New Mexico in Focus; 1349; Black Lives Matter Protests

Funding for New Mexico and Focus, provided by the McEun Charitable Foundation, and viewers like you. This week, under Mexico and Focus, primary elections rock the balance of power in the state senate. Turnout was up, up, up in New Mexico, especially for Republicans. Turnout for Republicans, they were ahead of Democrats by about a point. And the Native community reacts to Black Lives Matter protests across the country. The Mexico and Focus starts now. Thanks for joining us this week, I'm your host, Gene Grant. It's hard to recall a more news-filled week. The primary elections we thought might slip past during the pandemic turned out to be a barn burner. We'll run down results and implications. We'll catch you up on the latest COVID news as the state reopens, but we start with unrest in New Mexico and across the country. As the killing of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis, police touched a raw nerve.

Albuquerque has seen mostly peaceful protests, though Sunday night descended into vandalism and a bit of violence. Mayor Tim Keller and Chief Administrative Officer Serita Nyer spoke with us earlier this week to push back against calls to impose a curfew and to mobilize the National Guard. Mayor, I've got a quick question for you by APD's own admission. They did let their guard down after the Sunday night march. What's been the conversation between you and Chief Geier about that and what's the plan going forward to keep that from happening again? Sure, you know, for us, our plan is always to be as prepared as possible. And in any situation where we have things like protests, but you know, potentially violence and so forth, the plan changes every day. So each day we learn, we talk each day and we update sort of what we're doing, but you know, we want to keep the protesters safe and we want to keep our city safe as well. And so our teams, the standard procedure is if there is ever violence, they will engage and just as best they can deescalate and break up what's happening.

But otherwise, they will be on standby and let people express their right to do free speech. So for us, you know, it does involve lots of resources and challenges and things like this. And inevitably, there's going to be, there's, you know, hopefully just minor mistakes and small challenges. And I think in this world, no one ever wants to see broken windows of the chemo, but in the grand scheme of things, I think our team and the peaceful protesters saved the chemo. And no one was seriously injured. So these are, you know, minor tweaks that are definitely expected during a time of uncertainty. And so far, I'm grateful Albuquerque has only had those incidents. As chief administrative officer, you work with the chief closely. Have you had conversations on this regard as well? We have. And I actually got a chance to spend an evening in the control center where all the different agencies get together and make sure that the, as the mayor said, those tactical plans are rapidly evolving and the lessons learned each day of the protests have been rapidly

incorporated into the way we're doing things now. And I think you can see the, the evidence of that in the fact that we've had two days of peaceful protests that didn't have that part two where people took advantage of the situation to cause property damage. Gotcha. Picking up on that mayor, I appreciate what Serena just said there because we did have a peaceful protest in the rain just a night ago as we taped this on Wednesday early afternoon. But I'm curious. Part of the route changed to incorporate a bit of loamists and then cutting down south towards civic plaza. Is that part of the plan now to reroute some of the marching if it is to happen to be away from businesses? Well, I think for us, I mean, you know, in this kind of situation, we're not, we don't always know where folks are going. Sometimes we do. Sometimes we don't. And we always actually, if we do know the organizers at any level, you know, historically with all our marches, whether it's around gun violence or women's rights, we usually

do try and coordinate the route to keep protesters safe and also to block traffic. So if we're aware of a route, we try and make it safe for the protesters and the businesses. And it actually is kind of in the best interest of everyone to be aware of the route. When we're not aware of the route, obviously, it makes it just a lot harder to keep everyone safe. And the goal is, is usually when we're using barriers to, is to stop the hicular traffic so that the protesters are safe as opposed to trying to control where people are walking or marching. That could be allow people to go through those barriers on foot. How closely do you work as an administration with the organizers? Do you get heads up on everything on some things? How does that work? Well, I think it's a real mix. You know, again, we try and reach out as best that we can. And I think some of the groups, especially ones that have been more established or advocates that even I know from, you know, when I was out there protesting after James Boyd, you know, we try and have that communication, but we certainly, there's a generational issue.

Some of us are kind of aging out. And so, you know, we certainly aren't in touch with everyone, but there are certainly some that we still are. There's now a credible reporting out there that APD officers were seen meeting with some guys that are part of a so-called militia group out there. Take care of each other and maybe take care of the people in Albuquerque. Some of these guys, these dummies, they see crime with opportunity. It started, it's roiling the community in quite a bit, quite a ways, because the pictures just are not great seeing men with long guns and, you know, camo out in our streets during a peaceful march. What was your, what was your reaction when you saw that, Mayor? It was completely inappropriate. And frankly, grateful that it was caught on video and shared with us, because we probably would never have known about it if it hadn't been for the folks in the community who trusted us and not to share that information with us. Those officers are under investigation.

Their actions were completely taken on their own and not directed by APD. And APD renounces any vigilanteism or use of, you know, people have their rights, but Albuquerque at protests has a tendency to escalate rather than de-escalate the situation and de-escalation is, of course, always our goal. I believe this is an example where we know these challenges are going to occur, and we want to know about them right away, and then we want to take action. But I also know, and there's enough inherent chaos and things like this that like these challenges are going to come up. We hope and believe that they'll be small, and that we can take care of them right away the next day. And so, you know, I'm sure there are going to be other incidents, but it's our job to do everything we can to prevent them, but also to stop them as soon as we hear about them. That's what we keep doing. Gotcha. Let me talk about the damage that happened in the part, the court of Central Downtown. Is there a notion to perhaps help out some of those business owners that lost some

very expensive windows downtown, and that may or may not be covered by insurance, might the city be able to help out in that regard in some ways? Absolutely. So, the morning of we sent our crews out to clean graffiti. It was fallen on. By the time I got down there at about 11, we assisted with boarding up windows, and then business owners who have been affected by these incidents are to call 3-1-1, and we'd be happy to share any other resources that we can to help them get through this. Gotcha. Mayor, there's been a call from the Albuquerque Journal that perhaps the National Guard should be put on standby of some sort and institute a curfew at the time of the printing you were opposed to that. If there was another incident out there that was unexpected, would you in fact make that call? Well, I think we have to think through what's happening nationally and what's happening in our city, and those two things are obviously very related, but they're also very different.

And so, what that means is that we've got to do what's right for Albuquerque. We have to carve our own path, and we saw during Corona, for example, we did our own thing, and we demonstrated that we were a healthier city than most major cities. Right now, I decided that we should not have a curfew, and I think that is in sharp contrast to cities that implemented a curfew right away and are now more violent and more dangerous, and the message is being diluted by the violence. So that's why we did not decide to do a curfew, so we really want to avoid that, we don't want to do that. Now, if there's a situation, of course, where we actually lose control, where APD, not just for 10 minutes or an hour, but when we feel that we are out of control, we will act without hesitation to do everything we can to restore public safety, and that includes a curfew in National Guard. But that really is a last resort, and I want to remind folks that it doesn't necessarily even mean it'll help.

You want to, at that point, have every tool at the city's disposal, but what we've seen in other cities is actually making things worse. And from a message perspective, it is completely distracting from the point of the peaceful protest. Mayor Tim Keller, Chief Administrative Officers, sir, we did a near thank you guys for spending some time with us. It's been a busy week for sure, certainly in your office, we appreciate it. Thank you. Appreciate you covering this. Take care. Absolutely. I'm Megan Camerick, as protests have broken out across the state and country organizers have struggled to separate their message from broader anger, and especially from violence violence. I'm joined today by Karen Freeman, an organizer who has been involved in some of the protests in Albuquerque. Also, Finney Coleman, he's president of the University of New Mexico faculty senate. And Giovanna Barrell is culture change leader, the city of Albuquerque office of equity and inclusion. Thank you all for joining me. Karen, you and others have very quickly brought together many people to protest the murder

of George Floyd peacefully. What do you hope these actions can achieve in New Mexico? If any, our end goal is a overall system change, especially in reference to the policing system in America and the authoritative system in America. And the way that those systems are used in reference to policing the black community. In here in Albuquerque, we don't have a very large black community. We also don't face the same brutalities and troubles that larger cities and larger black populations across America do with their policing systems and those racial tensions have been there for centuries as well in those larger cities. So here in Albuquerque, we want to give our small population of a voice and make sure

that we're, and you know, over the course of eventuality, hopefully become in better contact with other movements across the, across the states and, you know, with the goal is solidarity with our people in that sense, but it all, we are all working towards the same thing. I think if I were to point towards a resource that would give a good overlook as to what I think our goal is most, most line up with the president of the, and WACP just released a statement yesterday about his feelings on the subject and also where he stands with the protesters and why we're protesting. And I think that you explained it really well. We can put a link to that on our website. During several evenings, there has been violence and looting after these peaceful protests have ended.

How is this hurting your efforts to get your message out? Well, initially, I think our greatest fear was that they would, they would, they would pretty much kill our entitlement because the, the, you know, the biggest problem is the fact that they could be kind of blended in with us and people recognize their movement as the same thing as our movement and that's, that's not the case. So in reference to the most, you know, the most damaging of effects that it has is, is that is that people think that we're not, you know, following through with what we say we come to do, which is to protest peacefully and to make sure that our voices are heard and also to protect our community because we're citizens before suspects of anything we can see here. And we love our city. So we're not here to destroy it, you know, and you love something you hope to see it be better. And there's, like, like I said, we're, we're, we're very grateful and blessed to live in our country because we don't, we don't have a lot of the, you know, direct trauma and

direct issues that larger cities are dealing with right now, but we do have them and they're still present and as black people, you know, we're part of that struggle no matter where we are. Oh, I'm sorry, I just wanted to jump to Professor Coleman real quick. We have been here many times before, but the scope of these protests, they reaching around the world right now, feels different. Is this different and does that mean that change is actually possible? I think it's different in the sense that the context for this is unprecedented. We've never had the kinds of things happening alongside this horrific murder in the past where you have an administration that has seen fit to literally use the power of the presidency to deprive people of their first amendment rights. We've not seen this kind of economic crisis so quickly in our country.

And certainly all of the pressures that come along with COVID-19, but I want to be clear that these movements, if it feels different, it's only because of the circumstances. There are many of us who've been around for a long time and this is the repetition when Traywan Martin was murdered. We thought, well, this feels different. There's going to be change. When Mike Brown was murdered, we thought, hey, maybe this feels different, Eric Garner, et cetera, et cetera. And again and again, we've come back to the same violence and then probably most disappointing the same surprise in the nation that this continues to happen in black communities. A lot of white allies against racism are reaching out right now and asking what they can do in this moment.

What would you answer? Well, you know, that varies from one individual to the next. I always begin with an ocean of, you know, you have to look at yourself first and I encourage anyone who's really interested in helping other communities to first look at themselves and make that self-assessment. The Harvard IIT, the implicit assessments test will allow people to get that baseline to look at their implicit biases and then to use that to help make some of those things explicit. But the most important thing that allies can do is listen to our youth, Kieran, Jiovana. What they have to say is extremely important. You've been listening to old heads like me for a generation now. Our youth have a great message to share with us and we need to listen. So if you want to do something, listen to what they're telling you because what they're telling you is their truth and it's an important for our future. Jiovana, it's a great segue to what you're doing, your role in this city is pretty new.

Changing culture is hugely challenging. So how are you looking to do that going forward in this crisis? Yeah, like first it, it doesn't, it doesn't happen overnight. Not even going to happen in the role that I'm in and for however long, you know, it going back to what Dr. Coleman is saying is really helping people look in themselves and how do you dismantle the racism and patriarchy and all of these systems that are holding us from our humanity. And so really looking at that within yourself and so also calling out institutions for their role in structural racism as well. And these are hard conversations. These aren't easy like, okay, well, we understand the oppression that institutions have put on people, people of color, black communities, but really saying, okay, we recognize it. Now what?

We can't just talk it any more at the top. And so I do believe that is a part of that culture change, but also collective work. It can't just be done within the institution, it also needs to be done with community. It also needs to be done within ourselves. So I think that's important for us to not forget we all have a role in this change just because I have the title of culture change leader. I'm not doing this work by myself, you know, I need the community to help and do this work within the institution. And so I also need people within the institution that are doing this work and using their voice. So it's not this dichotomous, you know, one way or the other, we've got to look at it collectively together. How are you trying to create space for that right now? Yeah. Absolutely. So creating space, we just started our equity training initiative that started in January. And basically the main thing is normalizing conversations because a lot of people are even scared to take the word race.

They don't want to be labeled as a racist and not understanding the history of race and how it's constructed. And so bringing those dialogues where people can have those lightbulbs go off of like, oh wow, what was my role? What can I use with the power that I have in the role within the institution to make change? And so this starts off with just reading some articles. So I hope of just reading right this week today. We have a session with Ibram X-Kendi talking about his work, about how to be an anti-reason. What does that mean? And so also breaking down terminology. We can have all the language, but still perpetuate these systems. And so it's important for us to have a common language and helping people understand, what do we really mean when we say diversity, equity, and inclusion? Are we just saying it? We need to have action behind it. So that's kind of how I am formulating this culture change, but also with the support of community partners that are helping do this work with me.

So it's not just me doing this work as well. Well, I hate to say this, but we have run out of time. But I would like to continue this conversation on the web, and if you will stick around. I want to thank all of you for coming and talking with us, and this will not be our last conversation for sure about those. It wasn't that long ago that the nation watched as security firms and the police showered Native Americans with icy water as they protested that Dakota access pipeline. And there's a strong Native community in Minneapolis with ties to New Mexico. And I may of course, one in the Tonya Gonzalez speaks with three New Mexico Native Americans about their perspective on the protests. Justine Christina Lauren, thank you for joining us this week on New Mexico PBS. Thank you. Glad to be here. Thank you. There's a lot going on across the country right now, having to do with the black community and also involving people of color when it comes to violence and police departments.

And Justin, you are worked and lived in Minneapolis. And you know that Native community there, well, go ahead and share some words. Well, it's been a mixed bag of emotions, both unfortunately sadness to see our communities there in Minneapolis experiencing, once again, brutality at the hands of the Minneapolis police department. I lived literally several blocks from the, from cup foods there where the murder happened. At the same time, I've been extremely encouraged and filled with my heartfelt seeing the Native community there, particularly along Franklin Avenue and the American Indian Cultural Corridor, how I'll grounds coffee shop, all my relations, art gallery, the Indian Center, just coming together, both as a community to protect, literally physically protect the properties there of the community there.

And then unfortunately, we had one of our community institutions there burned, magazine communications was burned to the ground, a long serving organization, and then you saw hundreds of thousands of us all being raised literally within several days to begin to rebuild. So it's this mix of both the unfortunate, but also you see the Indian community once again rise through strength and resilience and collectivism to roll their sleeves up and to protect, to connect, to encourage, and that includes encouraging and standing with our black relatives. And so I'm thousands of miles away, but I have to say that I'm trying to take the positive and I just think that through these types of situations, the Indian community continues to be stronger and man to see the young people coming out and just standing strong and being on the positive side of what's going on has been awesome. So my hats off to the Minneapolis and the Native community there for how they've exemplified

community and community togetherness in the right way. So my hats off to them. Christina, with your advocacy work here in New Mexico through three sisters collective and the missing and murdered indigenous women and girls movement, you are often standing up for Native rights. What are your thoughts about what's going on? Oh, of course it's really heavy and I think we're all feeling, we're all feeling really emotional, but this is our time to stand up and support our black brothers and sisters. We have a lot of mixed race Native folks and we got to check in with them and support them. And if we want to do any actions or alliance ship, make sure we just de-center ourselves right now and uphold the black community and ask for guidance if we do want to do anything. So I don't think we should be trying to initiate any actions where they're asking or finding ways to support the black community and the actions that they're engaging in and offer

support in a mindful way that is not centering our struggle. Obviously, our struggle as indigenous people continues and we have a lot of similar issues at play, but now is not the time to assert our indigenous platform right now. I think we really have to stand in solidarity with the black community and elevate them to the best way we can. And Lauren, you're also known for your advocacy and your work with youth and elders and also standing up for Native rights. What are your thoughts? Not only is it tragic, but it's exposing a lot of truth in our society, in our nation, in our governments, and it's also telling us a tale that many of us have colored people, especially Native people that we've heard over and over and over again. And our historical trauma is relived and we're re-triggered consistently. And for that, it can be exhausting or the world around us can exhaust us.

So the matter of staying the course, understanding the issues, understanding the truth, understanding who you are, where you come from, who you represent. And doing that in the best way to help our people, to help our youth, to help our communities and also to defend the sacred, to protect the sacred and also look out for our homelands and our people that are here. And for everyone else that has been affected by police brutality, it's real. It's there. This is in our face. And I think a lot of people are realizing the truth and once that the truth is really exposed, it creates a hurt for everybody. Even right now, it's hurtful talking about it because I live in a border town. And we are just one incident away from a Minneapolis incident coming to any border town on the Indian country. So these are truthful things and we got to be mindful about how we are going to be proactive and how we're going to take a positive input and impact into this.

Well, thank you, everyone, for sharing your thoughts and words of encouragement today. Thank you. You know, it's clear that there's some logistics issues with cleaning after every person or every party that sits at a table. There's just a process issue and then you, of course, have delays related to that. And so I think there's just a lot of, you know, and I hate the term, but it's the new normal. It's something we're just going to have to all adapt to and figure out our way. The week's other big news happened on Tuesday as hundreds of thousands of Mexicans cast votes in the state's primaries. There's a lot down back here. So let's get to it. Joining us this week are you an political science professor, Lana Atkasin. She's been watching both the voting process and the results closely. Line regular and former House minority whooped in will fully is back with us to help us sort through the races. We're very pleased to have another line regular, Tony Laura Sanchez. She's returning for another spin, Lord, good to have you.

All right, progressives had themselves a night after the dust settled. They incited key conservative Senate Democrats, including John Arthur Smith and Senate President Pro Tem Mary K. P even still Democrats in these seats most likely come November. But Laura, it changes the face of the political makeup of the Senate, doesn't it? It's very interesting. It does. It will change the face dramatically, I think, because many of these incumbents that were incited were chairs, respective Senate committees. So we're talking about a whole new group one way or the other. And so you saw a big wave of definitely progressive candidates that took out Democrat incumbents who are more conservative. Well, they actually will be able to win in November is a different question. And I think a lot has to do with the turnout, the presidential election. And frankly, whether there is still a vote by mail plan, if we're still sort of dealing with COVID issues at that point. But I think more than a progressive, I mean, I think you have to recognize that there's a progressive wave, but there was also an anti incumbent wave because if you look at

some of the conservative districts, for example, Gregg Fulfer down in in jail in Lee County, Senator Fulfer was unseated also by David Gaiegos in the House. So that was not the progressive thing. It was a sort of anti incumbent thing. Good point. And you saw some of that around the country with some congressional members, Republican members who were also unseated. So I think there was definitely a wave of change going through this last Tuesday. Lana, I want to get to the ramifications for the general coming up here in just a little bit. I want to hold you on that for just a quick second. I'm curious to your thoughts, though, on the impact of votes for things like repeal and colonization of abortion that was out there, of course, there was a very impactful vote that sort of drove that marijuana or early childhood education. There were a lot of things on the table that folks wanted to see happen. Is that essentially what drove this as well? Yeah. I mean, I think the abortion issue in the Senate was obviously what drove this. A lot of money was poured into those contests. So there were lots more money spent on the new candidates running against the incumbents

than we had seen previously. Lots of digital ads, lots of mailers, there's a lot of activity around this. It didn't just focus on the abortion issue, but I believe that that was the main issue, obviously, that led to the interest in those senators and also to their defeat. Daniel, pick up on that if you would and I got a couple of Republican results for you. I want to ask you about two, but go ahead and pick up on where Democrats came in when it comes to these huge names that are suddenly not a part of our reality anymore. It's very interesting to kind of get your head around that. What's your thought? If you're a Democrat, if you're a chairman of the Democrat Party of New Mexico right now, you might want to be careful what you wish for, right? I mean, it's clear that the Democrat Party is moving to the left becoming more and more progressive, which is fine. We've witnessed this in the Republican Party when we moved ultra-right and became with the Christian coalitions, doing the things they were doing. Abortion was a big issue back then as well, right?

There were legislators that came in and all of a sudden, the moderate folks start thinking, I'm really not down with this. I would tell you, race is like John Arthur Schmitt, seats like Mary K. Paypin, seats like Clemente Sanchez, those are not seats that Republicans normally have a chance to go after with those incumbents. Now, the question is, never mind about the Democrats, are the Republican feeling good candidates? I mean, if you're feeling someone that moved into Deming three months ago, or you're feeling somebody that lives at the furthest outlier reaches of the district, you're not going to win. Now, if you've got some homegrown individual from Deming, or someone from the center of Las Cruces, or someone that actually lives in Grants, New Mexico, running as a Republican, you might have a chance to capture a seat right now. The question is, is the Republican Party put the time in to go out and get the great candidates for an opportunity like this, or are they just putting folks up my concern is? The Republican Party has shown that their ideology right now was, let's get someone to run for every seat, and when you have the planner getting someone to run for every seat,

usually wind up getting anybody that'll run, right? Hey, Dan Sting, with you a quick second, if you can keep this fairly brief. I'm interested in, Laura mentioned David Geigos, and there's the Greg Schmidtie situation. There were some Republican senators that got upset. What was your take on that? So, first of all, I can't believe you came to me as I keep a brief, but I'll try. You know, I think there's a couple of things, right? The first one is, you've got James White, which was a sitting senator getting beat by a sitting representative, I believe, or someone that had been in the legislature. So it's not someone that's a no name. Dan and Hobbs, you got the Fulford deal. It's clear that the Senate of Fulford was a Democrat four or five years ago, the Switch parties, and Steve Pearson or the Republican Party was not in favor of him. So, look, regardless of whether you agree with parties, disagree with parties, if the party machine is behind you in a primary, you got a pretty good chance of winning the primary. It's the question is, can that party machine carry you through the general election? Gotcha. Lana, now I want to ask you about ramifications for Republicans on some of those high

profile seats, especially down south, and Dan's take that, you know, be careful what you wish for. What's your sense of the possibilities in November? Well, I mean, I agree that we've definitely sort of extended and expanded polarization in those areas by, you know, fielding more progressive candidates and, indefinitely, a conservative area. You can see the conservative, how conservative, even Donan is, when they just barely pass a measure to, you know, wear masks. So there was a lot of opposition to that. So this is a very conservative areas, most conservative area of New Mexico, and, you know, so we can expect a very large fight in the general. Now, I have not looked at those candidates either, that the Republicans put up, and I do not know their qualities, and that's something that I need to look into, because I think that is an important point. Are they good candidates? Did they feel good candidates? Did they think that those races would be lost? I do want to mention that turnout was up, up, up in New Mexico, especially for Republicans. Turnout for Republicans, at least we're still counting votes. So I'm not certain, but they were

ahead of Democrats by about a point, and turnout was about 38% for both parties, if we can blame them. So turnout was really up in this primary, which is amazing, given that we really didn't have much competitive stuff going on. Isn't that something? That's very interesting. We'll see what happens when more numbers come out. I think today, as we take this on Thursday, and certainly by the end of the week, that's interesting. Laura Sanchez, let's look at some federal races. CD3, Teresa Ledger Fernandez won, and she beat a very high profile. Well, quite a few competitors, but obviously Valerie Plain was the most high profile. What was your take on the race there? Well, I think certainly having, I lost count, I think it was like seven people in the race, that the margin that you need to win by is much lower. I mean, you basically need to make sure that your votes are identified early, that you've moved them, that you continue to not lose ground with them. And I think that in terms of the party apparatus, I mean, Teresa Ledger Fernandez was very active in the party for a long time. She had been working the party, I should say, the party

regulars. So I remember meetings going back pretty far, where she had surrogates that were coming in and talking to people and trying to get support for her at a variety of events. And that's always helpful when you have that much of an operation early on. I don't remember ever seeing any Valerie Plain, any one sort of supporting her at some of those early, early meetings. And so that's an important sign, I think. I'm still given that. It was hard to tell, given all of the different commercials. If you don't live in that district, it was really hard to see who's going to come out, but I think talking to people who live in that district, who are very active Democrats, they weren't entirely surprised. I think for me, what was also interesting is down south and what's shaping up, given that's my home district down there. Now that we have the Republican field set, it's going to be a rematch of last election between a vet, Harold, and so it's going to be a very interesting, I think turnout will be high because of that, but also the presidential.

And I think that's going to have an effect also on these legislative races. So I agree with what Dan and Lana had said, as far as candidates, I do know just because I have an interest in the in the Deming race. And I mean, I don't think there's any surprise that I personally really respected and I could say loved Senator Smith. And I'm just hating seeing him go. I mean, he's been in that office since I was like 14. Hey, you know, I Dan Boyd and the journal made mention that there was 82 years of legislative combined experience that went out the door. Yeah, it was, and I mean, that means a lot. For both districts, it means a lot. It's really going to change the legislature in general, regardless of who comes out. You lose someone with that much experience and it's just going to, I mean, you know, I used to cynically say, can I, can I hold you there? I could just run it a little ten times. I want to get Lana in here real quick. Lana, can I get you to pick up on the event, Harold race, the social tourist small race? Is the second time a charm for Ms. Harold? It's, you know, it's going to be another close contest. Hopefully we won't have the kind of

aftermath that we had last time. But I think that it really is going to depend a lot. I mean, does the president come in and spend a lot of money in New Mexico as he indicates he might? And what is the impact of that on those races? Clearly, the Republican Party is jazzed in a way that it was not jazzed in 2016 in particular. So it's going to be a clear competitive and exciting contest. Gotcha. Daniel, one last one. Mark Roncetti, what do we do make of his margin of victory? Does it port 10 something for his race against Ben Ray Luhand? Or is this just the prime minister? You got Mark Roncetti who was on TV with Name Recognition at the Yahoo Start. You have all the other candidates. Zero little name recognition. Alicia had great name recognition in a very small segment of the Republican Party, the pro-life movement. So, you know, I mean, it's going to be interesting to see. Listen, I am going to lay down this bet right now. You're going to see some of the funniest snafu and commercials in the US Senate race you've ever seen between Ben Ray Luhand and Mark

Roncetti when all this stuff gets going. But those two guys are going to, it's going to be interesting to see what happens and how they go after them and what they're going to do on both sides. You know, but I, you know, turnout was a big thing. I mean, the Republican primary was the largest turnout I think ever in a primary we've had in New Mexico in the history of keeping track of this, which is interesting news. That is. We're going to have to follow up on that next week. I think Lana's touched on this. I think there's something going on out there right under our noses. Very interesting. We'll have to leave it there for now. But in terms of the mechanics of voting absentee ballots were the big story of the election as, and they slowed down returns. And I may, of course, but I'm going to go in and grab a few minutes with a very busy Maggie to lose Oliver to find out more. With us today is Secretary of State Maggie to lose Oliver. Thank you so much for being with us to. So this primary election had unexpectedly high turnout, almost 40% of eligible voters and a huge number of absentee ballots, almost 250,000. All of that was a big surprise. But, you know,

because the the local election officials had to mail out all of these absentee ballots, they must have had a pretty good idea how much we're coming back in. And yet they can't was delayed in five counties. And so what happened? Why were they not prepared? Well, I think that's a good question. I think that, of course, we all had an awareness since even before the cases of COVID were first detected here in New Mexico that we were going to need to try and push absentee voting for this election. It's something we started talking about way back in late February or early March. However, I think it's really important to note that running an election during a pandemic is not something that any of us has done before. And, of course, there have been so many challenges along the way in trying to ensure not only that this record

number of ballots was mailed out and received back. But that also the every single process, which county clerks normally manage without having to have the concerns around social distancing and PPE and making sure that you have a board of individuals that is safe to participate. That's not in a high-risk group. It affected staffing. It affected the ability for clerks to maintain continuity of their plans throughout the entire process of the election. So this really was really a situation where you had so many different things coming to ahead all at the same time that I think it did catch some clerks on a where's towards the end as to where they were in the process. We do have sort of an accommodation for crazy events like this. All of the counties had since Friday to start counting those absentee ballots. The ones that sent out the most

had two weeks to start counting those. Santa Fe had that extra time. Is that not enough? No, it's enough time. I think, as I said, having this be the first time that so many different factors and conditions came into play, I do think that it was difficult for clerks to try to plan and manage and make sure that they got all their ducks in a row so to speak in time. And I think that it's hard. I was a county clerk for 10 years, as you know, and unless you've done something before, unless you've had a situation occur before, unless you've dealt with the kind of volume of ballots that these clerks were having to deal with this time, it is actually kind of hard to know exactly what to do in those situations. And I think that county clerks were sort of relying on their experience and knowledge of how they've managed things in the past and really counting on that to carry them through in the final days. And I think what we've all learned

from that, and certainly something that we will be talking about over the course of the summer, as we plan for the general, and that I will be reiterating as we go forth, is to make those plans to start well in advance, even if you end up having downtime, even if you end up having a period of time where you're not doing anything, it's better to start as early as you can. In Tows the county clerk sent out about 7,800 absentee ballots, got back about 6,500. The folks working to count those ballots got so stressed out and tired, they went home and said they weren't doing it anymore. How can we prevent something like that in the future? That's right. In fact, I was there in the Secretary of State's office just before midnight when we got the call from the Tows County clerk, letting us know what was happening, and we were working with her to try to help manage the situation. The reality is at the end of the day, these are very long days for these poll workers. It's a very hard job. It is very stressful. We will be working with Tows, and again, all the other counties moving forward to make sure that they are planning out well

in advance, especially if there are a limited number of poll workers. We do know, for example, that many counties experienced last-minute cancellations, folks who just didn't show up to do the job, these are all volunteers, essentially. You do get paid to work the polls or to help with absentee, but ultimately, it's a volunteer job, and so a lot of people really just decided at the last minute that they weren't going to follow through, so also making sure that we have really good backup system in place to ensure that we have enough workers to help processing these ballots in November. It's going to be very important. Secretary of State, my name is Oliver. Thank you so much. My pleasure. This summer is going to be a much different summer if people don't visit Silver City, so we're really relying on that here, and at the same time, as New Mexicans, I think we're all a little bit more on edge about the pandemic than maybe our neighboring states are.

All of a sudden, we find ourselves talking about COVID-19 as the last topic at our show. That's a good indication of the kind of week we had, no doubt about that, but New Mexico started to open up a little further this week. It's too soon to know what kind of an impact that's going to have in terms of the virus spread, certainly, but how about economically? In Laura Sanchez, there's a lot of things going on out there. Businesses are opening, but I think this new reality is showing a lot of businesses. This is a very hard struggle to pull off, just to open at 50% capacity in things of that nature. It is. It's a moving target for a lot of these business owners. I think that there's staffing issues. There's a question about whether they can get their same staff back. Some of them, of course, we've heard in some cases get more and unemployment benefits than they get in tips, especially at a time where it's uncertain whether you're going to get the

same volume of clientele that you had before. They're struggling with those issues. I think there's also, I've been to, if you've tried to go out as much as I can, in truth, because I'm just such a social person that I've missed being able to go out in any event. It's clear that there's some logistics issues with cleaning after every person or every party that sits at a table. There's just a process issue and then you, of course, have delays related to that. I think there's just a lot of... I hate the term, but it's the new normal. It's something we're just going to have to all adapt to and figure out our way. Speaking of which, Dan, I appreciate Laura finishing with that new normal thing that we're just so used to hearing now. When you think about things like Santa Fe Fiesta Councils, Zobra, all kinds of events in Santa Fe are canceled now. balloon fiesta is looking at their options. I'm leaving out a bunch, certainly. What can we reasonably expect in a few months? Is the new normal just honestly clicking down all of our entertainment options to a low, low ab at some point? So, I mean, if you're asking me what we're going to do in

New Mexico versus what I think we should do, I think there's two vastly different deals. Look, I think as is typical, we've lost all sense of reality and following science. You know, you're looking at states where they didn't close down and Warren is draconian in the rules and, you know, they're not having the spikes that were out there. You know, this is a virus as... The states that didn't have draconian rules are not having spikes, is that what you're saying? You look at states like Florida that everybody said you're going to have this giant spike in two weeks after they had the spring breakers. Never happened. You go through, look, there's four states, and you look at states like Texas, you look at states like Florida. When you look at the percentages of people that are there and when they're having these giant spikes, it's nothing like people have predicted for them. I think there are spikes. I wouldn't call them giant, but there's definitely been spikes in some of those days. It's a virus. We're all going to get it. There's no way to keep us all from getting it. So, I think this whole conversation about saying, look, I mean, let's you want to lock yourself in the house and never leave. At some point, we have to realize that we need

to... When you isolate the sick, when you take sick people and you isolate them, that's one thing. When you take healthy people and isolate them, that's tyranny. At the end of the day, we're not doing anything to prevent these folks. You look at what's going on right now. I don't mean to laugh, but that use of the word tyranny is cracking me up a little bit. I'm a student of history, and tyranny is a loaded word, dude. It's inconvenience is not tyranny. I don't know. I don't want to get into that. But, Laura, Lana, let me get you in here. So, you interrupted me three times, so I'm done with that one. Okay, thanks, Dean. Okay, I got to move on. We've had an outbreak in state prison in Otero County, Lana, and it's an interesting situation that just a few weeks ago, the governor was saying, we had nothing in our prisons, and now we've got a whole situation with critics that it was just a matter of time. How does that change the game in New Mexico? Well, you know, I mean, in terms of what policies the governor are going to do in terms of the

greater community, not very much, right? It's very isolated. In fact, it's sort of good news for the greater community. Obviously, bad news for the prisoners, and I sure hope they're taking care of them. They say they have a plan. But the point is that make the point that some folks including ACLU wanted a more vigorous release program out of the prisons to keep it from doing its thing in prisons. Does this make sense? Well, I mean, I think you have to balance sort of public safety with, you know, these things. There's a lot going on. I, you know, I guess I don't blame the governor for making the decision that she did. Sure. Laura, pick up on that if you would the idea of prisons and where we are on that. I go with Lana. It's a very difficult situation to manage. It is, and I hope that science is driving a lot of these decisions. I mean, I think that they happen. I think that there have been some, you know, overly cautious situation. Well, I don't know if they're overly, but they've been more cautious than other states. But I think they're appropriate for trying to avoid a real crisis here. I mean, it's clear that we have a

shortage of health care, a shortage of ICU beds. The worst thing that can happen is that we have a terrible spike, and then we're not able to care for the sick. And I think that places like prisons certainly are ripe for such close containment or close contact with people that you could really have an outbreak and it would be just terrible. And I also believe that there's, you know, there's a variety of infractions that people are in there for. And so some of the nonviolent ones, certainly some of the drug-related type of crimes are probably, you know, you can make a determination on people who are, you know, balanced that public safety with the need for public health and make a decision that way. But it's extremely difficult. And I think it hopefully people are using science to guide their decision-making. It's a good point there. Hey, Daniel, curious, what you're seeing for the mask or no mask thing playing out as you kind of get out and about? What are you seeing out there? You know, I see most everybody's following it. If you don't, you kind of get shamed into it, right? I mean, I've seen people walking in the stores out of

a mask and everybody gives them that glare and looks at them. Another thing is is the governor has made it clear that, you know, you have to operate with the masks and businesses. So lots of businesses will tell you you can't come in unless you have the mask. And so, and I want to make it perfectly clear, Jean, I'm not saying that the governor is not a bad job. I think clearly when we did this, you got to go forward with it. And the other thing I would tell you is that, you know, what I would say earlier is that, you know, the difference between quarantine and tyranny. Quarantines when you restrict the movement of sick people, tyranny is when you restrict the movement of healthy people. And I think we got to be careful of balancing. Are we telling sick people to stay home or are we telling healthy people to stay home? And if we don't get that clear, I think we're going to have a devastating effect on our economy at a time that we can't handle it, especially here in New Mexico. Good stuff there. Hey, guys, I want to thank you very much. It's an interesting week for sure. We're up to leave it there. Correspondent Laura Pascas turned to South West New Mexico this week. We're Jeffrey Plant of the Silver City Daily Press. Talks about some of the political controversy and looks ahead to the summer tourist season down

there, which will bring much needed cash to the region's economy, but might have some people nervous about a bump in visitors from outside of the area. Early on, there was a cluster of cases at the Chino copper mine. But otherwise, it seems like Grant County has really been spared a high number of cases of COVID-19. Now that things are opening back up again, are people hustling to get into restaurants and bars around town? It appears so. In some respects, the pandemic, the attitude seems to be that the pandemic's over here, downtown Silver City was quite crowded on Monday and has been through the week. Whether businesses see the number of customers that they are hoping for remains to be seen. However, folks are going back to work in those restaurants and small shops that are opening up. So there's definitely an attitude that things are about to get better.

So there was one restaurant, maybe more, that defied the state's public health orders and remained open. How did people respond to that and were there other businesses that followed suit during that time period? Holesco Cafe was the single restaurant in the area. And I think just one of two in New Mexico that opened early at a reduced capacity, somewhat trying to comply with the governors with the state's direction, but definitely flouting the law. They remain open and that caused quite a division in the community, particularly due to a sign that the business owner posted on the side of the cafe building that contained what some people said was racist and definitely denigrating language related to Asians and the governor. There were some there were some civil disobedience

in the community around that event. Cowboys for Trump, a group led by Otero County Commissioner Quay Griffin and containing some some members from the area in particular Cliff did stage a march Bullard Street after eating in the cafe. That group has gained national attention and made an appearance when it came to protesting the governor's orders. Other parts of the community were appalled by the language on the sign and also thought that this was putting everybody's lives at risk. The owner of Holesco's cafe, however, he really didn't see any any problem with it. He thought they were being careful and that they weren't putting anybody's lives at risk. So Grant County is an interesting place for lots of reasons, but towns like Silver City really rely

on tourists to support hotels, restaurants, the art galleries there. But some parts of Grant County are sometimes a little bit reluctant to see outsiders even during pandemic times. How are people anticipating sort of the reopening of the county and tourists, the people from outside the region or the state kind of coming back in for summer vacations and trips and things like that? That's also a mixed bag. There are portions of the community that of course just rely on that, those tourist dollars, whether it's small businesses, restaurants, outfitters, you name it. There was quite a bit of reaction among locals here in Grant County earlier on in the pandemic when there was just a lot of out-of-state license plates in the forest and in town. It seemed that in late March and April, folks from California, Arizona, Texas, Colorado, Utah,

all over were sort of flocking to the heal and national forest to escape the pandemic. But of course, they're going to be buying supplies in town and that generated quite a bit of reader reaction at the daily press. We got a number of letters complaining that the folks that were visiting basically were being irresponsible and putting everyone's lives at risk. And then on the other hand, this summer is going to be a much different summer if people don't visit Silver City. So we're really relying on that here and at the same time as New Mexicans, I think we're all a little bit more on edge about the pandemic than maybe our neighboring states are. Well, thank you so much for all of your coverage of COVID-19 in the community and all the other issues you cover these states and thanks for joining us. Thanks, Laura. Tough week in the nation. In our states and right here in the Duke City, it's hard to see

destruction no matter what the circumstances. Now, Albuquerque finds itself like the rest of the country caught up on something so big, so meaningful that there was no way it could escape the fringes having their say as well. So yeah, we had a self-labelled militia group on the streets with rifles and both Albuquerque and Santa Fe. And maybe in some way witnessing that has been a good thing. Now we know this is an issue just for other cities. Albuquerque, look, it's our biggest city, it's the epicenter of protests in New Mexico, so it is not exempt. So when those got broken, property was damaged, but now that the glass has been cleaned up, we should appreciate that that was the worst of it. No lives, meaning citizens, store owners, law enforcement personnel, nobody lost their life. And for that, I am grateful. Now, that was on Monday, on Tuesday and through the week, our city found its collective voice again, and that voice was loud and clear and on full display in that beautiful March Sunday night that said in no uncertain terms what Albuquerque

wants the rest of the country to hear. Black lives matter. Thanks again for joining us and for staying informed and engaged. We'll see you again next week in focus. Funding for New Mexico and Focus provided by the McEun Charitable Foundation and viewers like you.