I spent the night covering the election with KSFR, both on the radio and on Channel 28. We had the opportunity, during the course of the night, to interview Rep. Brian Egolf, Appeals Court Judge Tim Garcia, First Judicial District Judge Mary Marlowe, Undersheriff and Sheriff-elect Robert Garcia, Benito Martinez, who appears to have lost his bid for assessor, county commissioner candidate Angelica Ruiz, who came in third in the district 3 race, and Sheriff Greg Solano, who was extremely tan.

Most of the returns we were looking at throughout the night were incomplete, making some of the tight races impossible to call. At approximately 10 pm, County Clerk Valerie Espinoza, who visited with us throughout the evening, handed me the final unofficial tallies. The clerk’s office has 10 days to certify these results, which will include potential changes after they tally in provisional ballots. With some of these close races, it’s possible we’ll see requests for recounts (it’s reported today by the New Mexican that Carl Trujillo may ask for one in his race), but only time will tell.

In the meantime, here’s how some of the contested races ended up so far in the races (there were a total of 22,034 votes counted)

In the Santa Fe County Democratic primary for Lt. Governor, Joe Campos came out ahead with 28.89 percent of the vote, followed by Jerry Ortiz y Pino at 21.53. Brian Colon just edged out Lawrence Rael in Santa Fe County, with 20.22 percent of the vote compared to Rael’s 20.05, and Linda Lopez garnered 9.30 percent of the vote.

By comparison, statewide, according to the Secretary of State’s website, Colon took the race with 28.7 percent of the vote.

On the Republican side, John Sanchez became the lt. governor candidate with 39.6 percent of the vote statewide; in Santa Fe County, Sanchez did even better with approximately 45.6 percent of the vote.

GOP gubernatorial winner Susanah Martinez took about 54 percent of the vote in Santa Fe County; statewide, she clocked in with just over 50 percent of the vote.

In that district 4 PRC Democratic primary, Hank Hughes won handily in Santa Fe County with 48 percent of the vote. His nearest competitor here was Theresa Becenti-Aguilar, who had 24 percent of the vote. However, statewide, Becenti-Aguilar took the race with about 36 percent of the vote, and Hughes came in third.

The tightest races in Santa Fe County included the sheriff’s race, in which Undersheriff Robert Garcia ended up as the winner, but look at these numbers:

Robert Garcia: 6,465 votes: 41.87 percent

Charlie Dalton: 6,348, 41.11 percent

Rubel A Tafoya, 2,063 votes, 13.36 percent

Rex Doerfer, 564 votes, 3.65 percent

Also close, of course, was the legislative district 46 race, in which Carl Trujillo challenged Speaker of the House Ben Lujan:

Lujan: 2,115 votes, 50.87 percent

Trujillo: 2,043 votes, 49.13 percent

In County Commission, district 3, Robert Anaya, brother of outgoing Commissioner Mike Anaya, came in first, but David Bacon did quite well:

Anaya: 743 votes, 39.84 percent

Bacon: 587 votes, 31.47 percent

Ruiz: 535 votes, 28.69 percent

In Commission District 1, Danny Mayfield took it:

Mayfield: 1,279 votes, 31.94 percent

Jon Paul Romero, 1,185 votes, 29.59 percent

Paul White, 819 votes, 20.45 percent

Lenny Roybal, 722 votes, 18.03 percent

In those First Judicial District races, it looks like all the incumbent appointed judges came through, with the exception of the Division 7 race, in which David Thomson ended up with 7,049 votes, or 47.50 percent, compared with T Glenn Ellington’s 7,792 or 52.50 percent.

Again, all of these results are unofficial until certified, so who knows what will happen in the coming days?

I know we had some interviews from the field that should be up today, and you can replay last night’s live blog here. To check other statewide, totals, go the Secretary of State’s website.

Thanks to Poynter for pointing us to this handy search tool from Legistorm that allows users to search for congressional earmarks by state, sponsor and recipient. I went ahead to see what was going in with New Mexico earmarks. Here’s a brief look at the most recent ones:

2010: $97,000,000 for Chemistry and metallurgy facility replacement project at Los Alamos National Laboratory (no sponsor indicated)
2010: $41,269,000 for SOF Fuel Cell Hangar (MC-130) (Military Construction) / earmark by the President (solo)/ Cannon Air Force Base,
2010: $39,000,000 for Army Aviation Support Facility/ earmark by the President (not entirely sure where this is)

Check out what else was earmarked for NM; let us know what you find!

Crossposted at Muckrakersguide

You can’t throw a rock these days without hitting a Census worker (which should not imply that anyone should throw rocks at Census works, btw, it’s just an expression). So far, New Mexico is a little bit behind the national average when it comes to 2010 Census participation, but don’t count us out yet.

So which states are on top? North Dakota, South Dakota, Wisconsin, Iowa and Nebraska. How do I know this, you may ask? Because the Census has a website that lets people to track their own states or, if you’re like me, to become strangely competitive. Also, you can embed this little tracking widget.

crossposted at Muckrakersguide.com

This post has been modified to include an addendum at the end.

As you may have seen in the rotating ad on SFReeper, this week SFR introduces the third version of our Muckrakers Guide, which we’ll be using all throughout the campaign season to help you track the candidates (and the governments to which they aspire to lead).
Since Gov. Bill Richardson vetoed the dreaded food tax today, I thought I’d use that as an example of how to use public information and websites to expand one’s understanding of a situation.

According to a press release from the governor’s office, as well as various news outlets, the governor will deal with the budgetary shortfalls of not re-taxing food, in part, by eliminating certain earmarks in the law he signed to up the tax on cigarettes.

First off, earmarks means some of the money raised from the cigarette tax was intended for a specific purpose. What the governor has done, generally, is eliminated the special purpose so that the money generated can go into the general fund.

So how do we find out what these vetoed earmarks are since the media simply reported them as earmarks and didn’t get more specific?

Here’s what we do:

1. Go to the Legislature’s website.

2. On the menu, choose “legislation” and then “bill finder.”

3. We know the cigarette tax bill is HB 3 because it was numbered in the governor’s press release.

4. Look for the final version, it’s only available as a PDF—which I’ll include here.

5. Voila. The deleted earmarks were for early childhood programs through a variety of agencies.

Strange that wasn’t made more specific in the press conference.

Addendum: The governor’s deputy chief of staff helpfully sent me a link to the governor’s explanation of his veto. The message does detail the governor’s reasoning behind vetoing these earmarks, which I’ll excerpt from here:

In addition, I have vetoed distributions from the net receipts attributable to the cigarette tax to the county and municipality recreational fund, the county and municipal cigarette tax fund, the Public Education Department in fiscal year 2011 for early childhood programs, and the Children, Youth and Families Department in fiscal year 2011 for early childhood initiatives. These vetoes were difficult to make. Each of these distributions would be worthy of funding in good times, and I have championed early childhood programs throughout my administration. In these times, however, our desire to do good must be balanced against our responsibility to be fiscally responsible.

crossposted at muckrakersguide.com

Updates: Here are is a roundup of some of what was written about Stewart Udall over the weekend:

New York Times

LA Times

The Washington Post

The Denver Post

The Associated Press (appearing in both The Santa Fe New Mexican and The Albuquerque Journal

George Johnson’s wonderful remembrance of Stewart Udall.

Gary Nabhan’s memories of Stewart Udall, published in High Country News.

The website for the Stewart Udall collection at Arizona State University has some amazing resources and photos

March 20:

Former Interior Secretary Stewart Udall died this morning, at the age of 90, peacefully, according to a statement issued from the office of his son, US Sen. Tom Udall, D-NM.
I always found former Secretary Udall to be a gracious and outspoken public figure, and he was particularly noble and forceful in Santa Fe’s fight against the approval of the super Walmart (I interviewed him on the subject on a bench outside city hall during a protest, and he kept his arm around me for the entire interview, which normally is not something I would like, but it was hard to not be somewhat in awe when talking with Udall).
Stewart Udall was an environmentalist of large proportion, whose own feelings about the West translated into every action he took, whether it was fighting against uranium mining on tribal lands, or against that stupid Walmart.
The Reporter was lucky to publish an interview/essay by Udall earlier this year, which is part of the book Voice of the American West, titled “A Troubled Optimist.”
Much will be written about Udall’s legacy—much already has been—but I think he said it best himself many, many times. And this quotes that ends his essay also says it well:

I have the old-fashioned view that it’s important to have ties with the land. I feed my wife’s birds every morning. I’m losing a lot of my piñon trees, but I’m trying to water and save what I can. I think there’s hope. Maybe this big burst of growth will subside and people in the West will again see how rich they are in terms of the environment that surrounds them and how important it is to preserve it.

I greatly admired Stewart Udall—Santa Fe, the west, our country, lost a great leader today. Here is the press release from Sen. Udall’s office:

Statement from the Udall Family

Santa Fe, N.M. — Former Interior Secretary Stewart Lee Udall, 90, father of Senator Tom Udall, D-N.M., passed away peacefully this morning at his home in Santa Fe, New Mexico, surrounded by family.
Following a fall last week, Udall, who had been in failing health, was confined to his bed and died of natural causes.
Stewart Udall was preceded in death by his wife of 55 years, Erma Lee Udall. He is survived by their six children; Tom, Scott, Lynn, Lori, Denis and Jay, and their families, including eight grandchildren.
A “Celebration of Life” memorial will be held later this year in Santa Fe. In lieu of flowers, contributions in his memory may be made to the following organizations: Santa Fe Pro Musica, Santa Fe Conservation Trust, and Think New Mexico.
Stewart L. Udall was born in St. John’s, Arizona on January 31, 1920 to former Arizona Supreme Court Justice Levi S. Udall and Louise Lee Udall. He attended the University of Arizona where he earned undergraduate and law degrees.
During World War II, Stewart served four years in the United States Air Force as a gunner. He flew fifty missions over Western Europe for which he received the Air Medal with three Oak Leaf Clusters.
In 1954, Stewart was elected to serve Arizona’s second district in the U.S. House of Representatives. He was elected to serve four terms in the Congress.
In 1960, he proved instrumental in helping persuade Arizona Democrats to support then-Senator John F. Kennedy during the Democratic Nomination Convention. Upon election in 1960, President Kennedy appointed Stewart Udall Secretary of Interior, where his accomplishments under Presidents Kennedy and Johnson made him an icon in the environmental and conservation communities.
Legislative achievements from Secretary Udall’s cabinet career include The Wilderness Act of 1964, The Wild and Scenic Rivers Act, the expansion of the National Park System and the creation of The Land and Water Conservation Fund.
Until his passing, Stewart Udall continued his devotion to public service as an author, historian, scholar, lecturer, environmental activist, lawyer and citizen of the outdoors. He was the last surviving member of President Kennedy’s original cabinet.