Cervantes again elected to New Mexico Senate

LAS CRUCES - Democratic state Sen. Joe Cervantes easily walked into a third four-year term in the New Mexico Senate, unofficial results suggested Wednesday. 

With all Doña Ana County precincts fully reporting, unofficial results showed Cervantes with 9,795 votes (66 percent of the vote) and Republican John T. Roberts with 5,047, or 34 percent. 

Roberts, an Army National Guard pilot from Anthony, did little campaigning in his first bid for office. Roberts did not raise or spend a single dollar, according to campaign finance reports. He did not participate in candidate forums on local radio or public television, nor complete a League of Women Voters candidate survey although he sat for an interview with the Las Cruces Sun-News.

Shortly before 11 p.m. Tuesday, Cervantes said, "I commend Mr. Roberts for running an honorable and clean campaign in these times. There are enormous challenges for New Mexicans to confront, and I'm ready to get the job done." 

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Roberts did not answer his phone or reply to text messages Wednesday morning.

An attorney with an active practice in Las Cruces, Cervantes was appointed to the New Mexico House of Representatives in 2001 during his first term as a Doña Ana County Commissioner, and served in the House until his election in state Senate District 31 in 2012.

In 2018, he ran as a Democratic primary candidate for governor against Michelle Lujan Grisham and Jeff Apodaca.

In the most recent legislative session, Cervantes chaired the Senate Judiciary Committee and sat on the Senate Conservation Committee.

He was instrumental in passing one of Gov. Lujan Grisham's priority bills: The Extreme Risk Firearm Protection Order Act requires individuals to surrender their firearms within 48 hours if a court deems them a threat to themselves or others. The bill was opposed by most New Mexico sheriffs and drew protesters to the state Capitol building.

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On the other hand, Cervantes was a leading skeptic of a failed bill that would have legalized recreational cannabis in New Mexico, another Lujan Grisham goal. In a September interview Cervantes said the bill, which died in his Judiciary Committee, sought to "create an industry, a cartel if you will, that identified who would profit from the industry's business."

Nonetheless, Lujan Grisham endorsed Cervantes in the June 2 Democratic primary, in which he faced two challengers: Melissa Ontiveros of Las Cruces and Arturo E. Terrazas of Sunland Park. 

Algernon D'Ammassa can be reached at 575-541-5451, adammassa@lcsun-news.com or @AlgernonWrites on Twitter.

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