No, RJ in last week's SpeakUp! I didn't self-deport to Texas. I've been playing free safety on the copy desk and geeking out over this column.
I'm flattered RJ has missed my columns, and I will consider self-deporting if enough RJs offer me $2,400 exit bonuses. Will you also throw in moving expenses, RJ?
I do like Texans. I was the editor in Robstown for a couple years a couple decades ago. I learned South Texans are winners, not whiners, with big ideas, not small plans like a 7-mile bike trail. They get beyond the artist renditions and actually build stuff over there, and even win Super Bowls and NBA championships. Texans don’t regularly protest profit-driven private equity firms and out-of-state corporations and citizens for allegedly exploiting vulnerable populations out of capitalist greed and colonial imperialism, "Deep in the Heart of Texas."
But as much as I like Texans, I'm probably more needed over here in New Mexico, where I've lived since 2012, to offer polite guidance to our pinko commies. I've been working on this highly nonpartisan column for a while. Let's see what you think, RJ.
Too many elections
New Mexico has an election problem — too many of them. And they're too disparate and confusing, in both timing and terms.
Voters in Rio Rancho may wonder why they're going to the polls April 14 for a runoff election when Albuquerque had its municipal runoffs in December. And why was the first round of Rio Rancho's municipal races in March when Albuquerque, Santa Fe and almost all other cities held their municipal elections in November?
Rio Rancho has the dubious distinction of being the only municipality in the state with a runoff election in April, which Rio Rancho voters will pay for themselves, because The Local Election Act of 2018 doesn't cover runoff election costs, even if a city has opted into the LEA, which Rio Rancho hasn't.
The root cause of why Rio Rancho has its municipal elections this year and all but seven New Mexico cities had theirs last year is the Municipal Home Rule constitutional amendment of 1970, which has had some unintended consequences.
I'm sure home-rule cities sounded great at the time to voters, who approved the amendment by a 56-44% margin. It’s one of 182 constitutional amendments approved since statehood in 1912, according to 50 Constitutions, because our threshold for approving a constitutional amendment only requires majority votes in both houses of the Legislature, and generally only a majority vote by citizens for ratification.
We need a constitutional amendment making it harder to amend.
Oddball cities
Due to the 1970 amendment — and in the case of Silver City prior territorial law and Las Vegas the unification of East and West Las Vegas in 1970 — the charter and home-rule cities of Alamogordo, Albuquerque, Clovis, Gallup, Grants, Hobbs, Las Cruces, Las Vegas, Los Alamos, Rio Rancho, Santa Fe and Silver City have constitutional protections to conduct their elections as they see fit, provided they don’t violate the state Constitution or general state law.
Those 12 municipalities can also structure their governing bodies and adopt ordinances as they see fit, provided they obtain local voter ratification of city charters and amendments, and again that they don’t violate the state constitution or general state law.
"Any incorporated municipality may adopt a charter form of government, but only larger municipalities have done so thus far," states a "Forms of municipal government" guide by the New Mexico Municipal League, "organized in whatever way the charter prescribes as to numbers and titles of governing body, method of election, terms, etc."
Therefore, home-rule cities couldn't be mandated to opt into the LEA of 2018 and they're the oddball cities that have the wacky election codes.
"Most charters include initiative, referendum and recall," the NMML guide continues. "Some examples of things which a Home Rule municipality might do are: issue bonds for purchasing library books; enact its own procurement code; establish its own per diem, mileage and travel regulations; enact its own election code."
Local Election Act
The LEA of 2018 was successful in consolidating school board and municipal elections. All school districts were required to move their board of trustee elections to November of odd-numbered years, in most cases from February.
The LEA did not, however, require municipalities to opt in. The vast majority of the state's 106 municipalities did, because, in part, doing so meant the state would assume the costs of holding their local elections.
Eight years later, only seven municipalities — Artesia, Clovis, Española, Rio Rancho, Bernalillo, Ruidoso and Santa Rosa — have not opted into The Local Election Act. They held their municipal elections in early March.
Espanola's new mayor told the Journal during the campaign he would consider asking local voters to include Española in the LEA. I hope the political forces of Rio Arriba County don't talk him out of it.
Disparate election rules
Cities have had various reasons for not opting into the LEA, even with the lure of the state taking over election costs. Local leaders in Rio Rancho and Clovis want to keep voter ID, which the LEA doesn't allow. Albuquerque and Hobbs had to jettison voter ID when they opted in.
Beyond the timing of elections, the rules of New Mexico's municipal elections vary wildly.
For example, Las Cruces and Santa Fe have ranked-choice voting, a cockamamie electioneering scheme intended to declare second- and third-place finishers the actual winners. The LEA gives municipalities the choice of ranked-choice voting or runoff elections between the top two vote recipients.
School boards must choose winners based on the same rules used in other races since statehood — in which the top vote recipient wins, period.
Runoff elections, which exist in only Albuquerque, Rio Rancho and Gallup, are also allowed under the LEA and Article VII, Section 5 of the New Mexico Constitution, which was amended by the Legislature in 2003 and ratified by voters in November 2004. It allows any municipality to choose runoff elections to determine election winners, home-rule city or not. Otherwise, the top vote-getter wins.
Unnecessary costs
The costs to open 50 polling locations for Albuquerque's three runoff races on Dec. 9, and 17 early voting sites across the city from Dec. 1-6, was estimated at $1.6 million. Two years earlier, a runoff election for a single Albuquerque City Council seat cost taxpayers $558,105.40 to print ballots, open voting convenience centers in Southeast Albuquerque and to pay poll workers. The Dec. 12, 2023, runoff had the same outcome as the initial round, with Nichole Rogers again coming out on top in District 6.
Public financing of campaigns, which only Albuquerque and Santa Fe have, is also allowed under the LEA and has proven to be quite antidemocratic in the Duke City. Public financing local ordinances in Albuquerque and Santa Fe predate the LEA, which lays out the process for municipalities to follow if they want public financing. The LEA, thankfully, does not allow the state to assume the costs of public financing.
Only Tim Keller has qualified as an Albuquerque mayoral candidate for public funding in the last three mayoral races. In addition to the $734,000 of tax money Keller's 2025 campaign received in the initial round, he got another $377,973 of public financing for the runoff. His runoff opponent, Darren White, couldn't amass 3,780 donations of $5 each in a 64-day window ending June 21, and therefore didn’t quality for public financing in the initial round or the runoff.
Welcome signs to the city should say: "Welcome to Albuquerque, where your gross receipts taxes fund Mayor Keller's political campaigns." The city's public financing system must be fixed, if not dumped entirely.
Give us a break
To summarize, Rio Rancho voters were asked to vote in municipal elections in March and will vote again in April for a mayoral runoff. Then there's the June 2 primary followed by the Nov. 3 general election. Four elections in a year seems a bit much, leading to voter fatigue and frankly newsroom burnout.
Someone is seemingly always running for something in New Mexico. The yard signs never go away, they just change colors and names.
Then, there are soil and water conservation district elections, in which you have to be a property owner to vote, and the rare possibility of a special election to fill a vacant U.S. House seat, as was the case in the 1st District in 2021. Governors can fill U.S. Senate vacancies, I'll explain later, as well as vacant seats in the New Mexico Legislature.
We can't avoid having elections every even-numbered year because of U.S. House and other federal elections. Our state elections, held every four years, are consolidated with federal races in even-numbered years, but our local elections, which are nonpartisan, are currently a free-for-all.
"Many states may choose to consolidate local and state elections with federal races to help voters pay more attention to local contests and potentially increase voter turnout," according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. "Others may prefer off-cycle elections that don't align with federal elections to keep partisanship outside of local races, such as school board elections, and to avoid competition with state or congressional elections."
Fair enough. We probably don't want to mix nonpartisan and partisan elections in the same year and overload voters with local, state and federal elections all at once. Mayoral races, for example, have high interest in many cities and probably merit their own election year.
But do we need to have an election every year? I think not.
Saving millions worth it
City council and school board races, which are technically nonpartisan but which often take on partisan tones, are currently staggered, meaning about half of the local offices are up for election every two years.
It doesn't have to be so. If we unstaggered them, placing all municipal offices up for election every fourth year, we could have an odd-numbered year without any elections every fourth year. Indiana does it. We can, too, if we have the will.
The first step would be to repeal, or amend, the 1970 constitutional amendment granting home-rule cities. An easy secondary fix would be requiring all municipalities to opt into The Local Election Act, which can be amended by state lawmakers as needed.
Yes, there would be fights in the Roundhouse in Santa Fe about ranked-choice voting, runoffs, public financing, recalls, referendums and voter ID. But those are debates worth having in the pursuit of another local election overhaul, one with the goal of further consolidating elections and eliminating all elections every fourth year.
Consolidating all municipal and school board races into an odd-numbered year every four years has some downsides, such as making voters wait up to four years to replace anyone in city hall or on school boards. But the upsides of alleviating voter fatigue, consolidating and standardizing local elections, and saving tens of millions of tax dollars through fewer election years is worth the lift.
What do you think, RJ? Should I start packing?
Jeff Tucker is a former Opinion editor of the Albuquerque Journal and a member of the Journal Editorial Board. He may be emailed at jtucker@abqjournal.com.
