Next Tuesday, June 2, is primary election day – where voters across the political spectrum can choose their favorite candidates to appear on the ballot in November.
One of those races will be for Commissioner of the New Mexico State Land Office. KUNM is fielding questions about the election and a listener wanted to know what this office does. So, we sat down with Source New Mexico reporter Patrick Lohmann to answer that question.
PATRICK LOHMANN: The federal government gave the State Land Office 9 million surface acres and 13 million subsurface acres in trust to generate revenue for public institutions, particularly public schools.
The land office is tasked with overseeing, managing, leasing, converting – to beneficial use and productive and revenue generating use – huge swaths of land all over the state in hopes of generating revenue that can benefit public institutions.
KUNM: What's so important about this office for our state in particular? You mentioned leasing, having these lands in trust, can you touch a little bit on how important oil and gas is in that equation?
LOHMANN: Yeah, it's hugely important. I believe something like 97% of all revenue that the land office receives comes from oil and gas in New Mexico. That's a huge amount of money, not just a percentage of that money, but we're looking at upwards of $2 billion in revenue a year – the vast majority of which comes from oil and gas royalties. That money goes to some very important initiatives that lawmakers vote on in the Roundhouse, including universal child care, public schools...
One thing that all of the Democratic primary candidates and the current land commissioner, Stephanie Garcia Richard, have described as a challenge and opportunity for the land office is trying to diversify the revenue to be less dependent on oil and gas money, while also ensuring that the revenue still comes in. So, they're looking at renewable energy, solar, wind, and potentially geothermal.
KUNM: There's a slew of Democrats running in the primary. That includes New Mexico State Representative Matthew McQueen, Juan de Jesus Sanchez III, Jonas Moya. The winner will face Republican Michael Jack Perry. Why do you think there's so many people running for this office?
LOHMANN: I think folks recognize that it's a pretty powerful job, and we're talking about huge amounts of revenue, 175 employees or something like that. It's a vast office with a huge amount of potential and power. It's generating all this revenue for other aspects of the state. It's a regulatory body. It's kind of like quietly a very powerful job that a lot of people don't know about. So, I think that's why it's drawing a lot of interest. But it's been a while since there's been three Democrats running in a primary,
KUNM: Last week you came out with a story about an ethics complaint that was filed against a super PAC. Before I ask you more about this... Can you just first tell us what is a super PAC for people who don't know?
LOHMANN: Yeah, super PACs [political action committees] were basically empowered through the Citizens United Supreme Court ruling, which held that corporations and moneyed interests can establish these independent expenditure only political committees that are basically allowed to spend unlimited funds without disclosing their donors, as long as they don't coordinate or donate money directly to a candidate that they're supporting. The post-Citizens United landscape has meant both nationally and in New Mexico, these ad campaigns being launched that the candidates say they have no knowledge of.
KUNM: Or no contact, technically, right?
LOHMANN: Right.
KUNM: So this ethics complaint was filed shortly after some of your reporting on a Virginia-based super PAC that was putting out ads and mailers in support of, specifically, Democrat Juan de Jesus Sanchez III that might not have been following the law. What are the concerns there? What did you find in your reporting?
LOHMANN: Yeah, so basically we got a copy of the mailer that was being sent that was paid for by the American Energy Action Fund, which doesn't have a ton of information about it online. We know it's Virginia based. I've reached out several times trying to get them to talk to me, but basically they put out a mailer in support of Sanchez, who was formerly U.S. Senator Martin Heinrich's political director. It touted Senator Heinrich's endorsement, and also talked about his record working for the US Army Corps of Engineers, and other things that he has been speaking to about why he is qualified for this race.
But we were interested in who was behind the PAC, how much money they were spending, why they would have identified Sanchez as the candidate to support when all three Democrats have basically said the same thing about wanting to boost renewable energy use on state trust land. The PAC describes itself as one that sometimes mostly intervenes in congressional races, but sometimes in state legislative races. So, I hadn't seen any evidence before of them weighing in on a land commissioner race like this. But, purportedly it only does so for candidates that have, like, a record on renewable energy, and all three candidates say basically the same thing. So that's a question that we have about why they identified Sanchez to support. We don't know how much money they're spending. We don't know much else about what other types of spending they've done. It's very possible, at least according to the Secretary of State, that they did not comply with state law around spending.
They are an out-of-state super PAC, which means that they do file federally some of the details of their spending, but state law requires them to provide a copy of whatever they filed to the Secretary of State, and particularly detailing what they have spent on state candidates. So, we don't have that record. We don't know how much they spent. We do know that recently they spent more than $700,000 on a "non-federal" race in terms of spending money on text messages and mailers, but we don't know if that's the Sanchez race or how much of that would have gone in support of Sanchez.
A former state senator, Dede Feldman, last week, based on our reporting, filed an ethics complaint with the State Ethics Commission, alleging that the super PAC violated state law by not filing some of this state-specific information with the Secretary of State's office. I should note that Dede Feldman has endorsed Sanchez's competitor, Matthew McQueen, for what it's worth. But she's also a longtime good government advocate and a former state senator, and you know, she says that the State Ethics Commission should investigate, so we can learn more about this spending about the organization.
KUNM: Speaking of endorsement, Democrat Stephanie Garcia Richard, the current land commissioner... is there any word about maybe who she'll support in the primary?
LOHMANN: Yeah, so I asked her this the other day. She said she doesn't want to put her thumb on the scale. She said that she would encourage voters to look at where candidates stand on the issues, particularly on the candidates who have said they won't accept oil and gas donations.
At a recent forum, all three candidates were asked that question. Matthew McQueen said he would not accept oil and gas donations because, as state land commissioner, you're a de facto regulator of the oil and gas industry, so should not be taking donations. That was his take on it.
Sanchez said that because there's gonna be so much money spent in the general election, he was not foreclosing on the possibility that he would be accepting oil and gas donations, and then Jonas Moya, the third candidate, basically said he was getting way outspent and out fundraised by his opponents, so he would take money from whoever was willing to give it away in hopes of keeping him in the race.
New Mexico’s primary is open – meaning that independents and decline to state voters can choose either a Republican or Democratic ballot at the polls. But not both. Early voting ends Saturday, May 30 and Election Day is Tuesday, June 2. Onsite registration is available.
Read more of Patrick Lohmann’s reporting here.
