Lt. Gov. candidates are campaign veterans
SANTA FE — The three Democrats left standing in the race for the party’s lieutenant governor nomination have each been elected to public office and know a thing or two about traversing the campaign trail.
But the similarities end there, as Howie Morales, Rick Miera and Billy Garrett come from different parts of New Mexico and have divergent views when
it comes to how they would approach the $85,000-per-year job.
Morales, 45, a former special education teacher from Silver City who has been a member of the Senate since 2008, said if elected he would focus largely on helping the state’s next governor with education policy issues, including assisting in the choice of a new Cabinet secretary for the Public Education Department.
“I plan on being a lieutenant governor who’s very mobile and energetic about bringing change to New Mexico,” said Morales, who has called for an end to current standardized testing for K-12 students used by the state.
He also ran for governor in 2014 and has significantly out-raised his two Democratic rivals since entering the race in December 2017.
Miera, 66, represented a Democraticleaning state House district that includes parts of Albuquerque’s Old Town and Downtown areas from 1991 through 2014, serving as House Education Committee chairman and, later, as the chamber’s majority leader.
A retired therapist and avid motorcyclist, he said his behavioral health background sets him apart from the other candidates and would allow him to effectively act as an ombudsman as lieutenant governor.
“To me, community mental health is really the basis we should be striving for,” Miera said. “As a therapist, I gravitate to how we can help each other.”
Garrett, 72, is a retired National Park Service administrator — including stops at the Grand Canyon and Gateway National Recreation Area in New Jersey — who has been a Doña Ana County commissioner since 2011.
He said he could be a “sounding board” for the governor, while taking a long-term approach to education, health care and state economic issues, saying many previous lieutenant governors have been effectively ostracized by the governor.
“I have a number of ideas about how that position could be used constructively,” Garrett said. “The lieutenant governor is not a legislator and neither is he a Cabinet secretary running a particular program.”
Under the state Constitution, New Mexico’s lieutenant governor serves as acting governor while the governor is traveling outside the state and is first in line to take over in case the governor leaves office. The lieutenant governor also presides over the state Senate and has a seat on the state Board of Finance.
Beyond that, however, the office has few proscribed day-to-day duties, and previous lieutenant governors have used it to champion a wide range of causes.
Under New Mexico law, the lieutenant governor runs separately from the governor in primary elections, but the eventual nominee then runs on a ticket with the gubernatorial nominee in the general election.
Michelle Garcia Holmes, a former law enforcement officer and ex-chief of staff for the Attorney General’s office, is the lone GOP candidate running for the post.
Outgoing Lt. Gov. John Sanchez, who is also a Republican, has held the position since 2011 but is barred from seeking a third consecutive term in office.