Senate bill would eliminate lt. gov. primary elections

Measure calls for parties to come up with their own methods of choosing a gubernatorial hopeful’s running mate

Under New Mexico law, the state’s governor and lieutenant governor are forced to coexist in a sort of arranged marriage.

Each runs in a separate primary election. This means major-party candidates for governor have no direct say-so about who will become their running mate in the general election.

More importantly, says state Sen. Mark Moores, the system creates the very real possibility that the governor and lieutenant governor might not get along or agree on policy.

So Moores, R-Albuquerque, and Sen. Daniel IveySoto, D-Albuquerque, have introduced a bill to change

the way lieutenant governor candidates are selected.

Their proposal, Senate Bill 178, would eliminate primary elections for lieutenant governor.

Instead, after a major party nominated its candidate for governor in a primary, the party would establish a method of its own to select the lieutenant governor candidate.

Moores said the party might call a convention to make the selection, or it could empower the gubernatorial nominee to choose his or her own running mate, similar to what happens with presidential tickets.

The new system would be based on the premise that a party’s nominees for governor and lieutenant governor should be compatible, Moores said.

“It would be more of a team running, not this forced marriage that we have now,” he said Friday in an interview.

If the bill by Moores and IveySoto is approved by the Legislature and signed into law by the governor, it will go into effect in 2022. This year’s election would not be affected by the change, Moores said.

The fact that a senator from each party is sponsoring the bill might improve its chance of passing.

That is because party leaders have seen rancorous fallout after a governor and lieutenant governor were elected separately, then expected to function as a team.

Perhaps the most famous case occurred in 1994, when then-Gov. Bruce King ran for re-election.

King’s sitting lieutenant governor, Casey Luna, challenged him in the primary election for governor. King won narrowly.

Then, in the general election, a former lieutenant governor of King’s, Roberto Mondragon, ran for governor as the Green Party candidate. Mondragon took 10 percent of the vote, and King lost to Gary Johnson, then an upstart Republican.

The bill by Moores and IveySoto is to be heard first in the Senate Rules Committee, though no date has yet been scheduled.