2021 special legislative session
Sen. Candelaria leaves Dem party, registers as decline to state
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A New Mexico state Senator and the most vocal critic, from within the party, of Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, announced Monday morning that he had left the Democratic Party.
“I announce today that I’ve submitted to the Secretary of State a reregistration, changing my registration,” Candelaria said during the start of a special legislative session aimed largely at redistricting. “I am now decline to state.”
In New Mexico’s election code, decline to state is the designation for voters who do not wish to align themselves with any political party. Candelaria’s reregistration now makes him the sole independent member of the state Senate.
His announcement comes on the heels of a New Mexico Supreme Court case where he and a Republican senator successfully petitioned the high court to compel Lujan Grisham to hand over spending control of federal relief money to the Legislature. Days after the court’s ruling, Candelaria announced that he was going back to the court to ask that justices censure the governor for allegedly spending a portion of the federal funds after the court’s decision. Lujan Grisham’s office maintained that the money was owed for services that were completed prior to the ruling.