New Mexico's commissioner of public lands has two main duties — and they're not always in harmony: 1) Serve as steward over millions of acres of state land and mineral rights — lots of it fragile, and plenty of it ripe for exploitation; 2) Seek earnings enough from that land to support our state's schools. Since our state's future depends so much on both, balancing them demands a high degree of honesty and transparency.

Three Democrats are running for the open seat: Public Regulation Commissioner Sandy Jones, Santa Fe County Commissioner Harry Montoya, and former land commissioner Ray Powell.

Of the three, we recommend Ray Powell, who served in that office from 1993 to 2002 — ably and honestly. Clearest of his marching orders was to "do things in a manner that, the closer anyone looks, the better you look."

Two Republicans from the eastern side of the state, Bob Cornelius and Matthew Rush, are running for their party's nomination. We'd say that Matt Rush is the stronger GOP choice.

President of the Roosevelt County Farm Bureau, he's a strong advocate of agriculture — but sees its potential in biofuels as a contributor to our state's energy future.


New Mexico's system of merit-selecting judges was disfigured at birth by legislators who insisted that, regardless of the qualifications seen by the judicial-selection commission giving the governor choices of appointees, the new judges must compete in the next elections to hold their offices.

It makes the judges sitting ducks for politician-lawyers, who may or may not be found qualified. With the approach of the June 1 primary, some state District Court judges fresh to the bench are being distracted by Democratic-campaign demands.

No one should be more disgusted with this system than Glenn Ellington, appointed to the trial bench and later to the state appellate court by Republican Gov. Gary Johnson — only to be defeated by Democratic opportunists. Now he's a Democrat, running against recent merit-appointee David Thomson — who, court observers note, hasn't exactly hit the family-court deck running, perhaps owing to campaign pressures.

We endorse Glenn Ellington for his good record on the bench — but otherwise urge the voters of Judicial District 1 to retain merit-appointees Sarah Singleton, Mary K. Marlowe and Sheri Raphaelson. Similarly, in the statewide race for the Court of Appeals, we strongly endorse the merit-selected Judge Linda Vanzi.


The state Public Regulation Commission needs a strong shot of integrity. We think Santa Fean Hank Hughes is the Democrats' best choice to administer it. The Republican primary is uncontested.

A one-time water-resources specialist with a master's in engineering from Cornell, Hughes has been a longtime leader of St. Elizabeth Shelter and now heads the New Mexico Coalition to End Homelessness. He can be counted on to balance public utilities' bottom-line demands against consumer concerns for fairly priced service.


First-year representatives might be at their most vulnerable, but Democrat Ben Ray Luján's solid record will be a tough one to overcome in New Mexico's 3rd Congressional District.

Santa Fean Adam Kokesh, bright, articulate but borderline-or-more libertarian and honest about not being a party-line candidate, is seeking the Republican nomination. So is Tom Mullins, a petroleum engineer/businessman from Farmington. Mullins is a self-described conservative who should have great appeal to partisans in the huge district's southeast and northwestern areas. He would be the GOP's stronger candidate against the primary-unopposed Luján.