especially since the state implemented a new automatic voter registration system last year. As of last month, there were more than 380,000 independents around the state — or roughly 26% of New Mexico's total voters, according to Secretary of State's Office data.
With their numbers growing, independent voters were able to cast a ballot in this month’s primary election without having to select a party affiliation under a new law approved by lawmakers in 2025.
However, no independent candidate has ever won election to statewide office in New Mexico. And the signature threshold is significantly higher for independents running for governor than it is for independents running for president, Candelaria pointed out.
“I don’t think that discrimination is defensible constitutionally,” said Candelaria.
U.S. Sen. Luján’s CHILE Act seeks more federal support for chile, pecans and other specialty crops - Patrick Lohmann, Source New Mexico
Distressed New Mexico green chile producers may have easier access to federal assistance under a new law U.S. Sen. Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.) introduced Tuesday.
The Cultivating Horticultural Innovation in Local Economies Act, aka the CHILE Act, would ensure the United States Department of Agriculture uses a consistent process for providing emergency funding to producers of designated specialty crops — including green chile and pecans in New Mexico — according to a news release Tuesday from Luján’s office.
Luján said in a statement that specialty crop producers lack a standard, predictable means for receiving federal disaster assistance, unlike other agricultural producers.
“When disasters, market disruptions, and other challenges threaten their livelihoods, growers deserve a reliable process for getting the emergency assistance they need,” Luján said.
The CHILE Act — which Luján and five other Democratic senators sponsored — notes that specialty crops often cost more to produce and also sell for more than non-speciality crops, which the USDA lists as corn, wheat, alfalfa and hay, among others.
The CHILE Act directs the USDA to pay specialty crop growers an amount based on their sales in the year before an “adverse event,” including economic crises, market disruptions or other disasters.
The bill also seeks $5 billion in the upcoming federal fiscal year for USDA to spend specifically on specialty crops disaster assistance.
Ben Etcheverry, vice president of the New Mexico Chile Association, told Source NM that specialty crop producers seem to always be “at the very back of the bus” when it comes to getting USDA assistance.
“The row crop guys are definitely the bigger guys, and they’re definitely there first getting crop assistance,” he said. “So, this is the first step in terms of getting good disaster relief.”
He said the state’s chile industry has suffered “significant” losses in recent years due to lack of water and “climate instability,” making the industry more reliant than ever on government assistance.
“Growing vegetables is tough, and it’s getting tougher every day,” he said.
New Mexico judge dismisses Project Jupiter data center lawsuit, but offers chance to re-file - Joshua Bowling, Source New Mexico
A New Mexico judge on Tuesday dismissed a Las Cruces resident’s lawsuit against the Doña Ana Board of County Commissioners over its handling of a vote on the controversial Project Jupiter data center — but gave him another chance to refile.
Resident Derrick Pacheco first filed his lawsuit against county officials in October and accused them of acting inappropriately by issuing $165 billion in bonds for the Oracle and OpenAI development before the county Planning and Zoning Commission had a chance to vote on its zoning. At the time, Pacheco told Source NM he was relying on OpenAI’s service ChatGPT to coach him through writing and filing a lawsuit rather than hiring an attorney.
Tuesday’s ruling was the second time Third Judicial District Court Judge James Foy has dismissed Pacheco’s complaint without prejudice, meaning each time he has given him a chance to re-file an amended version. During the most recent hearing, Foy told Pacheco that he was on his second of three strikes.
“I think I told you this last time: Go get a lawyer,” Foy told him.
Attorneys for Oracle, Doña Ana County and Yucca Growth Infrastructure, one of the data center’s developers, argued in court that giving Pacheco another chance to file an amended lawsuit would be a “third bite at the apple” and a waste of judicial resources.
After the ruling, Pacheco told Source NM he plans to file an amended complaint in the coming weeks and is considering hiring an attorney.
“If I win this thing, that’s unprecedented news,” he said, referring to his plan to use OpenAI’s services to fight OpenAI’s planned data center. “It’s the supercomputer fighting the supercomputer.”
While Pacheco goes back to the drawing board, several other Project Jupiter-related lawsuits are pending in court.
This week, the government watchdog group New Mexico Foundation for Open Government filed a lawsuit against county officials and accused them of violating the state’s public records law, the Inspection of Public Records Act.
In the lawsuit, the foundation’s attorneys argue that county officials refused to turn over public records, such as emails related to the data center, requested by the New Mexico Environmental Law Center because they fall under the law’s exemption for state “tactical response plans…that could be used to facilitate the planning or execution of a terrorist attack.”
“They’re wrongfully relying on this exemption that’s very narrow…they’re using it to withhold emails that are obviously of great public concern,” Amanda Lavin, NMFOG’s legal director, told Source NM Tuesday. “We’re filing this lawsuit in the greater context of the general public perception, which is that this project got approved in a very secretive, chaotic, sort of rushed process that concerns a lot of people.”
Neither the chair of the county commission nor the county manager responded Tuesday to Source NM’s request for comment.
The New Mexico Environmental Law Center also has filed two lawsuits, both pending in court, over the development.
In one, filed in October, NMELC attorneys argue that county officials violated state law by voting to approve Project Jupiter last year even though the applications before the Board of County Commissioners were incomplete and, in some cases, had the word “draft” written across them.
The other suit alleges that county leaders violated the state’s Open Meetings Act when they “abruptly” paused a heated meeting regarding Project Jupiter and proceeded to meet behind closed doors.
Lavin, the attorney for the open government group, said the allegations in her lawsuit closely align with the two NMELC cases.
“The way that the county has handled IPRA requests related to what they’re doing fuels the concern that they’re not above-board with what they’re doing here,” she said.
NM health agency reports mosquitos with West Nile virus found in Bernalillo County - Source New Mexico staff
The New Mexico Department of Health on Tuesday reported the presence of West Nile-infected mosquitos in Bernalillo County and warned residents statewide to take precautions to avoid being bitten by mosquitos.
A joint monitoring program by Bernalillo County and the City of Albuquerque gathered the infected mosquitos during routine surveillance near the Rio Grande, according to a health department news release; the University of New Mexico Center for Global Health tested and confirmed they were infected.
“We’ve been working with several partners statewide, including the City of Albuquerque, on trapping and testing for mosquito-borne illnesses as an early warning system to alert the public,” NMDOH state public health veterinarian Erin Phipps said in a statement, which also urged the public to avoid being bitten by mosquitos.
Thus far, no human cases of West Nile have been reported this year; last year saw 52 cases and 11 deaths.
The virus can be passed by mosquitos to humans and other animals and poses a particular risk to people aged 50 and older or those with health risks. While not everyone will have symptoms, they can include headache, fever, muscle and joint aches, as well as nausea and fatigue.
According to NMDOH, fewer than 1% of people can develop more serious symptoms — even ones leading to death — such as neck stiffness, disorientation, convulsions, paralysis and coma.
Advice to minimize the risk of mosquito bites and West Nile virus include: using an approved insect repellant outside; wearing long sleeves and pants at dusk and dawn; checking any containers with standing water and draining water from such containers weekly; keeping unscreened doors and windows closed.
“While mosquitoes are not currently widespread due to dry conditions, we continue to see them concentrated in wet areas,” Nick Pederson, City of Albuquerque Urban Biology division manager, said in a statement. “As we enter the monsoon season, we are asking residents to check their yards and neighborhoods for standing water that could become a mosquito breeding source.”
New Mexico residents can call the NMDOH Helpline at 1-833-SWNURSE (1-833-796-8773) or text questions to 66364 (NMDOH) to ask more questions about West Nile virus.
Republican Party of New Mexico members fail to reach quorum to elect new chair - Patrick Lohmann, Source New Mexico
Only about 160 Republicans attended in person or via proxy on Saturday to vote to elect a new state party chair, far short of the quorum needed to select a leader ahead of the November general election.
The seat is currently vacant due to a court order that ousted former Republican Party of New Mexico Chair Amy Barela. She is running to reclaim her old seat against Valencia County Republican Party Chair John Brenna and local conservative radio host Brandon Vogt.
But party rules require that two-thirds of party officials hailing from at least 22 of the state’s 33 counties attend meetings to fill leadership vacancies, either in-person or through a delegate, for votes to be official. That means the minimum threshold is 358 party officials.
Stephan VanHorn, a Sandoval County Republican, told Source NM on Tuesday that only 163 Republicans attended the meeting to elect a new chair last Saturday, June 20, in-person or via proxies, at the New Mexico Farm & Ranch Museum in Las Cruces. He said the vast majority of attendees came from southern New Mexico counties.
Party rules allow State Central Committee members to call a meeting to fill leadership vacancies, as long as 25 members sign on. VanHorn said he was among the Republicans who called for a meeting this Saturday, June 27, in Belen.
VanHorn said he also felt obligated to attend the Las Cruces meeting as an appointed member of the party’s State Central Committee, though he heard rumblings from fellow committee members in northern New Mexico that they were boycotting the meeting.
The boycott was not unexpected, as party leaders said in a June 14 court filing that they expected most northern New Mexico Republicans to boycott the Las Cruces meeting. They also noted that “certain (non-leadership) factions” of the party had called for the separate meeting June 27 in the Albuquerque metropolitan area, one that they expect will also not achieve the required attendance for a binding vote.
VanHorn, who supports Brenna to take over as chair, said the sparse attendance is the latest example of the north-south divide afflicting the minority party as it seeks to win seats in the November election.
“The faction that is essentially in control now of the party, through the leadership, some of those people there, they’d be interested in joining Texas, right?” he said. “I’m not saying that they’re not patriots. I’m saying that there’s a huge division, and there’s a lot of reasons for it, and what we really need to do as committee members is start talking about this. Let’s try and fix this.”
The Republican Party of New Mexico did not immediately respond to Source NM’s emailed request for comment. RPNM First Vice Chair Mike Nelson has been serving as party chair since Barela’s ouster.
The Democratic Party of New Mexico, in a statement Saturday, touted the failed vote as “indicative of larger problems with the Republican Party of New Mexico.”
“All they do these days is fight each other, and after one embarrassing failure after another, not even enough of them cared enough to show up to the meeting called to replace their state Chair,” DPNM spokesperson Daniel Garcia said in a statement.
RPNM’s attorney Carter Harrison , the RPNM’s attorney, wrote in the June 14 court filing that, if the party continues to fail to achieve a quorum, the court “will likely be called upon to resolve these disputes.”
The vote is close, but NMAA member schools approve the one free transfer change - James Yodice, Albuquerque Journal
Who will stay and who will go? And if they leave, where will they go?
The proverbial door is now open.
By a 67-60 majority vote, the member schools of the New Mexico Activities Association have voted “yes” on a major overhaul of Section 6 of the NMAA’s handbook, which includes the much-discussed one free transfer option for student-athletes in New Mexico.
The NMAA Commission voted 14-1 in favor, and the NMAA Board of Directors voted similarly earlier this month, with a couple of dissents. That left it up to the schools to decide this in a referendum, and the closeness of the vote reflects the polarizing nature of this subject, which includes the possibility that current athletes at a school could be displaced by transfer athletes.
Here’s the bare bones:
Starting with 2026-27, students can transfer without penalty and be immediately eligible at their new school. This applies only to a first transfer. For homeschool and charter school students, regular statutes still apply. Students who attempt a second transfer will be ineligible for varsity competition for a full calendar year, although there are some exceptions.
There will be stringent penalties if the NMAA catches any school recruiting or exerting undue influence to lure a student from one school to another. There could be a huge financial penalty for the offending school (up to $5,000), and loss of eligibility for the athlete in question.
How the NMAA is going to catch, and penalize, those who cross the line is perhaps the largest grey area in regard to the updates in Section 6.
New Mexico follows many other states into these murky transfer waters.
NMAA Executive Director Dusty Young has described this as a “complete overhaul” of eligibility bylaws. The equation has also been fueled by the NMAA’s interest in reducing the number of legal challenges related to an athlete’s eligibility, plus the looming possibility of state lawmakers getting involved.
Earlier this year, a bill filed by Sen. Antonio “Moe” Maestas that proposed to give decision-making power on student-athlete eligibility to the Public Education Department instead of the NMAA, was not heard.
Young said the sweeping changes to Section 6 of the NMAA handbook “reflects the membership’s desire to provide students and families with greater flexibility while maintaining the safeguards that protect the integrity of interscholastic activities.”
A student must transfer before a sport’s official start date in order to be eligible for varsity competition. If they transfer after that date, they’ll be eligible only for sub-varsity action.
As Native American boarding schools project ends, survivors describe feeling honored and restored - By Nancy Marie Spears/The Imprint, Associated Press
Hundreds of Indigenous people have testified. They've sobbed, cursed and laughed in spite of it all. Many told stories about their time in boarding schools that they've kept inside for decades, finally able to begin recovering from childhood trauma.
An oral history project led by the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition is wrapping up in Tulsa, Oklahoma on Friday. To date, the nonprofit's historians have collected video testimony from more than 360 Indigenous survivors in 19 states — stories set to be preserved in the Library of Congress for years to come.
Iona Mad Plume, who is Blackfeet and grew up on her tribe's reservation in Montana, said she "can't emphasize enough" how healing her experience was. She testified in front of a video camera last month in Billings about her time in the Pierre Indian School in South Dakota, where she was sent at age 14.
Mad Plume, now 74, said since her interview she's been more grounded and has been able to let go of some of the haunting memories: a dusty blue Greyhound bus driving her away from her parents' red pickup truck. School staff beating her with a wooden dowel as she cowered on a bunk bed in her dorm room. Eating corn meal or cereal littered with weevil bugs.
"I got a lot out of that, pretty much a lot of closure," she said. "It was after almost a lifetime of carrying around questions and different things in my mind — so I don't have to carry that around anymore."
Another boarding school survivor who contributed to the project in Michigan in 2024 recounted a similar experience. Gene Bozicic, of the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians, attended the Catholic-run Holy Childhood School of Jesus in Harbor Springs, Michigan, beginning at age 11.
"As we further went along, I started to feel more confident in what I could do and what I have accomplished, almost like more pride to be Native," Bozicic, now 81, said about her video interview. "I hate to see it coming to an end, because they have given me my backbone back."
Survivors endured systemic abuse
The oral history project, which began in March 2024, is a collaboration between the Minnesota-based National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition and the U.S. Department of the Interior. The intent is to document and share with the public the systemic abuse endured by boarding school survivors under the government's attempts at forced assimilation — policies that began in the 1800s and lasted for over a century.
Two years earlier, former Interior Secretary Deb Haaland — a Laguna Pueblo member and a descendant of boarding school survivors — led the historic Road to Healing listening tour with Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs Bryan Newland, a citizen of the Bay Mills Indian Community.
Haaland's Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative also included in-depth reports on the schools' multigenerational impacts. Nearly 1,000 Native children were buried at 65 different school sites, the federal government reported. Atrocities occurring within school walls ranged from physical and sexual abuse to failed attempts at cultural genocide, the report found.
In the more than two years since the boarding school coalition's oral history work began, the process of collecting these in-person testimonies in 19 states evolved, said Lacey Kinnart, the coalition's oral history program co-director.
Initially, the "quiet room" where survivors decompress with a fellow elder after their interview was optional. But staff soon changed that policy so entering the room was automatic, and added a second "quiet room." They also began matching survivors with a licensed clinical therapist who specializes in boarding school trauma and a licensed social worker.
"Our elders don't want to be a burden," said Kinnart, a citizen of the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians. "But they really do need that extra support."
Kinnart said staff also noticed survivors feeling nervous around the Indigenous photographer. That shyness showed in the photos. So they built in an extra half-hour into the schedule so each survivor could get to know the person who took their portraits.
Stories affect generations
The Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History and the Department of the Interior are still assessing how to present the video interviews to the world. Survivors, however, will retain full ownership of their interviews and they alone decide whether their stories are made public.
The videos will be housed in a permanent oral history collection at the Library of Congress, and the project's end date is June 2027.
The National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition will continue other oral history projects independently. Staff said their next project will likely be more costly — potentially as much as $13 million — compared to the $6.2 million they received from Interior and the Mellon Foundation for the initial oral history project. And while the upcoming venture would take longer, it would be even more inclusive.
"We're just scratching the surface with these stories," said the coalition's Oral History Program Co-director Charlee Brissette, a citizen of the Sault Ste. Marie of Chippewa Indians. "We want to get a more robust picture of the boarding school experience because it does have that intergenerational effect."
Indigenous people excluded from this first iteration of the oral history project may get another opportunity in the coming years. It's an effort welcomed by survivors and descendants alike.
"I'd be interested in doing that, because the whole story needs to be taught," said Desiray Emerton, 56, a Seminole woman and a descendant of two generations of boarding school survivors.
Her relatives attended Goodland Academy and Chilocco Indian School in Oklahoma. She said she's seen the generational impacts: Because of her boarding school experiences, Emerton's mother struggled to be affectionate toward her as a child. And her grandmother died long before the oral history project's existence.
"I know time's running out for those who did go through that personally," Emerton said, "but I always tell my kids I'm walking on the prayers of our ancestors, and I'm running out of time."
___
This story is published through the Global Indigenous Reporting Network at The Associated Press.
Deb Haaland to interview candidates vying to be running mate ahead of endorsement- By Daniel J. Chacón, Santa Fe New Mexican
Amidst the shakeup in the candidacy for lieutenant governor in the Democratic party, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Deb Haaland has announced that she intends to meet with candidates to make an endorsement.
The Santa Fe New Mexican reports the candidate selected would replace the vacancy left by Maggie Toulouse-Oliver, who withdrew for health reasons.
The official power to appoint a nominee lies with the Democratic Party of New Mexico’s State Central Committee, who will hold a vote to decide.
Haaland says she believes she has a duty to ensure the best fit for a candidate and running-mate.
The Haaland campaign will send out surveys to any potential candidate who is vying to be on the Lieutenant Governor ticket. Afterwards, the team will then proceed with interviews and announce an endorsement ahead of the vote.
Potential candidates to replace her include state senator Harold Pope, who lost to Toulouse-Oliver in the primary. Outgoing land commissioner Stephanie Garcia Richard is also in the running.
Due to procedure, the election to fill the Lieutenant Governor candidacy is at least 30 days out. No official date has been set.