Another Legislative Seat Filled by Circumventing Voters – This Time in Chaves County

New Mexico House Districts 6 and 59 will have representatives in the legislature for the next two years that didn’t earn a single vote from the people of their districts. Both districts elected a representative in November who promptly resigned, necessitating an appointment process carried out by the County Commissions of the affected Counties and finalized by the Governor.

Resignations of newly elected incumbent representatives is becoming an oft-used strategy to bypass voters. This maneuver uses the electoral advantage enjoyed by incumbent legislators to secure a legislative seat, which is then hastily vacated to make way for a well-connected appointee to be ushered into the office by those in power. The new appointee doesn’t have to run a campaign or earn the votes of the people of the district before he serves a full term in the office. When he is finally faced with an election, he has a strong chance of keeping his seat.

Last month, we covered a corrupt attempt to install Democrat Harry Garcia into the House District 6 seat formerly held by Democrat Eliseo Alcon. Alcon was reelected on November 5th, then resigned his seat on November 25th citing serious illness, and has since passed away.

Also on November 25th, sitting Representative for District 69, Harry Garcia switched his voter registration to put his residency inside District 6 and outside of District 69, reportedly with the blessing of Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver. Garcia had lost his primary in June and would otherwise have to exit the legislature at the end of December, but he was still actively representing District 69 when he changed his address. Days later, the Cibola County Commission unanimously voted to nominate Harry Garcia for the open District 6 position. Understandably, there was much public uproar over all this stemming from the fact that the voters of District 6 were being bypassed despite having just held an election, and Garcia’s dubious claim that he had switched residences from a spacious house to a trailer park so that he would have an address inside the district where he wanted the appointment.

McKinley County delayed voting on this mess for several weeks but finally joined Cibola County and nominated Harry Garcia for the spot with a split vote on December 30th. This corruption was too much even for Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham, who requested Attorney General Raul Torrez to investigate the legitimacy of Garcia’s residency claims. Torrez found that Garcia had indeed lied about his residence and was not eligible for the District 69 position. District 6 remains without representation in the New Mexico House with the legislative session already underway.

A similar switcheroo is about to go down in Chaves County – for the second time in a little over a year. As covered last year by the Estancia News, Republican Senator Stuart Ingle resigned his seat in October of 2023 with half of his term remaining to be served. Chaves, De Baca, Curry, Lea and Roosevelt Counties all recommended sitting Republican Representative Greg Nibert to fill his seat. Nibert was subsequently appointed to the position by Governor Grisham. That left Nibert’s house seat, which serves Chaves County, to be filled by the Chaves County Commission. The Commission nominated Jared Hembree, who happened to be a partner at the Hinkle Shanor Law Firm along with Greg Nibert and T. Calder Ezzell, one of the Chaves County Commissioners. T. Calder Ezzell’s wife, Candy Spence, was already a legislator from the region.

As pointed out by the Estancia News, this shuffling ended up giving representatives of the Hinkle Shanor Law Firm unprecedented legislative power for a private entity. The firm also enjoys large annual contracts to represent the state of New Mexico, even though the New Mexico Constitution, Article IV, Section 28 forbids members of the legislature from being “interested directly or indirectly in any contract with the state.”

We exposed the fact that while Greg Nibert publicly claimed to be a voice in the legislature in opposition to the extreme Governor Grisham, his law firm simultaneously helped Grisham fight to preserve the most radical COVID policies in the country. Hinkle Shanor also fought to uphold the obviously gerrymandered federal congressional districts in the state, virtually ensuring Democrats would make up the entire federal congressional delegation from New Mexico in perpetuity.

Hinkle Shanor’s legislative empire shrank significantly when Greg Nibert surprisingly lost his senate primary in June of 2024. But Nibert was not sidelined for long – Governor Grisham recently appointed him to the powerful Public Regulation Commission (PRC)– the body which regulates New Mexico’s public utilities, including energy and telecommunications. Despite Nibert’s lip service to conservative values, the appointment solidifies the appearance of a close political alliance between Nibert and Grisham, one of the most radical leftist governors in the country.

Nibert’s appointment to the PRC is especially interesting, because the office used to be an elected position until Democrats placed an amendment on the 2020 ballot to give the Governor the power to appoint its members. Democrats in New Mexico have made no secret that they want to phase out oil and gas in New Mexico, an industry which supplies a huge percentage of state tax revenue and replace it with “green” energy. With carte blanche to choose anyone who aligns best with her party’s extreme positions on energy, it is interesting that Grisham turned to Nibert. If Nibert stands up for oil and gas as well as he did New Mexico’s school children during COVID, the industry and the state budget have a bleak future.

In another surprise move, Jared Hembree, Representative for District 59 and Nibert’s law partner, announced his resignation on January 11th. Hembree, who had just been elected in November, said his resignation was due to “unforeseen health-related circumstances that require immediate attention.”

Six candidates applied to be considered for appointment to the Hembree’s vacant seat, but the Chaves County Commission hastily nominated Roswell native and oil and gas businessman, Mark Murphy, to take Hembree’s seat on January 16th. Murphey is the treasurer for the political campaign of Richard Taylor, the Chaves County Commission Chairman, who cast the deciding vote to nominate Murphey. The Chaves County attorney assured the commission the close relationship between Murphey and Taylor did not constitute a conflict of interest. Murphey and his company, Strata Production, have been large political contributors for many years. Murphey and his company were the largest contributors to the “Our Values PAC” which received $600,000 for the 2024 election.

And so, District 59 will join the citizens of District 6 in having a representative chosen for them without a vote being cast, despite having just gone through an election.

Obviously, a process must be in place for unexpected replacement of legislators when they are unable to finish an elected term for legitimate reasons. But the rising frequency of legislators who resign their seat shortly after an election and before they have served even one day of their term for reasons they likely knew existed well ahead of their election, suggests establishment politicians may be abusing the County Commission/Governor appointment process to deceive and bypass voters, ensuring they get who they want in the legislature without having to consult the voters. New Mexicans may want to demand a change in how this process is done – such as requiring a special election for replacement when most of the resigned term has yet to be served.