4 Dems to make a bid for District 39 senate seat
Winner will battle Republican Ted Barela
D emocrats have four options to choose from in deciding whom they want to pit against Republican Ted Barela in an effort to regain the District 39 state senate seat they lost with the resignation of longtime legislator Phil Griego, now under indictment on corruption charges.
Three of them — Mike Anaya, Huie Ley and Liz Stefanics — sought the position immediately after Griego resigned during the 2015 legislative session, while under investigation for ethics violations related to a real estate deal involving a state-owned building. But Gov. Susana Martinez, a Republican, appointed Barela, closing the Democrat’s majority hold on the senate to 24-18.
The race has attracted some big money, at least for a state senate race, most of it going to Stefanics, a two-term member of the Santa Fe County Commission, and Ley, a former San Miguel County commissioner also well known for his hunting guide business and store in the Pecos Canyon area.
The fourth Democrat in the June 7 primary is decided underdog Ambrosio Castellano, who lacks the political experience of the others.
“I’m not a politician, that’s what sets me aside,” said Castellano, a sales associate with Paul Davis Restoration. “I think we need people in state government who are common people and who know the issues that families face while living paycheck to paycheck.”
Born and raised in Bernal, about 18 miles south of Las Vegas, N.M., Castellano didn’t graduate from high school.
“Growing up, we all make mistakes. We think we know everything, but we don’t,” said Castellano.
Castellano figured that out, obtained a GED and made education a priority. He served on the West Las Vegas school board for eight years from 1998 to 2006 and on the board of trustees at Luna Community College for 12 years from 2001 to 2013.
“Education is vital and is an important piece of the puzzle for the state. We need to educate our kids so they can receive good jobs with great pay,” he said.
Castellano says it has been hard for him to campaign in the sprawling district that stretches from Santa Fe to Ruidoso, while also holding down a full-time job.
“I don’t have much money. I’m trying to do a grassroots campaign,” he said. “I can tell you that, win or lose, I feel I’ve already won because of the great people I’ve met going door to door.”
What he has found by travelling the mostly rural district and visiting places like Chilili, Corona and Mountainair is that “those places remind me of home. I understand those rural communities. Their issues are my issues.”
Castellano reported raising $16,400 and spending about
$9,300 at the time of the last campaign finance report on May 9.
That’s more than Anaya, a former Santa Fe County commissioner whose campaign had raised $12,000 and spent $7,800 at last report.
Anaya said he’s counting on friends, family and connections he has made over the years to win the primary.
“It takes a whole family to run for office,” quipped Anaya, whose brother Robert, now on the County Commission himself, serves as his campaign manager.
The fourth of six children, Anaya said his grandparents were influential in getting the family interested in politics.
“My grandfather and grandmother were always involved in politics helping people get elected who they believed in,” he said. “That got my father started, and we kids kind of grew up with it. He taught us that if you believe in a candidate, you commit to them and help them.”
Anaya’s father, Joe, served as head of the state Highway Commission in the 1980s and had the building housing the Department of Transportation named after him.
Anaya got started in politics himself serving on the community board in Galisteo where he was raised.
“From there, we decided to take a shot at running for county commission. That way, I could help not only the community of Galisteo, but the whole county,” said Anaya, who won election in 2002.
Anaya says he learned a lot from that experience as well as the two years he served as president of the New Mexico Association of Counties and the five years spent on the Extraterritorial Zoning Commission.
He also values his experience working as assistant land commissioner under former Land Commissioner Ray Powell.
“I was in charge of the surface resource division, which oversaw 3,500 grazing permits and rights of way for roads, gas lines — anything that crossed state lands,” said Anaya, who still helps run the ranch in Stanley that has been in the family more than 100 years.
As a rancher and businessman — he ran an electrical repair business for about 20 years — Anaya says he knows the meaning of hard work and how to get things done.
“My motto is ‘Less talk, more action’ and working toward common sense solutions,” he said, adding that “less talk” doesn’t mean he won’t listen. “I will listen first, then act to make things happen.”
Inspiration to serve
While Anaya and Castellano are making do with what they can scrape into their campaign coffers, Ley and Stefanics have been building up their war chests. Ley raised $61,400, spent nearly $14,000 and had a $47,500 balance with four weeks left before the election. Stefanics had raised nearly as much, $57,500, and spent $17,300, leaving more than $40,000 on hand.
They rank third and fourth, respectively, in money raised among the 76 candidates running for state Senate seats. Only Democratic Senate Majority Leader Michael Sanchez ($70,300) and Diego Espinoza ($66,000), a Republican vying to unseat District 9 Democratic incumbent John Sapien, have raised more.
Stefanics held the District 39 seat before. “When senate District 39 was redistricted back in 1992, I jumped into the race because the person who held the seat at the time was a Republican from Los Alamos,” she said.
She won that race and became the first openly gay member of the state Senate. She has been with her partner, Linda Siegle, a lobbyist and Santa Fe Community College board member, for 26 years and they now live near Cerrillos.
Stefanics lost her bid for reelection in 1996 by only a few dozen votes to Griego, who held the seat until last year.
Stefanics is the only nonnative New Mexican in the race. She was born and raised in Dayton, Ohio, the oldest of three children in a family of modest means. “One of the things our parents taught us was to always help others if we could,” she said. “So, from my childhood through high school, I did a lot of volunteering.”
With a bachelors degree from Eastern Kentucky, a masters from the University of Wisconsin and a Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota, Stefanics came to the Land of Enchantment in 1982 to teach Parks and Recreation courses at the University of New Mexico. She moved into health and human services after that and served as deputy secretary for the state human services department, then as director of the New Mexico Health Policy commission in then-Gov. Bill Richardson’s administration.
She has served on the Santa Fe County Commission since 2008. “The reason I got involved in running for county commission was the potential of gas and oil drilling in the Galisteo basin. I live in the Galisteo and was concerned about that,” she said.
Stefanics said the experience she has gained since her last stint as a state senator will make her a better senator this time around. “When I ran 20 years ago, I didn’t know as much as I do now,” she said. “That’s what I bring to the table. I know how to make connections and get assistance. I also believe I have a perspective on not allowing the state to take away or preempt local authority from cities and counties. Preemption is a big deal.”
Ley says what got him involved in politics was a sign’s suddenly appearing in front of the Tererro General Store in 1990 announcing that the old Terrero Mine was slated to become a Superfund site.
“It said ‘No access past this point,’” said Ley, who made his living as an outfitter and hunting guide, and who relied on hunters, fishermen, campers and those with cabins in the Pecos Canyon to buy goods at his store. “My livelihood was on the line. It was one of those deals where we were not in the loop. It told me a guy needs to be a little more alert and a little more active, and not just sit around, sit around and sing ‘Kumbaya.’”
Ley worked with government officials at the state and federal level on remediation efforts for several years. He served on the county’s Planning Commission and worked with the state Legislature to craft the quota law for elk tags.
About that same time, he became a founding member the Pecos Canyon Volunteer Fire Department and served as its chief for 12 years.
“I cut my teeth on the catastrophic fire in New Mexico,” he said of the 2000 Viveash Fire.
He was elected to the San Miguel County Commission that same year.
“When I was on the county commission, I told them that I was there to get my fair share for my portion of the county, my district. It’s pretty much the same deal now. I look at my community, and I want to make sure I get my fair share for my district,” he said.
Ley grew up with one brother and one sister near Tererro and except for attending the New Mexico Military Academy in Roswell, then New Mexico State University in Las Cruces, he has lived there all his life.
“My mom and dad bought the dairy from the mining company. We used to deliver products from there to Española,” he said.
They also ran about 200 head of cattle in Villenueva, but sold out in 1969. After that, he got more involved in recreational services, leading pack trips, trail rides and hunting expeditions.
Business slowed after the 2013 Tres Laguna Fire, which burned more than 10,000 acres north of Pecos. By then, his three kids were grown up and had moved away.
“So it was like, ‘Now what do I do?’ ” he said. The answer was to run for state senate.
Four candidates, four different routes to getting their names on the June 7 ballot. It’ll be up to District 39 Democrats to decide which one’s name is on the ballot for the general election in November to try to reclaim the seat awarded to Republican Barela.