Change in City Hall: Women now hold supermajority

A new year means new leadership in City Hall. 

Newly elected Councilor Stephanie Telles has joined other district leaders behind the dais, meaning that women now hold six of the nine seats for the first time in the Albuquerque City Council’s history.

“People tend to assign this idea of soft leadership to women,” Telles said. “But what I think it is is more effective leadership that comes from our experience as women who do a lot day to day. We’re multitaskers.”

Telles said as much while multitasking herself, looking for her child’s toy under a couch and pulling out a pot to make an early dinner of macaroni and cheese, all while discussing her first formal week in office.

The council’s gender makeup reflects the state at large, which has a female majority Legislature and has been led by a female governor for more than a decade.

With Telles entering the fray the council has flipped from a narrowly held conservative-leaning majority to a liberal-leaning majority, though council seats are intended to be nonpartisan.

Albuquerque’s City Council is again being led by a woman after councilors voted to appoint longstanding Councilor Klarissa Peña as council president during the first meeting of the year on Monday.

Peña, who represents District 3 in the southwest corner of Albuquerque, was elected in a 5-4 vote.

She was close to losing her seat entirely in December when she won by 71 votes in a runoff election against Teresa Garcia, according to results from the New Mexico Secretary of State’s Office.

Still, Peña is no stranger to council leadership, having served as council vice president last year and council president in 2019.

However, rather than taking up the gavel, Peña deferred to former council President Brook Bassan and asked her to lead one last meeting Monday night.

“I think you’ve done an incredible job and it’s gonna be some hard shoes to fill because of your timeliness and your efficiency,” Peña said.

Peña now sits in the second-highest position within City Hall, according to the City Charter. That effectively makes Peña second-in-command and the next-in-line to lead the city should the mayor resign, die, or move out of town, according to the City Charter.

As council president, Peña is also responsible for leading biweekly council meetings and assigning councilors to various committees, thus shaping the legislative body's priorities for the year. 

Coming in next in line, councilors elected Dan Champine, District 8, to lead alongside Peña as vice president and Renée Grout, District 9, to oversee the budget as chair of the Committee-of-the-Whole in dual 5-4 votes.

Also nominated for these leadership positions were Councilors Joaquín Baca, District 2, Nichole Rogers, District 6, and Tammy Fiebelkorn, District 7, though all three failed to secure a majority.

Those three councilors, joined by newcomer Telles, voted against the new leadership cohort, hinting at where loyalties may lie and how the bloc of more liberal-leaning councilors might vote as the year goes on.

Gillian Barkhurst is the local government reporter for the Journal. She can be reached at gbarkhurst@abqjournal.com or on Twitter @G_Barkhurst