Lyons edges Garcia Richard in fundraising
In a statewide race that has received national attention, Republican Pat Lyons and Democrat Stephanie Garcia Richard each reported raising more than $100,000 in the past month in their efforts to become state land commissioner.
Lyons, a former land commissioner who represents the Eastern New Mexico district on the state Public Regulation Commission, continued to keep his financial edge. He reported $137,705 in new contributions and $131,112 in expenditures, leaving him with $61,914 cash on hand.
Garcia Richard wasn’t far behind. She raised $129,206 during the last reporting period and spent $128,509, leaving a campaign account balance of $41,898 to spend in the final days of the effort to sway voters in Tuesday’s election.
Libertarian candidate Michael Lucero reported that he neither raised nor spent any money in the past month. Earlier, Lucero reported raising $10,000 for his campaign and spending a little less than half of it.
The state land commissioner is one of the most powerful elected positions in New Mexico with the least independent oversight. The commissioner oversees 9 million acres of surface state trust land and 13 million acres of mineral estate. Money earned from leases and royalties on the state trust lands benefits public schools, universities and state hospitals.
As has been the case throughout the campaign, Lyons’ major contributors during this period came from oil- and gas-related businesses.
These include $11,000 from Mesquite Freshwater Holdings in Carlsbad and $5,500 checks from Devon Energy of Oklahoma City; Mack Energy of Artesia; John Yates of Artesia; Charlotte Yates from the same address in Artesia; Santo Petroleum in Artesia; Denver business owner Douglas White; NGL Water Solutions Permian in Denver; Crawford & Crawford Inc. of Fort Worth, Texas; ORLA Operating Inc. of Fort Worth; Exxon Mobil Corp.; 243 Eddy County Fresh Water of Carlsbad; 8 Scott B SWD LLC of Carlsbad; Destiny Capital; and Lionel Burns, a rancher from Alto, N.M.
Environmentalists have been critical of Lyons for his support from the oil industry. The major source of revenue collected by the State Land Office comes from leases on state trust lands to oil and gas operations. The Chevron corporation gave $2 million to a political action committee that backs Lyons.
Garcia Richards’ biggest contributions in the past month were $5,000 from Sen. Martin Heinrich’s re-election campaign; $5,000 from Integrated Control Systems in Albuquerque; $4,250 from the Sierra Club Political Committee; $4,000 from Conservation Voters New Mexico Action Fund; $4,000 from Kirsten Oakley of Santa Fe; $3,742 from Concord, Mass., artist Connie Hershey; and $3,000 from Nikki Hooser of Santa Fe, who lists her occupation as “unemployed.”
In other statewide races, Democrats maintained strong financial leads over Republicans, according to numbers listed for the latest reporting period, including:
The Libertarian candidate, Ginger Grider, did not file a report by 9 p.m.
In previous documents she filed, Grider said she hadn’t raised or spent any money.
In the closely watched race for the state House District 46 seat representing Northern Santa Fe County, the campaign of Democrat Andrea Romeo criticized write-in candidate Heather Nordquist, who also is a Democrat, for taking $2,500 from the Jalapeno Corp., an oil company owned by former state Republican Party Chairman Harvey Yates, as well as $1,500 from the campaign fund of Rep. Carl Trujillo, who Romero defeated in the primary.
Nordquist returned the check to Yates’ company.
But Neri Holguin, Romero’s campaign manager, said the money from Trujillo’s campaign was a “pass-through” contribution. Five days before he made the contribution to Nordquist, Trujillo’s campaign received $1,500 from Orale NM, a political action committee funded entirely by Bepco, an energy company from Fort Worth.
Nordquist on Thursday said she hadn’t checked Trujillo’s campaign finance report and was unaware of the transaction. “I didn’t know you could get contributions after you’ve been defeated in a primary,” she said.
Meanwhile, Romero had not filed a report as of 8 p.m. Thursday — three hours past the deadline.
Nordquist said she raised $9,483 in the past month, spent $8,446 and had $2,015 cash on hand.