OPINION: Opposite wings of Democratic Party vie for Senate seat

Apr. 23—Even as Los Lunas became more and more Republican, Democratic Mayor Charles Griego kept alive an undefeated streak spanning 42 years.

Griego won the first of his eight terms on the Los Lunas Village Council in 1982. "I think we had two traffic lights when I started," he said one recent day.

Neighbors encouraged him to enter local politics after their homes were annexed into Los Lunas, lifting its population to 3,500. The village today has about 20,000 residents.

Griego, 72, is now in his third term as mayor. He defeated a well-known Republican, former six-term state Rep. Alonzo Baldonado, by 12 percentage points in last year's nonpartisan election.

For many years, Griego has contributed modest amounts of money to a wide range of Democratic candidates. He's donated to liberals such as Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham and former state Senate Majority Leader Michael Sanchez.

Griego last month gave $250 to a more conservative Democrat, Clemente Sanchez, who's once again trying to hold off the party's progressive wing by recapturing his old seat in the state Senate.

Griego said Clemente Sanchez during two terms in the Senate was an attentive lawmaker who helped Los Lunas with state funding for public works projects. One of the initiatives is a forthcoming highway interchange for which $75 million is available.

Sanchez lost the District 30 Senate seat in the 2020 Democratic primary after liberal groups moved against him. Critics excoriated Sanchez for being friendly to corporations, and for voting to keep on the books a dormant 1969 law criminalizing abortion. Legislators and Lujan Grisham repealed that law three months after Sanchez's last day in office.

A Republican won the District 30 seat four years ago, but the dysfunctional GOP has no one on the ballot this year in the redrawn district stretching across parts of five counties: Bernalillo, Cibola, McKinley, Socorro and Valencia.

Sanchez is competing against Angel Charley in the June 4 Democratic primary election. The winner goes to the Senate.

Charley and Sanchez live in Acoma Pueblo, though any commonalities end there.

"He is interested in protecting corporations and businesses. We are protecting people. We are protecting families," Charley said.

She's made similar pronouncements that motivated Shayai Lucero to challenge Charley's support for families.

"She is the mother of my child's bully," Lucero wrote of Charley in a public statement. "Angel does not hold the experience to take care of the families in District 30 if she cannot take care of her own."

Charley in a phone interview said she did not want to go back and forth on placing blame for hostility between two girls who for a time attended the same school.

"I had to pull my kid out of that school because of safety," Charley said in an interview. "I've never had any interaction with [Lucero] or her child. I wish them the best on their healing journey. We're on our own healing journey."

In addition to her plank on assisting families, Charlie is campaigning to maintain reproductive rights without government interference. She knows Sanchez's support of the old anti-abortion law hurt him in his 2020 blowout loss to Pam Cordova in the primary.

For his part, Sanchez said people in the far-flung Senate district are worried about the economy and crime but not about abortion rights.

"Abortion is settled. It's legal in this state," Sanchez said. "Not a single person in Valencia County [where Mayor Griego's village is located] has spoken to me about abortion."

Charley also criticized Sanchez for what she described as his opposition to raising the statewide minimum wage from $7.50 an hour to the current level of $12. In fact, Sanchez as chairman of the Senate Corporations and Transportation Committee backed the $12-an-hour minimum the governor promised. In return, Lujan Grisham accepted reaching that threshold in slower increments.

"There was a compromise on that bill, and I worked for it," Sanchez said.

As for serving families, he points to his success in directing more federal money intended for Native American schools to the very districts that were being shortchanged by state lawmakers.

In addition to Mayor Griego, Sanchez said he has received contributions from two moderate Democratic senators, Joe Cervantes of Las Cruces and Bill Tallman of Albuquerque. The contributions from Tallman and Cervantes have not yet posted on public reports.

Charley's donors include three officeholders with more liberal leanings. They are Senate President Pro Tem Mimi Stewart of Albuquerque; Sen. Brenda McKenna of Corrales; and Rep. Reena Szczepanski of Santa Fe. Stewart contributed $2,500. McKenna and Szczepanski each gave Charley $250.

Sanchez had $134,700 in his campaign account after the first disclosure period this month. Most of that money carried over from his eight years in the Senate. Charley, a newcomer to running for public office, had almost $50,000 in contributions.

Paths to victory are clear to both candidates. Charley hopes at least 60% of primary voters are women. Sanchez needs more moderates like undefeated Mayor Griego on his side.

Ringside Seat is an opinion column about people, politics and news. Contact Milan Simonich at msimonich@sfnewmexican.com or 505-986-3080.