Katy Duhigg

ABQ City Clerk Katy Duhigg confirms our recent blog report and announces that she will leave that office to seek the Dem nomination for the North Valley state senate seat (District 10) held by freshman GOP Senator Candace Gould. Duhigg joins attorney Alan Hall in the contest.

The Halls will be busy as they deck the halls this holiday season. Alan Hall's wife, attorney and Public Regulation Commissioner Cynthia Hall, will be challenged in the June primary by attorney Damian Lara.

And more BernCo political news of note. Dem County Commissioner Maggie Hart Stebbins, 57, will leave the commission to become MLG' S natural resources trustee at $110,000 a year. There is one year left in the commissioner's term.

Hart Stebbins recently applied for the top lobbying job at UNM but that went on an interim basis to Republican Barbara Damron.

The Governor says her appointee to fill Maggie's shoes will have to promise not to run for the seat. Progressive Democrats Adriann Barboa and Adrian Carver are already running for the Dem nomination. (No R's need apply in the heavy Dem district).

But hold on. If MLG doesn't want to intervene in the BernCo commission race by keeping her appointee out of it, why didn't she do the same with that Senate vacancy in Taos and appoint someone who promises not to run in 2020 and let Dem primary voters make the choice? What's so different?

MLG appointed Rep. Bobby Gonzales to fill the Senate vacancy created by the death of Sen. Carlos Cisneros and bypassed progressive favorite Kristina Ortez who is now considering a primary challenge of Gonzales.

And there's more as the dominoes fall. The Alligators report that just defeated ABQ city council candidate Zack Quintero is pondering replacing Hart Stebbins and appears to have a friend in that cause in Dem Commissioner Michael Quezada.

But hold on again. Zack is a progressive Dem, no? And Quezada is a progressive nightmare, right? Well, maybe not so much, to answer the first question, but a definite yes to the second. Quintero is only 28 but he's running with the old school now.

Keep the political presents coming, Santa. We love unwrapping them.

HAALAND AND EGOLF

ABQ Dem US Rep. Deb Haaland raised eyebrows as she came with an early endorsement of Dem House Speaker Brian Egolf. Why? Well, because Egolf's new Dem primary challenger is Lyla June Johnston, a Native American as is Haaland, who says:

Under Brian's leadership, House Democrats passed bills to repeal an age-old abortion ban, enact "red flag" protections to reduce gun violence, and expand access to quality early childhood education. 

Johnston‘s supporters fire back, saying Haaland is acting more like a party chairwoman--a post she once had--rather than a congresswoman who should stay out of contested primaries in low level races and let rank and file Democrats decide nominees. Johnston is known for being a climate change activist, a cause Haaland has championed in Congress. Haaland does not represent Egolf's Santa Fe district.

In another break with tradition, Haaland and other members of the state's congressional delegation recently endorsed a number of Dem ABQ city council candidates who were running against fellow Dems.

THE BOTTOM LINES

In a first blog draft Monday we said that then southern Dem Congressman Harry Teague voted "for" Obamacare. Of course, he voted against it as many readers wrote. One of Teague's congressional staffers, Mike Davis, wrote recently on the blog of how Teague's Obamacare vote ignited a firestorm in his own Democratic party and he went on to lose his seat after just one term. Now it is the for vote on impeachment that Dem Rep. Torres Small will cast tomorrow that has everyone asking if that will rally and unify conservatives of both parties against her and cost her the seat. . .

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(c)NM POLITICS WITH JOE MONAHAN 2019