What’s your go to move if you can’t convince voters on the key issues?
For Klarissa Peña, the incumbent in Albuquerque’s Westside District 3 runoff election, the answer seems to be to point and wave at her challenger’s past domestic violence trauma instead of talking about real solutions.
The very coincidental timing of this gross political play sure seems like an attempt to help out her campaign by distracting voters from Peña’s own ethics and mismanagement issues. It’s also a convenient way to avoid top of mind issues like affordable housing, safer streets & infrastructure, and jobs that pay living wages.
Before we get to that, let’s highlight exactly how gross this political play was – using a person’s past domestic violence situation to gain political points is a grotesque exploitation of trauma. It weaponizes pain that was already endured in private, turning it into a public spectacle for political gain.
That isn’t leadership; it’s cruelty disguised as strategy. Shaming survivors not only discourages others from seeking help, it reinforces the very systems that allow abuse to thrive. Real progress demands compassion, not calculation. Participating in re-traumatizing someone is not “politics as usual.”
Peña, who has been in the seat since 2013, garnered 41 percent in the general election, followed by Teresa Garcia at 38 percent, and Christopher Sedillo at 20 percent. Sedillo has endorsed Garcia in the runoff election.
Speaking of which, this is probably a good time to highlight Peña’s inadequacy as a City Council Member…
Here are 5 things Peña is hoping voters won’t notice:
- She led efforts to pour $13M into the Route 66 Visitor Center, a facility plagued by mismanagement, financial improprieties, and procurement violations. The center remains closed more than 3 years after an initial ribbon cutting.
- An audit found Peña was over reimbursed by nearly $4,500 in taxpayer funds after she took her husband and two grandchildren on a two-week city-paid trip to Washington D.C., Philadelphia and New York City. She later paid the money back.
- Peña’s campaign took money from wealthy developers, including Jeff Garrett, an Arizona based developer who manages the controversial Santolina development on the city’s Westside. She also received $2,000 from hotel owner Jim Long, whose company recently received a $227 million tax break from the city for a luxury development project which she voted yes on.
- Former County Commissioner and Breaking Bad star Steven Michael Quezada, whose wife works as Pena’s paid council assistant, advanced a flimsy lawsuit to remove Garcia from the ballot. The challenge was unsuccessful.
- Peña was named a “Toxic Polluter of the Year” for her support of then ABQ City Council President Dan Lewis. The council allegedly illegally tried to dissolve the Albuquerque-Bernalillo County Air Quality Control Board in 2024, which would have made it easier for corporations to pollute land, air, and water in the Mountain View neighborhood, located in the near South Valley, along 2nd Street.
Early voting in Albuquerque’s runoff elections takes place from December 1 to December 6, with Election Day on Tuesday, December 9th.
We know who we’re voting for. Do you?
More information: Early Voting for CABQ Runoff is Underway – Bernalillo County.