Julia Ruiz, the Republican candidate in House District 36, said she would listen to constituents and carry their concerns to Santa Fe. Ruiz said recent flooding shows a need for updated infrastructure and that Project Jupiter was rushed without enough transparency. She called for students to prove proficiency before advancing a grade, treatment-focused approaches to homelessness and repeat offenders, and more doctors through malpractice and licensing reforms. A caller questioned her statement about services for undocumented immigrants, and she said she supports Constitutional Amendment 4 to pay legislators. (Incumbent Democrat Nathan Small did not take part; Peter Goodman read an email from his campaign citing a conflicting event.)
Speak Up Las Cruces: Micaela Lara Cadena on Project Jupiter, Water, and Paying Legislators10/8/2026
Rep. Micaela Lara Cadena, the Democratic incumbent in House District 33, responded to a mailer criticizing her Project Jupiter vote, which Peter Goodman read on air. She said House Bill 93 was a clean advanced-grid bill when she voted for it, and that a microgrid amendment was added later in the Senate and approved by concurrence without a roll-call vote. She criticized Democratic leaders she said backed that amendment. Lara Cadena also discussed the Texas v. New Mexico water settlement, rising health insurance premiums, legislative ethics reform, and her support for Constitutional Amendment 4 to pay legislators. (Republican opponent Enrique “Kiki” Vigil did not respond to the show’s invitation.)
Sam Kane, a Las Cruces attorney and the Republican nominee for New Mexico Attorney General, said he would focus only on issues that affect New Mexicans. He proposed using antitrust law against what he called a monopoly in medical care that drives up malpractice insurance costs, said he would continue the state’s Zorro Ranch investigation and refer strong evidence to a special prosecutor, and called the use of surveillance cameras in Las Cruces unconstitutional. Kane said he opposes Project Jupiter, would press federal immigration officials for transparency and sue if necessary, and acknowledged he has never been a prosecutor, describing himself as a former math teacher.
Democrat Vanessa Ordoñez, a Navy reservist and former Anthony police chief, and Republican Todd Garrison, who served as sheriff from 2005 to 2014, answered questions in the sheriff's forum. Garrison said he isn't currently state-certified and would need to take a certification-by-waiver course. Both said local law enforcement shouldn't enforce immigration law, but they split on federal Stonegarden funding, which Garrison defended and Ordoñez said she would not accept. Both backed an elected sheriff and better communication with the county commission, and each outlined plans to improve public communication: a public information officer and rural town halls (Ordoñez) and a social media presence (Garrison).
Susie Kimble, the appointed District 3 commissioner now running as an independent, and Julia Brown, a qualified write-in candidate and former Doña Ana County manager and Sunland Park city manager, took part in the forum. Both criticized how the county handled Project Jupiter's approval and said they would push for renewable power to the extent legally possible. Brown urged the county's new citizens committee to monitor air quality and compliance. On the audit, Kimble described hiring a consultant to assist the three acting assistant county managers, and Brown stressed compliance and outreach in the next manager hire. Both named roads, flood control, and water infrastructure as priorities, and each picked County Clerk Amanda López Askin as a favorite political figure. (Democratic nominee Willie Madrid did not participate.)
Democrat Daisy Maldonado and Republican Samantha Barncastle Salopek took questions in a District 1 forum. On Project Jupiter, Maldonado said the data center was pushed through with few specifics, while Salopek, a water and natural resources attorney, said she has met with the company and state officials about solutions and that compliance has been met so far. Caller Lynn Moorer asked about the companies' legal compliance, and Maldonado cited late job reports for the project's LIDA application. The candidates also discussed the state audit of county management and disagreed over the role of agriculture and pecans in the county's water future.
Peter Goodman and Jamie Bronstein opened with the previous day's storm, which brought evacuations in Hatch, Garfield, Rincon, and Placitas when the McLeod Dam in Garfield appeared close to failing. The hosts said a clogged pipe was cleared and the dam held. They went through Sen. Eric Schmitt's questioning of former special counsel Jack Smith at a Senate hearing, where Schmitt mistook the college game Smith attended to see Caitlin Clark for an Atlanta Hawks game, and discussed taxpayer-funded public service announcements built from a 2024 Trump campaign video. They also covered Project Jupiter's force majeure notice to contractors, the state land commissioner's denial of a pipeline crossing, and the county's citizens committee on the project, which hasn't yet met.
NM CAFe Executive Director Sylvia Ulloa discusses the group's support for Constitutional Amendment 4 and argues that New Mexico's unpaid Legislature limits who can afford to serve. Ulloa says paying lawmakers could open the Legislature to more working people and community advocates, reduce the influence of lobbyists and be a first step toward modernizing the state's legislative process. She also talks about NM CAFe's work assisting immigrant families with legal and other resources and the organization's efforts to engage infrequent voters ahead of the November election.
Secretary of State candidates Amanda López Askin, the Democratic Doña Ana County Clerk, and Republican nominee Ramona Goolsby discuss their priorities for the office ahead of the November election. The candidates address election funding, voter-roll maintenance and public confidence in elections, with Goolsby emphasizing greater transparency and López Askin defending the state's existing voter-roll procedures. They also offer differing views on voter ID requirements and discuss ways to improve voter education and turnout, along with the Secretary of State's responsibilities beyond administering elections.
Speak Up Las Cruces: Natashia Billy & Aaron Sussman on the Transportation Safety Action Plan9/23/2026
City senior engineer Natashia Billy, project manager for the Transportation Safety Action Plan, and consultant Aaron Sussman of Toole Design Group previewed the city's federally funded push to identify and fix its most dangerous streets. Sussman said Las Cruces logs close to 2,800 crashes a year outside its interstates, including roughly 40 fatalities and 125 serious injury crashes from 2020 to 2024, with corridors like Lohman, Amador, and Main Street among the recurring problem spots. Billy explains how residents can report unsafe locations through an interactive map and survey, while the conversation also explores traffic calming, pedestrian and bicycle safety, and how street design can reduce crashes. The project's final public outreach event is planned for National Night Out on October 6.
In a taped interview recorded September 16, U.S. Sen. Ben Ray Luján discusses the war in Iran and calls for greater congressional oversight of the Pentagon, citing a Congressional Budget Office estimate that at least $38 billion has been spent on the conflict. He also talks about rising health care costs in New Mexico and proposals to expand Medicare coverage, broadband access and support for family caregivers. Luján calls for faster congressional action on artificial intelligence and discusses his re-election campaign before closing with his concerns about ICE enforcement and the need for reforms.
Walt Rubel and Nancy Baker, both former journalists, discuss the Trump administration's escalating conflict with the press, including its decision to bar CNN, Politico and MS NOW from the White House press pool and the response from other major networks. They also look at the administration's Trump TV streaming service and reviewed a string of lawsuits the president has filed against news organizations, including the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and the BBC. Rubel and Baker consider whether pressure from the courts and news organizations could ultimately force a change in the administration's approach.
Attorney General Raúl Torrez, running for re-election against Republican Samuel Kane, discussed his office's shift toward actively challenging state agency decisions and federal policies, including more than 56 lawsuits against the federal government and $885 million recovered from proposed funding cuts. Locally, he detailed his office's decision to back environmental groups' legal challenges to Project Jupiter's air quality permit and emergency water application, adding that preliminary findings on allegedly falsified public comments are expected within weeks. Torrez also touched on his office's nearly $1 billion court victory against Meta over child safety and ongoing lawsuits against the Children, Youth and Families Department (CYFD) over its weaponization of confidentiality rules.
Growing Up New Mexico CEO Kate Noble, joined by a surprise guest, Early Childhood Education and Care Department Secretary Elizabeth Groginsky, previewed Friday's "Celebrating and Elevating Early Childhood" event at Hotel Encanto, which will bring together state legislators, local leaders, and child care providers to promote Senate Bill 241's new universal child care assistance and Senate Bill 96's streamlined zoning rules for providers. Groginsky said the state needs roughly 12,000 more child care spaces to meet demand, with the sharpest shortages for infants, toddlers, and school-age children, and reported that New Mexico has added over 6,000 spaces and 251 new providers since the initiative launched. The two also discussed the department's home visiting program, which sends trained professionals into families' homes to support child development, and a new wage and career lattice aimed at raising pay for early childhood educators.
Larry Marker, the Republican nominee challenging Sen. Ben Ray Luján for New Mexico's U.S. Senate seat, discussed his background as a longtime oil and gas producer and small business owner from Roswell, and the write-in campaign that won him the nomination after no other Republican qualified for the primary. He named the national debt and Social Security's coming shortfall as his top concerns, proposing a federal "sovereign wealth fund" built from windfall revenue like oil royalties and spectrum auctions to help supplement Social Security. Marker also weighed in on federal health care spending, AI regulation, and Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s "Make America Healthy Again" initiative, describing his overall approach as favoring economic development over expanded entitlement programs.
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