New Mexico County Commissioner Swaps to Libertarian Party

From Austin, Tim and Richard:

On February 24, Paul Edward Trujillo, chair of New Mexico’s Valencia County Commission, changed his registration from “Democrat” to “Libertarian”. He is running for re-election this year and will run as a Libertarian. Question: Is Trujillo the highest level Libertarian currently in elected office?

Congratulations are due to Mr. Trujillo and the New Mexico Libertarians.

posted Feb 25th, 2006 by Stephen Gordon · This entry was posted in self. Bookmark the permalink.
  • http://www.ballot-access.org Richard Winger

    Paul Trujillo’s timing is great. The New Mexico Libertarian Party did a petition to get itself back on the ballot last year. But the state claims only 40% of the signatures are valid. We still need 1,000 valid signatures or so by April 4, 2006 to succeed. Trujillo’s switch is energizing the NMLP, which makes it more likely the petition drive will succeed.

  • http://walterindenver.com Walter

    Sheriff Bill Masters, San Juan County, CO, is the highest ranking elected Libertarian office holder I know of. Here in CO Sheriff is the highest office in most counties.

    It’s worth noting that Masters originally won the office as a Republican, but switching to Libertarian hasn’t hurt him at the ballot box.

  • paulie cannoli

    40% now?

    Wow, it just keeps getting better.

    The state is lying about the validity. Extensive explanation from Andy and I (we did about 75% of the signature gathering, along with libertarian activist petitioners Jake Witmer and Al Anders) appears at

    GroundUpLibs.

    You may have to join to read or post messages.

    The bottom line is that the state is lying, and using shady tactics such as waiting until after they purged the voter rolls the following January to check signatures gathered in September and October. Of course it’s a new semester, and a new calendar year, so lots of people have moved. There are other ways in which they are screwing up our work; all the details are available in the GroundUpLibs archive or we can email it to anyone upon request.

    I’m glad they have a Libertarian in office there now, that state sure enough needs some.

  • paulie cannoli

    The petitioners who worked NM were Andy – he did about half the drive – me (I think about 1600 signatures), and Jake Witmer and Al Anders – I think Jay told us that they had about 1,700 total between them. Sounds like they had a few other signatures, maybe from local party members or
    something? The 7,300 number is about 500 more than I previously heard.

    Jay told us by phone that they did NOT copy the petitions before handing them to the state. Hopefully this does not mean that they will not be able to get a copy from the state.

    Sounds like they knew we got a lot of signatures from students, and many students move every semester, so let’s wait til the following semester (January) to check validity. They probably pulled some other shady crap to bounce a lot of the signatures.

  • paulie cannoli

    Reminds me of a story I heard from another petitioner that
    NM “election officials” charged the LP with tricking people into registering Libertarian simply because the LP’s turn-in was all or almost all Libertarian registrations – and that their field enforcement agents considered it
    “trickery” to merely ask people to register Libertarian, rather than just asking them to register to vote in a general non-partisan manner.

    This same petitioner and his late wife were charged by the state with election laws violations for not removing their LP jacket while voting. Gary refused to remove it and Kay complied when told. She was actually sentenced posthumously to a prison term even though she complied with the request to remove the jacket.

    While the case was pending, Gary and Kay had an occassion to ask Gary Johnson, then governor of NM, for a pardon. Gary Johnson, a former LP dues paying member, was speaking at an LP function. He promised a pardon, but never issued one.

  • Devious David

    I was actually talking to my uncle today and he agreed that the next thing we will start seeing on a regular basis is posthumous sentences and even full blown trials in posthumous absentia. Just watch.

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