Southwest ABQ representative faces 2 challengers
Democratic Rep. Patricia Roybal Caballero faces two primary challengers this year — one of whom is questioning whether she lives in the district year-round.
Roybal Caballero, in turn, says she’s campaigning on her record as an experienced leader in an area that needs a strong advocate.
She said she lives in the district all year, of course, though she acknowledged she jointly owns a home in El Paso.
The race is unfolding in House District 13 — a patch of Southwest Albuquerque near 98th and
Central Avenue.
Challenging Roybal Caballero are retired police officer Robert Atencio and Damion Cruzz, a hospice nurse and entrepreneur.
Their disagreements go beyond just traditional issues, such as legalizing marijuana, opening up primary elections to all voters and raising the minimum wage.
Cruzz alleges that Roybal Caballero lives in Texas.
Roybal Caballero said the confusion may be a result of an El Paso home she inherited — a family homestead, she said, that she shared ownership of. Her sons and their families use the home, she said, and she lives in a manufactured home she owns in Albuquerque.
Roybal Caballero also used some El Paso-based vendors for campaign services, but she said that’s just because the companies are run by longtime friends and associates who give her unmatched prices.
Furthermore, she said, she’s running on the issues and won’t “promote personal attacks.”
The “district deserves a public servant with a proven record of dedicated and unwavering commitment to working hard and diligently on behalf of our constituents,” said Roybal Caballero, who took office in 2013.
Atencio, who retired from the Albuquerque Police Department and now works as director of stadium operations at Isotopes Park, said he, too, didn’t want to run a negative campaign. His public safety background, he said, would help him promote community policing in the district and represent the area well.
“Crime right now is out of control,” Atencio said.
He and Roybal Caballero have different views on whether to open New Mexico’s primary elections to all voters, not just members of the Democratic and Republican parties. He supports the idea; she’s opposed.
Cruzz didn’t respond to a Journal questionnaire, though he said he opposes open primaries.
In an interview, he said he didn’t have time to answer the written questions and that it should be easier for candidates to run for office in New Mexico.
Reached by telephone this week, he responded to some of the questions the Journal sent to all candidates. He said he has been arrested before, though only in connection with minor infractions, such as a parking offenses and lack of insurance. A search of New Mexico court records didn’t turn up anything more serious than traffic offenses.
“That’s why people like me don’t usually run — because we’re arrested for dumb crap,” he said.
Cruzz added that he grew up so hungry that he would eat out of a restaurant trash can — an experience that gave him tapeworms. He outlined the incident in a letter posted to his website and mailed to voters.