FRI: U.S. Supreme Court denies New Mexico Forward Party candidates’ appeal to appear on November ballot, + More
By KUNM News
September 18, 2026 at 5:23 AM MDT
US Supreme Court denies New Mexico Forward Party candidates’ appeal to appear on November ballot
—Joshua Bowling, Source New Mexico
The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to hear the New Mexico Forward Party’s appeal to have its two statewide candidates appear on the Nov. 3 general election ballot.
Ina Thursday filing with no further comment, Justice Neil Gorsuch denied the minor political party’s appeal of lower court rulings that prevented party Chair Bob Perls and candidate Michael Vigil from appearing as candidates for the U.S. Senate and Office of the State Auditor, respectively.
The party’s attorneys sought help from the nation’s highest court on Tuesday after the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a U.S. District Court judge’sdecision not to have Perls’ and Vigil’s names printed on the ballot.
Attorneys for the candidates had argued in court that they faced overly burdensome requirements to make the ballot as minor party candidates. They failed to collect the more than 14,000 signatures required to run under the nascent centrist party’s banner, while Democrat and Republican candidates are only required to gather about 2,500 and 2,350 signatures.
However, attorneys for New Mexico Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver in a Thursday Supreme Court filing countered that much of the pressure facing New Mexico Forward Party candidates was self-imposed.
“NMFP formed a few months ago in May. It could have formed at any time — its national party affiliate has existed since 2022 — but it chose to do so halfway through an election year,” they wrote. “Three of its candidates were able to get on the ballot, while two were not. Mr. Perls and Mr. Vigil were unable to convince enough voters to sign their petitions for statewide office. They have resorted to the courts to get on the ballot anyway.”
The Secretary of State’s Office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Perls in a statement noted that the federal, appellate and Supreme Court decisions have focused only on his motion to get on the November ballot and not on his broader lawsuit challenging the state’s ballot access requirements.
“After months of litigation and thousands of dollars and man-hours spent, we are back to square one with a court case in U.S. District Court to be heard in the coming months,” he said. “But we heard loud and clear from tens of thousands of New Mexicans who talked to our volunteers and our candidates and signed our petitions that they want more and better options at the voting booth going forward.”
3 killed in Navajo Nation flood include 7-year-old preparing for her birthday - By Jessica Hill and Savannah Peters, Associated Press
Three generations of a Navajo family were heading home from picking up supplies for an 8th birthday party when their truck got stuck in mud as storms with heavy rain rolled through the area.
Kalisi Begay opted to walk home while her mother and 7-year-old daughter stayed behind. The water rose quickly. Soon the grandmother and granddaughter, along with a friend they had called for help, were swept away in the floodwaters while trying to cross a wash.
Elsie Begay, her granddaughter Lucy Allison Mike, and Begay's best friend Dora Franklin died in the flood Tuesday near Newcomb, New Mexico, a community of about 400 people, family members said Friday.
"I think she was just wanting to get home," said Stella Wilson, Begay's niece.
Flash flooding across the Navajo Nation this week has damaged roads, forced evacuations and claimed the three lives as a late-season surge of monsoon moisture brings heavy rain to the Four Corners region. Navajo police said three families in Shiprock, New Mexico, were evacuated Friday evening due to rising water levels and flooding near the San Juan River.
Navajo Nation President Buu Nygren declared a state of emergency Friday as some communities remained isolated by standing water and road damage and rain continued to fall. Multiple roads on the Navajo Nation remained closed Friday.
"Please use alternate routes, check on our elders and relatives, and follow the guidance of our emergency personnel," Nygren said in a statement.
About 40 miles south of Newcomb in the small community of Mexican Springs, flooding made many dirt and gravel roads impassable, stranding some families and leaving others unable to reach home.
"A lot of ditches are washed out, the culvert pipes are gone. There's big old, massive holes in the road," said Darnell Etsitty, a maintenance worker with the local government who spent Friday building alternate routes to help people get in and out.
Etsitty said the Mexican Springs Chapter House had been converted into a temporary shelter and volunteers are using ATVs to deliver food, water and supplies to stranded households.
Wilson said the road conditions continue to be bad, and her family still can't get to Wilson's mother. She urged others to be patient and wait for help.
"I just want to make sure other families make it home," she said.
Elsie Begay worked as a business technician at Sanostee Day School, where Mike attended as a third grader. Franklin was a bus driver for another nearby school.
Begay and Franklin loved working with kids, Wilson said. Begay would decorate the school's front office for every holiday and make everyone feel welcome, and Franklin would give candy to kids as they got on the bus, she said. Begay also participated in fundraisers and helped with community events.
Mike was recently crowned "Miss Sanostee Day School" on Sept. 4 and was looking forward to her 8th birthday party next Tuesday. Wilson described her niece as "beautiful" and "bright."
"She was a big blessing to her family," Wilson said.
Federal judge sides with manufacturers, blocks New Mexico’s PFAS labeling rule
—Matthew Mondschein, Source New Mexico
New Mexico’s effort to require manufacturers to label consumer products that contain so-called ‘forever chemicals’ infringes on commercially protected speech, according to a preliminaryinjunction issued Wednesday by U.S. District Judge Margaret Strickland.
The disputedrule stems from the PFAS Protection Act, which the New Mexico Legislature passed andGov. Michelle Lujan Grisham enacted last year. It would require manufacturers to label consumer products containing PFAS — aka per and polyfluoroalkyl substances. The New Mexico Environmental Improvement Board sanctioned the rulein March.
Studies show PFAS islinked to kidney and reproductive cancers, decreased fertility, fetal developmental delays, disruption of immune responses and liver function in humans.
The American Chemistry Council, which advocates for chemical manufacturers, and several national manufacturer organizations, sued the New Mexico Environment Department on July 1. The organizations argued that the state requirement violates the First Amendment by enforcing manufacturers to communicate a government-mandated message and asked for the court to stop implementation of the rule set for next year.
In her order, Strickland wrote that New Mexico failed to demonstrate how the label “is a rational vehicle to achieve the goals of protecting consumer and environmental health,” and added that “the state proclaims the regulation exists to raise consumer awareness, but underneath intends the label to operate as a warning in disguise.”
The label itself does not comment on whether PFAS poses a risk to consumer or environmental health and safety, a requirement needed to supersede the plaintiff’s right to commercially protected speech, Strickland wrote.
“I’d be lying if I didn’t say I was disappointed,” New Mexico Environment Department Secretary James Kenney told Source NM.
Kenney said that New Mexico “absolutely” plans to move forward in challenging the injunction, adding that NMED won many of its arguments and that Strickland “made a solid roadmap” for the department to consider.
For example, the plaintiffs argued the PFAS label does not convey factual information due to the broad nature of what constitutes a PFAS chemical and that the label is controversial.
Strickland disagreed with both arguments, saying New Mexico’s labelling rule has the same definition of PFAS as other states that have passed similar regulations — Colorado, California and Connecticut. She added that the plaintiffs provided no evidence that consumers find the image inflammatory or controversial.
New Mexico’s labelling rule has faced backlash from the national manufacturing communitysince its inception. In addition to the American Chemistry Association, the National Association of Manufacturers and six other manufacturing organizations were parties to the lawsuit, with NAM issuing a statement welcoming the judge’s ruling.
“The NAM is committed to securing permanent relief to ensure manufacturers aren’t forced to redesign products, packaging and manufacturing lines to accommodate an unconstitutional labeling requirement that imposes tremendous costs on both businesses and consumers,” Linda Kelly, NAM chief legal officer, said in a statement.
But for NMED, the issue is about transparency.
“This preliminary injunction shows that the intent of industry is to keep New Mexicans in the dark and not educate them on what types of PFAS might be coming in from their grocery stores or big box retailers,” Kenney told Source NM. “Education shouldn’t scare the American Chemistry Council, but here in New Mexico — apparently it does.”
New Mexico Supreme Court rejects 2 Project Jupiter challenges, allows permitting process to resume - Joshua Bowling, Source New Mexico
The New Mexico Supreme Court on Thursday unanimously shot down two environmental groups’ challenges to regulatory proceedings for the Project Jupiter data center under construction in Doña Ana County.
In brief orders, the court denied August requests from the Santa Fe-based New Energy Economy and the national Center for Biological Diversity that challenged the data center’s pending air quality permit application with the New Mexico Environment Department and its use of an emergency water well for construction.
The New Mexico Supreme Court in August paused regulatory proceedings for Project Jupiter while it evaluated the environmental groups’ complaints. The air quality permit hearing was initially scheduled to begin Monday in southern New Mexico.
In the orders, which offered no further comment on the court’s rulings, justices also unpaused the regulatory proceedings that have been frozen since August.
“I don’t know what to say,” Colin Cox, a New Mexico-based attorney for the Center for Biological Diversity, told Source NM Thursday. “I’m a little surprised that they granted both stays, which was pretty extraordinary and then pulled them without any explanation.”
In a statement, New Energy Economy Executive Director Mariel Nanasi said the plaintiffs were “terribly disappointed,” but acknowledged they had asked the state’s highest court “for extraordinary relief.”
“We went to the Supreme Court because we believed the rules of this proceeding were stacked against meaningful public participation,” she said. “We sought a fair opportunity for the public to obtain the evidence, test the claims being made by the applicant and present its case before New Mexico decides whether to authorize an enormous new source of pollution.”
The New Mexico Environment Department’s hearing officer who presided over the air quality permit application abruptly recused himself from the matter in August. The department has yet to appoint a replacement or hold a scheduling conference to set a new hearing date.
NMED spokesperson Drew Goretzka told Source NM that department officials will follow the guidance of the new hearing officer.
State environment officials will decide whether to grant the data center developer’s request to issue an air quality permit for its proposed on-site energy source, a natural-gas powered fuel cell system. Projections show that, if approved, it would emit as many greenhouse gases annually as New Mexico’s largest cities combined.
State seeks $5.45 million in litigation costs from Meta - Olivier Uyttebrouck, Albuquerque Journal
Attorneys who represented New Mexico in two trials against Meta this year spent $5.45 million for expenses such as hotels, meals and expert witness testimony, the state contends in court filings.
But the question of who should pay those costs is the subject of further argument.
New Mexico has asked a judge to order Meta Platforms to pay the costs, arguing that the state has prevailed in two trials this year against the social media giant and is entitled to reimbursement under state law.
Expenses claimed by New Mexico include more than $2 million for expert witnesses, $735,000 for transcripts, $526,583 for hotel expenses and $64,468 for trial-day meal costs.
For more information on this story, visit the Albuquerque Journal website.
Bernalillo Starbucks workers vote in favor of union, joining two other New Mexico stores - Gillian Barkhurst, Albuquerque Journal
Workers at a Bernalillo Starbucks unionized Wednesday, marking the third storefront in New Mexico where employees have successfully organized.
Baristas at the 801 U.S. 550 location voted 12-5 to join a national union for Starbucks employees, joining more than 700 stores across the nation unionized under Starbucks Workers United.
“For too long, our store has struggled with chronic understaffing, inconsistent accountability and concerns that didn’t seem to receive real support from upper management until after we petitioned,” said Darion Sanchez, a shift supervisor at the location, in a statement. “That experience showed us how important it is for partners to have a collective voice and a meaningful seat at the table.”
The first location where workers successfully organized was a Starbucks near Old Town in 2022 and the second was at a West Side store in 2025.
For more information on this story, visit the Albuquerque Journal website.
City of Las Vegas purchases downtown property for new City Hall - Las Vegas Optic
Las Vegas has plans for a new City Hall.
The Las Vegas Optic reports that the city council has approved the purchase of the Southwest Capital Bank building. It’s located at 622 Douglas Avenue, at the corner of Douglas and Seventh Street.
The price tag for the property is about one and a half million dollars. City Councilor Barbara Perea-Casey told the Optic the new city hall space is “desperately needed” to replace the inadequate facilities at 1700 North Grand Avenue.
The Douglas Avenue building was originally constructed for San Miguel National Bank more than 100 years ago.
—Joshua Bowling, Source New Mexico
The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to hear the New Mexico Forward Party’s appeal to have its two statewide candidates appear on the Nov. 3 general election ballot.
Ina Thursday filing with no further comment, Justice Neil Gorsuch denied the minor political party’s appeal of lower court rulings that prevented party Chair Bob Perls and candidate Michael Vigil from appearing as candidates for the U.S. Senate and Office of the State Auditor, respectively.
The party’s attorneys sought help from the nation’s highest court on Tuesday after the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a U.S. District Court judge’sdecision not to have Perls’ and Vigil’s names printed on the ballot.
Attorneys for the candidates had argued in court that they faced overly burdensome requirements to make the ballot as minor party candidates. They failed to collect the more than 14,000 signatures required to run under the nascent centrist party’s banner, while Democrat and Republican candidates are only required to gather about 2,500 and 2,350 signatures.
However, attorneys for New Mexico Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver in a Thursday Supreme Court filing countered that much of the pressure facing New Mexico Forward Party candidates was self-imposed.
“NMFP formed a few months ago in May. It could have formed at any time — its national party affiliate has existed since 2022 — but it chose to do so halfway through an election year,” they wrote. “Three of its candidates were able to get on the ballot, while two were not. Mr. Perls and Mr. Vigil were unable to convince enough voters to sign their petitions for statewide office. They have resorted to the courts to get on the ballot anyway.”
The Secretary of State’s Office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Perls in a statement noted that the federal, appellate and Supreme Court decisions have focused only on his motion to get on the November ballot and not on his broader lawsuit challenging the state’s ballot access requirements.
“After months of litigation and thousands of dollars and man-hours spent, we are back to square one with a court case in U.S. District Court to be heard in the coming months,” he said. “But we heard loud and clear from tens of thousands of New Mexicans who talked to our volunteers and our candidates and signed our petitions that they want more and better options at the voting booth going forward.”
3 killed in Navajo Nation flood include 7-year-old preparing for her birthday - By Jessica Hill and Savannah Peters, Associated Press
Three generations of a Navajo family were heading home from picking up supplies for an 8th birthday party when their truck got stuck in mud as storms with heavy rain rolled through the area.
Kalisi Begay opted to walk home while her mother and 7-year-old daughter stayed behind. The water rose quickly. Soon the grandmother and granddaughter, along with a friend they had called for help, were swept away in the floodwaters while trying to cross a wash.
Elsie Begay, her granddaughter Lucy Allison Mike, and Begay's best friend Dora Franklin died in the flood Tuesday near Newcomb, New Mexico, a community of about 400 people, family members said Friday.
"I think she was just wanting to get home," said Stella Wilson, Begay's niece.
Flash flooding across the Navajo Nation this week has damaged roads, forced evacuations and claimed the three lives as a late-season surge of monsoon moisture brings heavy rain to the Four Corners region. Navajo police said three families in Shiprock, New Mexico, were evacuated Friday evening due to rising water levels and flooding near the San Juan River.
Navajo Nation President Buu Nygren declared a state of emergency Friday as some communities remained isolated by standing water and road damage and rain continued to fall. Multiple roads on the Navajo Nation remained closed Friday.
"Please use alternate routes, check on our elders and relatives, and follow the guidance of our emergency personnel," Nygren said in a statement.
About 40 miles south of Newcomb in the small community of Mexican Springs, flooding made many dirt and gravel roads impassable, stranding some families and leaving others unable to reach home.
"A lot of ditches are washed out, the culvert pipes are gone. There's big old, massive holes in the road," said Darnell Etsitty, a maintenance worker with the local government who spent Friday building alternate routes to help people get in and out.
Etsitty said the Mexican Springs Chapter House had been converted into a temporary shelter and volunteers are using ATVs to deliver food, water and supplies to stranded households.
Wilson said the road conditions continue to be bad, and her family still can't get to Wilson's mother. She urged others to be patient and wait for help.
"I just want to make sure other families make it home," she said.
Elsie Begay worked as a business technician at Sanostee Day School, where Mike attended as a third grader. Franklin was a bus driver for another nearby school.
Begay and Franklin loved working with kids, Wilson said. Begay would decorate the school's front office for every holiday and make everyone feel welcome, and Franklin would give candy to kids as they got on the bus, she said. Begay also participated in fundraisers and helped with community events.
Mike was recently crowned "Miss Sanostee Day School" on Sept. 4 and was looking forward to her 8th birthday party next Tuesday. Wilson described her niece as "beautiful" and "bright."
"She was a big blessing to her family," Wilson said.
Federal judge sides with manufacturers, blocks New Mexico’s PFAS labeling rule
—Matthew Mondschein, Source New Mexico
New Mexico’s effort to require manufacturers to label consumer products that contain so-called ‘forever chemicals’ infringes on commercially protected speech, according to a preliminaryinjunction issued Wednesday by U.S. District Judge Margaret Strickland.
The disputedrule stems from the PFAS Protection Act, which the New Mexico Legislature passed andGov. Michelle Lujan Grisham enacted last year. It would require manufacturers to label consumer products containing PFAS — aka per and polyfluoroalkyl substances. The New Mexico Environmental Improvement Board sanctioned the rulein March.
Studies show PFAS islinked to kidney and reproductive cancers, decreased fertility, fetal developmental delays, disruption of immune responses and liver function in humans.
The American Chemistry Council, which advocates for chemical manufacturers, and several national manufacturer organizations, sued the New Mexico Environment Department on July 1. The organizations argued that the state requirement violates the First Amendment by enforcing manufacturers to communicate a government-mandated message and asked for the court to stop implementation of the rule set for next year.
In her order, Strickland wrote that New Mexico failed to demonstrate how the label “is a rational vehicle to achieve the goals of protecting consumer and environmental health,” and added that “the state proclaims the regulation exists to raise consumer awareness, but underneath intends the label to operate as a warning in disguise.”
The label itself does not comment on whether PFAS poses a risk to consumer or environmental health and safety, a requirement needed to supersede the plaintiff’s right to commercially protected speech, Strickland wrote.
“I’d be lying if I didn’t say I was disappointed,” New Mexico Environment Department Secretary James Kenney told Source NM.
Kenney said that New Mexico “absolutely” plans to move forward in challenging the injunction, adding that NMED won many of its arguments and that Strickland “made a solid roadmap” for the department to consider.
For example, the plaintiffs argued the PFAS label does not convey factual information due to the broad nature of what constitutes a PFAS chemical and that the label is controversial.
Strickland disagreed with both arguments, saying New Mexico’s labelling rule has the same definition of PFAS as other states that have passed similar regulations — Colorado, California and Connecticut. She added that the plaintiffs provided no evidence that consumers find the image inflammatory or controversial.
New Mexico’s labelling rule has faced backlash from the national manufacturing communitysince its inception. In addition to the American Chemistry Association, the National Association of Manufacturers and six other manufacturing organizations were parties to the lawsuit, with NAM issuing a statement welcoming the judge’s ruling.
“The NAM is committed to securing permanent relief to ensure manufacturers aren’t forced to redesign products, packaging and manufacturing lines to accommodate an unconstitutional labeling requirement that imposes tremendous costs on both businesses and consumers,” Linda Kelly, NAM chief legal officer, said in a statement.
But for NMED, the issue is about transparency.
“This preliminary injunction shows that the intent of industry is to keep New Mexicans in the dark and not educate them on what types of PFAS might be coming in from their grocery stores or big box retailers,” Kenney told Source NM. “Education shouldn’t scare the American Chemistry Council, but here in New Mexico — apparently it does.”
New Mexico Supreme Court rejects 2 Project Jupiter challenges, allows permitting process to resume - Joshua Bowling, Source New Mexico
The New Mexico Supreme Court on Thursday unanimously shot down two environmental groups’ challenges to regulatory proceedings for the Project Jupiter data center under construction in Doña Ana County.
In brief orders, the court denied August requests from the Santa Fe-based New Energy Economy and the national Center for Biological Diversity that challenged the data center’s pending air quality permit application with the New Mexico Environment Department and its use of an emergency water well for construction.
The New Mexico Supreme Court in August paused regulatory proceedings for Project Jupiter while it evaluated the environmental groups’ complaints. The air quality permit hearing was initially scheduled to begin Monday in southern New Mexico.
In the orders, which offered no further comment on the court’s rulings, justices also unpaused the regulatory proceedings that have been frozen since August.
“I don’t know what to say,” Colin Cox, a New Mexico-based attorney for the Center for Biological Diversity, told Source NM Thursday. “I’m a little surprised that they granted both stays, which was pretty extraordinary and then pulled them without any explanation.”
In a statement, New Energy Economy Executive Director Mariel Nanasi said the plaintiffs were “terribly disappointed,” but acknowledged they had asked the state’s highest court “for extraordinary relief.”
“We went to the Supreme Court because we believed the rules of this proceeding were stacked against meaningful public participation,” she said. “We sought a fair opportunity for the public to obtain the evidence, test the claims being made by the applicant and present its case before New Mexico decides whether to authorize an enormous new source of pollution.”
The New Mexico Environment Department’s hearing officer who presided over the air quality permit application abruptly recused himself from the matter in August. The department has yet to appoint a replacement or hold a scheduling conference to set a new hearing date.
NMED spokesperson Drew Goretzka told Source NM that department officials will follow the guidance of the new hearing officer.
State environment officials will decide whether to grant the data center developer’s request to issue an air quality permit for its proposed on-site energy source, a natural-gas powered fuel cell system. Projections show that, if approved, it would emit as many greenhouse gases annually as New Mexico’s largest cities combined.
State seeks $5.45 million in litigation costs from Meta - Olivier Uyttebrouck, Albuquerque Journal
Attorneys who represented New Mexico in two trials against Meta this year spent $5.45 million for expenses such as hotels, meals and expert witness testimony, the state contends in court filings.
But the question of who should pay those costs is the subject of further argument.
New Mexico has asked a judge to order Meta Platforms to pay the costs, arguing that the state has prevailed in two trials this year against the social media giant and is entitled to reimbursement under state law.
Expenses claimed by New Mexico include more than $2 million for expert witnesses, $735,000 for transcripts, $526,583 for hotel expenses and $64,468 for trial-day meal costs.
For more information on this story, visit the Albuquerque Journal website.
Bernalillo Starbucks workers vote in favor of union, joining two other New Mexico stores - Gillian Barkhurst, Albuquerque Journal
Workers at a Bernalillo Starbucks unionized Wednesday, marking the third storefront in New Mexico where employees have successfully organized.
Baristas at the 801 U.S. 550 location voted 12-5 to join a national union for Starbucks employees, joining more than 700 stores across the nation unionized under Starbucks Workers United.
“For too long, our store has struggled with chronic understaffing, inconsistent accountability and concerns that didn’t seem to receive real support from upper management until after we petitioned,” said Darion Sanchez, a shift supervisor at the location, in a statement. “That experience showed us how important it is for partners to have a collective voice and a meaningful seat at the table.”
The first location where workers successfully organized was a Starbucks near Old Town in 2022 and the second was at a West Side store in 2025.
For more information on this story, visit the Albuquerque Journal website.
City of Las Vegas purchases downtown property for new City Hall - Las Vegas Optic
Las Vegas has plans for a new City Hall.
The Las Vegas Optic reports that the city council has approved the purchase of the Southwest Capital Bank building. It’s located at 622 Douglas Avenue, at the corner of Douglas and Seventh Street.
The price tag for the property is about one and a half million dollars. City Councilor Barbara Perea-Casey told the Optic the new city hall space is “desperately needed” to replace the inadequate facilities at 1700 North Grand Avenue.
The Douglas Avenue building was originally constructed for San Miguel National Bank more than 100 years ago.