The following are the state and local candidates who have been endorsed by the Chapter and who have opponents in the June primary. Endorsements of candidates who have no primary opponent will be disclosed at a later date. Be sure to vote on June 2.

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NM House

HD 4, San Juan – Joseph Hernandez WIN
Rep. Joseph Hernandez was an ally of the Chapter even before he ran for his State House seat. In his first term, he sponsored  the Green Amendment; a bill that created the Solar Access Fund within the NM Finance Authority to provide money to local governments for solar projects; and a bill to fund the cleanup of contaminated sites, including uranium mining sites.

HD 13, Bernalillo – Patricia Roybal Cabellero WIN
Long-time Rep. Patricia Roybal Caballero has sponsored an impressively long list of important environmental bills, including the Community Solar Act, the Energy Transition Act, the Green Amendment, various geothermal and solar tax credit bills, and bills prevent New Mexico from becoming a nuclear dumping ground. She is especially interested in bills addressing environmental justice.

HD 14, Bernalillo – Miguel Garcia WIN
Rep. Miguel Garcia has a 97% lifetime environmental voting record according to the most recent Conservation Voters NM scorecard. While being laser-focused on bills to hep his community, he is a legislator that we know we can always count on to vote to protect the environment.

HD 16, Bernalillo – Yanira Gurrola WIN
Rep. Yanira Gurrola Valenzuela advocated for environmental sustainability, clean energy and other climate solutions to protect our natural resources and combat climate change. She sponsored legislation promoting electric school buses, clean car tax credits, and water reuse requirements. She is committed to continuing to work on issues of water and climate.

HC 24, Bernalillo – Elizabeth Thomson WIN
Rep. Liz Thomson has been rock-solid supporter of environmental and other progressive legislation during her fourteen hears in the State House. As a pediatric physical therapist and the mother of an autistic son, Rep. Thomson has focused on providing healthcare and opportunities for children, especially those with disabilities

HD 30, Bernalillo – E. Diane Torres-Velasquez WIN
Rep. E. Diane Torres-Velásquez has a PhD in education and has worked with grassroots groups to establish public education as a fundamental right in New Mexico and to make sure that there was an equitable distribution of education resources. While the focus of her legislative work has also been education, she has been a steadfast supporter of the Chapter’s environmental priorities.

HD 33, Doña Ana – Micaela Lara Cadena WIN
Micaela Cadena serves the Mesilla, NM area where she was born.  She has helped lead the fight against Project Jupiter.  Cadena championed the decriminalisation of abortion in 2021.  She is the vice chair of the House Tax and Revenue committee helping ensure progressive tax policy and advocating for policies like ensuring a used electric vehicle tax credit.  

HD 34 Doña Ana – Raymundo Lara WIN
Ray Lara is the chair of the House Democratic Caucus. He has sponsored bills addressing critical matters such as voting rights and clean fuels.

HD 37, Dona Ana County – Lori Martinez WIN
Lori Martinez is the Executive Director of Ngage New Mexico, an education nonprofit. She will bring her expertise in education and mental health to the House as she works to fill gaps in services by creating new programs and opportunities, advocating for healthcare initiatives, including Paid Family Leave, and drafting legislature to restrict private-equity control of hospitals, energy and data centers.

HD 40, multiple NE counties – Nancy Wright LOSS
Nancy Wright is a pediatrician with a master’s degree in public health who understands the intersection of the environment and health. As a legislator, she want to address global warming, environmental toxins, and green space, which she emphasizes is important to children.

HD 41, Rio Arriba, Santa Fe, Taos Counties – Yolanda Jaramillo WIN
Yolanda “Pancha” Jaramillo is a retired educator and behavioral health advocate who is an acequia leader in her community and an advocate for acequias. She serves on the board of the NM Acequia Association and as an appointed member of the NM Acequia Commission. Yolanda says says she is “all about clean water.”

HD 69, NW & Central counties – Michelle Paulene Abeyta WIN
Rep. Paulene Abeyta’s indigenous culture has nurtured in her a deep understanding of our connection to the natural world and the importance of protecting it. Her work in her first legislative term has focused on children, healthcare, and tribal issue while at the same time supporting our environmental issues, including sponsoring a bill to clean up uranium and other contaminated sites.

District 70, San Miguel & Torrance counties – Anita Gonzales WIN
Representative Anita Gonzales has been a leader on healthcare, education and the environment. She represents her District through advancing rural development and public education and continuing the fight for remediation of the impacts of of the 2022 Calf/Hermit fire. Committed to protecting Northern New Mexico’s environment and culture, she champions water rights, land stewardship, and community traditions.

State-wide races

Governor – Deb Haaland WIN
The Chapter is proud to endorse Deb Haaland for governor. She formerly served as the congressperson from New Mexico’s first congressional district and as Secretary of the Interior in the Biden administration. She was one of the first two native women to be elected to serve in congress, and she was the first native cabinet secretary. If elected, she would be the nation’s first native governor.

Secretary Haaland pairs the deep-rooted values of her native heritage with a clear, actionable climate agenda. As Secretary of the Interior, she reduced methane waste on federal and tribal lands, accelerated permitting for clean energy projects, and launched large-scale orphaned well remediation—cutting emissions while creating jobs.

Deb Haaland embodies the values that the Chapter looks for in a governor: respect for the land, responsibility to future generations, and courage in the face of injustice. Her life and career reflect a deep belief that our environment is not a commodity, but a sacred trust. And she understands that environmental stewardship is inseparable from protecting families, water, and livelihoods. She is committed to ensuring that no community is left behind.

As governor, Sec. Haaland will commit New Mexico to net-zero emissions by 2050, fully implement the Clean Cars and Trucks standards, modernize building codes for energy efficiency, use the state’s purchasing power to expand renewable energy markets, and place New Mexico on a path to a sustainable water future. For all of these reasons, Deb Haaland is our choice for governor!

Commission of Public Lands – Matthew McQueen LOSS
The Chapter endorses Rep. Matthew McQueen for Commissioner of Public Lands. The Land Commissioner leads a department that oversees our nine million surface acres of state lands, including special places for outdoor recreation and wildlife habitat and lands that earn billions of dollars to support our public schools, universities, and hospitals.

Rep. McQueen has served for twelve years in the State House of Representatives, ten of those as chair of the House Energy, Environment & Natural Resources Committee. During his  time in the Legislature, Rep. McQueen has been one of our go-to legislators to sponsor environmental legislation, and he has successfully shepherded many of our bills into law. Rep. McQueen will bring deep policy expertise, legislative leadership, and a lifelong commitment to conservation as Land Commissioner.

Among his many accomplishments, Rep. McQueen has held the oil and gas companies accountable by restoring the state’s ability to levy fines and penalties on bad actors and by raising the royalty rate in the Permian Basin. He has fought to protect our natural resources, such as the Gila River, and he led efforts to prevent the storage of high-level nuclear waste in our state. Last year, he worked with a broad coalition of stakeholders to successfully reform our Department of Game Fish into a modern Department of Wildlife, and he was instrumental in enacting a ban on cruel trapping on state public lands. In his professional career as an attorney, Rep. McQueen has specialized in land conservation.

Rep. McQueen recognizes the urgency of diversifying projects on public lands toward renewable energy, and he will expand leases for wind, solar, and battery storage projects on State Trust Lands as part of the Land Office mission of ensuring fair returns for New Mexico schools and beneficiaries.

He worked to block Holtec’s proposed temporary nuclear waste storage facility; engaged in wildfire prevention strategies; and recognized the urgency of proactive land management in a changing climate.

Finally, McQueen approaches economic development with a clear-eyed commitment to accountability. Whether evaluating large-scale data center proposals, carbon sequestration initiatives, or energy leases, he insists on strong safeguards, fair returns, and long-term benefits for New Mexicans—not short-term gains for outside interests.

Secretary of State – Amanda López Askin WIN
Doña Ana County Clerk Amanda López Askin was raised in Las Cruces by a mother who had “the Spanish spanked out of her” and as a result, became an advocate for voting rights in order to get “a seat at the table of democracy.” López Askin inherited that passion, and after a PhD and a career as a therapist and teacher, applied for and was appointed as Doña Ana County Clerk when a vacancy arose in 2018. She was reelected in 2022.

López Askin was appointed as Clerk five days before the 2018 election and was immediately confronted by falsehoods and election-denial in the close Torres Small-Herrell congressional election that year. She emphasizes that her experience with election-denial, disruption, personal attacks, and threats throughout her tenure as Doña Ana County Clerk has prepared her to be a steady hand to guide the state through the polarized elections we are facing in the future.

As an hispanic woman, López Askin understands the fear and intimidation that some communities experience when federal law enforcement officers are present in the community on election day, which she has seen firsthand in southern New Mexico, and will do everything she can to ensure that it does not occur.

County races

Bernalillo County Commission, District 5 – Eric Olivas WIN
Commissioner Eric Olivas has been an environmental champion on the County Commission. He recently sponsored a bill that imposes renewable energy, water-use offset, and labor requirements on any data centers built in the county.

Doña Ana County Commission, District 1 – Daisy Maldonado WIN
Daisy Maldonado is a grassroots leader and community organizer who has spent more than a decade advocating for environmental justice for the people of Doña Ana County. Most recently, she has led the charge against the Project Jupiter data center, a sprawling project that has proposed to emit more pollution than the cities of Albuquerque and Las Cruces combined while greatly taxing the area’s scarce water resources. Daisy also served on the Sustainable Economy Advisory Council to help envision the state’s transition away from extractive industry reliance.

Santa Fe County Commission District 1 – Henry Roybal WIN
We are proud to once again endorse Henry Roybal as our choice for Santa Fe County Commissioner, Dist. 1. A life-long resident of the Pojoaque Valley, Commissioner Roybal was first elected to the Santa Fe County Commissioner in 2015. He won a second term in January 2019. He has proven himself a true friend on the issues that matter most to Sierra Club members, in particular, balancing stewardship of the land and its natural resources with economic development.

Click here for a formatted endorsement guide from the Rio Grande Sierran. 

Essential Questions

Why are voting rights not just a lawful right, but a privilege?

Why is your right to exercise your vote and make your voice heard vital?

Answer: Voting rights are not just a lawful right, but a tremendous privilege because they are the most powerful non-violent tool exercised on behalf of democracy to create a more perfect union for all American citizens. Since there are forces that try to impede people of color from voting with their shrewd acts of voter suppression, being able to freely vote without obstruction makes voting a privilege. Many people have marched, fought, and died for oppressed citizens to have this lawful and moral right to vote; therefore, their courageous acts make it a privilege. We must keep marching  and fighting for justice and equality, we have our orders from the late U.S. Congressman John Lewis.

Key Dates and History about Voting Rights

1789The Constitution grants the states the power to set voting requirements. Generally, states limited this right to property-owning or tax-paying white males (about 6% of the population).

1870The Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution prevents states from denying the right to vote on the grounds of “race, color, or previous condition of servitude.”

Disfranchisement after the Reconstruction era began soon after. Former Confederate states passed Jim Crow laws and amendments to effectively disfranchise black and poor white voters through poll taxes, literacy tests, grandfather clauses and other restrictions, applied in a discriminatory manner. During this period, the Supreme Court generally upheld state efforts to discriminate against racial minorities.

1920Women are guaranteed the right to vote by the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. In practice, the same restrictions that hindered the ability of non-white men to vote now also applied to non-white women.

1924All Native Americans are granted citizenship and the right to vote through the Indian Citizenship Act, regardless of tribal affiliation. By this point, approximately two-thirds of Native Americans were already citizens. Notwithstanding, some western states continued to bar Native Americans from voting until 1948.

1965Protection of voter registration and voting for racial minorities, later applied to language minorities, is established by the Voting Rights Act of 1965. This has also been applied to correcting discriminatory election systems and districting. This key legislation on discrimination was signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson.

2013

Shelby County v. Holder was a landmark decision of the US Supreme Court regarding the constitutionality of two provisions of the Voting Rights Act of 1965: Section 5, which requires certain states and local governments to obtain federal pre-clearance before implementing any changes to their voting laws or practices; and Section 4(b), which contains the coverage formula that determines which jurisdictions are subjected to pre-clearance based on their histories of discrimination in voting.

The Supreme Court struck down Section 4(b) as unconstitutional in its June 25, 2013 ruling. The majority opinion was delivered by Chief Justice John Roberts joined by Justices Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, Clarence Thomas, and Samuel Alito.

Qualities of a Dynamic Forward-thinking Leader

When selecting political leaders, it is important to be well informed and know what your candidates stands for, and that their values are in line with yours. Here are just some of the essential qualities to consider in a dynamic leader.

• Revolutionist for clean energy and environmental justice for all people.
• Transformational rather than transactional in their vision for the betterment of humanity.
• Possesses the knowledge that the environment and our economy are completely and totally connected.
• Addresses the root causes of oppression through education and job opportunity.
• Courageous in forcing the uncomfortable cognitive dissonance that impacts us all.
• Problem solver.
• A servant to and for the people, understanding both their societal and cultural needs.
• Working always for ‘the greater good’.

Featured image: Black, White people voting together – Md. November 6. Photograph by Warren K. Leffler. Retrieved from the Library of Congress.