NM Dems Elect Final Unpledged Delegate and More; Clinton Camp Protests

DPNM Chair Brian Colon calls meeting to order

Click to see our complete photo album on this event at Flickr.

The State Central Committee of the Democratic Party of New Mexico met in Albuquerque yesterday at the Barcelona Suites to elect its add-on unpledged delegate to the DNC Convention, as well as its DNC Committeewoman and Committeeman who will represent NM Dems within the Democratic National Committee structure next year. Mary Gail Gwaltney easily beat Mary Helen Garcia to retain her Councilwoman position and incumbent Raymond Sanchez also kept his seat on the DNC, emerging victorious over challenger Bruce Barnaby. The SCC also unanimously approved the State Party's 2008 Platform.

Crowd stands for Pledge of Allegiance

Afterwards, the SCC members in attendance (no proxies allowed) split into separate caucuses for Obama and Clinton and selected a number of other pledged delegates to complete the New Mexico delegation. A total of 42 Dems, including four alternates, four Pledged Party Leader and Elected Official (PLEO) delegates, 11 unpledged or superdelegates and one unpledged add-on delegate, will be heading to Denver for the Party's Convention on August 25-28, 2008. I'll have a complete list of the delegates elected yesterday as soon as the DPNM releases the official list.

DPNM Executive Director Josh Geise

The Party had previously elected its Congressional District pledged delegates at its April 19 CD Conventions, an official listing of which you can see here.

Dominique Aragon, Benny Aragon, House Speaker Ben Lujan and wife

Clinton Camp Protests
Controversy erupted over the process used to elect the unpledged add-on delegate. The process is governed by the State Party's Delegate Selection Plan (DSP). The State Plan must conform to a number of requirements stipulated by the DNC and its Rules and Bylaws Committee, and be approved formally by both the SCC the DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee. New Mexico's DSP had been duly passed by the SCC, reviewed by the DNC, made to conform to all necessary DNC requirements and released publicly in its final form.

Sidebar discussion over add-on delegate voting rules

Regardless, several top-level Clinton supporters, including former State Party Chair John Wertheim and former Arizona State Party Chair and CD1 Clinton delegate Mark Fleisher, tried and failed to change the add-on delegate selection process midstream during yesterday's meeting.

The rules for electing the pledged add-on were clearly set out in the NM Delegate Selection Plan, and were summarized this way on the DPNM website:

This delegate will be nominated by the State Chair in consultation with the Executive Committee. The State Chair must nominate at least two names. The entire SCC will elect the unpledged add-on delegate.

No allowance for floor nomination of add-on delegate candidates is contained in the New Mexico DSP.

Clinton and Obama camp reps discuss add-on delegate election

Rumors had spread throughout the crowd early on that the Clinton camp might be mounting a challenge. Sure enough, Wertheim and Fleisher stepped to the microphone when the agenda item was announced to assert that additional nominations for the add-on delegate slot should be allowed from the floor. Despite being ruled out of order, they persisted in verbally protesting the way the process was structured. Much murmuring had been heard among Clinton supporters that the two nominees chosen by DPNM Chair Brian Colon might not really be undecided, and instead just might have been nominated because they were Obama supporters.

Some heated exchanges followed, including a contentious mini-caucus to the side of the podium between representatives of the Clinton and Obama camps. A call was also reportedly made to the DNC to double check the rules that applied to the process. Obama campaign reps in the discussion included State Rep. Al Park and Santa Fe attorney John Pound, both co-chairs of the Obama campaign here, and CD-3 Obama delegate Patsy Trujillo.

DPNM Chair Brian Colon

Laurie Weahkee Elected as Add-On Delegate
Ultimately, the challenge was ruled out of order and SCC members voted to elect Laurie Weahkee over Charlotte Little by a margin of 71 to 59. The two Native American women had been nominated by Colon to help fulfill the Party's goal of having a diverse delegation representatives of all segments of the Dem population in the state. Weahkee is a member of the Cochiti and Zuni Pueblos, and is also half Navajo; Little is a member of Taos and San Felipe Pueblos.

Meeting room as SCC members start to filter in.

As reported in the Albuquerque Journal,

Weahkee ... said she has yet to commit to either candidate, adding that Native American issues, including sovereignty and health care, are her top concerns. "My first loyalty is really to the Native American agenda. I'm really going to be listening to both candidates to find out what their positions are ... how hard they're willing to go to bat for the Native American people," Weahkee said.

Write-In Votes
Although there were more than 200 SCC members credentialed for the meeting, only 130 voted for either Weahkee or Little. The diminished vote totals were the result of Mark Fleisher grabbing the microphone after being ruled out of order and urging Clinton supporters to refuse to vote for either of the Colon nominees so that neither would receive a majority of SCC votes. He encouraged Clinton supporters to vote for a write-in candidate seen as being on Clinton's side, and some apparently did just that. The Clinton camp suggested they might attempt to challenge the selection method used to elect Weahkee as NM's final unpledged delegate, but no news has emerged yet regarding any action on that front.

New Mexico's superdelegates and their expressed candidate preferences are:

Governor Bill Richardson (Obama)
Lt. Governor Diane D. Denish (Clinton)
U.S. Senator Jeff Bingaman (Undecided)
Congressman Tom Udall (Undecided)
DPNM Chairman Brian S. Colón (Undecided)
DPNM Vice Chairwoman Annadelle Sanchez (Clinton)
DNC Committeeman Raymond G. Sanchez (Clinton)
DNC Committeewoman Mary Gail Gwaltney (Clinton)
DNC Committee Member Fred Harris (Obama)
DNC At-Large Member Mayor Martin Chavez (Clinton)
DNC At-Large Member Christine Trujillo (Clinton)

New Add-On At-Large Unpledged Delegate Laurie Weahkee (Undecided)

Obama table from above the action

You can see the split of pledged delegates awarded by Congressional District according to vote totals for each candidate in New Mexico's March 3rd Presidential Preference Caucus here.

Click on photos for larger images. All photos by M.E. Broderick. See our complete album of photos from this event at Flickr.

Technorati Tags:Democratic Party of New Mexico, Albuquerque, New Mexico, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, presidential caucus, Democrats, Brian Colon, John Wertheim, Mark Fleisher, Democratic National Committee, DNC, Mary Gail Gwaltney, Raymond Sanchez , John Pound, Al Park