If there are registered Republicans in our state who still value free thought, diversity, and looking out for their fellow New Mexicans, it appears they’ll have to find a new party.
Current Republican Party of NM Chair Amy Barela and her inner circle have spent 11 months in lockstep with Trump and the billionaires behind Project 2025. The list of corruption, cruelty, and greed they have eagerly cheered on is long, including:
- Using tariffs to skyrocket the cost of groceries and goods
- Blocking SNAP food assistance for 460,000 New Mexicans
- Firing thousands of federal workers (most likely, illegally)
- Hunting down law abiding immigrant families trying to build a good life and detaining US citizens who stand up for rule of law and the Constitution
- Upping cancer risks by encouraging big corporations to pollute our land, air, and water
- Handing out thousands of pardons, including to rioters who attacked police officers on January 6th, 2021
You’d be hard pressed to find a more perfect symbol for all of it than Steve Pearce’s recent nomination to run the Bureau of Land Management.
BLM is the federal agency overseeing 245 million acres of national public lands, including close to 13.5 million acres in New Mexico. Pearce is, by all accounts, a public lands hater to the max.
The transformation is complete. There is no Republican Party of NM, there is only the NM MAGA Party now.
If we’re being honest, Pearce was really the last successful Republican in our state. The party has mostly lost elections for the last decade. That includes when he ran for governor in 2018 and under his watch as party chair from 2018-24.
Elected in 2024, Barela initially tried to put some distance between herself and figures like Pearce and Allen Weh (Trump mega donor, and another former chair). But it now appears the party has chosen to hunker down and embrace the full MAGA agenda.
So what is the NM MAGA Party all about? A brief review of Pearce’s background provides some answers…
A History of Election Denial
Pearce did more than play the game of politics, he helped break our democracy. As NM Republican Party Chair from 2018-24, he backed election deniers who spread the “Big Lie” and tried to overturn the will of New Mexican voters. He also cozied up to extremists who want to silence our voices and dismantle our elections.
Going back further, in 2004 he collaborated with a group of prominent NM Republicans in 2004 – including then Bernalillo County Sheriff Darren White and party chair/current Trump mega-donor Allen Weh – to pressure NM’s US Attorney David Iglesias for a voter fraud investigation. When the group did not like the results it became a contributing factor to pushing for Iglesias’ politically motivated firing.
Big Oil Payoffs and Public Land Giveaways
Pearce is an oil man through and through. He built his own small oil empire in the 2000s, which he sold for millions of dollars to help kickstart his political career, proving just how much and how long he’s been out of touch with everyday New Mexicans
Predictably, once he went into politics, he spent years in the pocket of Big Oil, trying to hand public lands over to private corporations and wealthy investors who see New Mexico as nothing more than a place to extract profit. For example, in 2011, Pearce voted to swap federal land with a foreign-owned copper mine company (HR 1904, Vote #809). In 2012, advocated to shift public lands to private companies, saying: “The federal government owns roughly 650 million acres of land…over 90% of this land is located in the western states and most of it we do not even need.”
In other words, instead of preserving our heritage, he’s tried to privatize it. That makes nominating him to lead BLM about as safe as having a fox guard a henhouse.
Along the way, he’s taken plenty of money from wealthy corporations and billionaires to do it. For example, he took more than $800K from oil and gas companies while running for governor in 2018. He has also advocated for policies that poison our air and water, the same air our kids breathe and the same water that flows to our farms and homes.
In 2011, Pearce voted to block limits on pollution from coal-fired power plants (HR 2401, Vote #741). He also voted to remove rules that limited mercury pollution from cement plants (HR 2681, Vote #764).
Attacks on New Mexican Families
Pearce attempted to destabilize our state’s working families. As a congressman, he stopped legislation in 2015 and 2017 that would have allowed Americans to earn paid sick leave (H.Res 352, Vote #275, H.Res.491, Vote #570).
Even further back, in 2008 he voted to delay parental leave for federal employees (HR 5781, Vote #427), and in 2007 voted against increasing the minimum wage from $2.10 an hour to $7.25 an hour (HR 1591, Vote #186).
What does all of this history tell us about what comes next for politics in our state?
Truth is, this is a unique moment in history due to authoritarianism, not just for New Mexicans and the USA, but also the world.
But one thing seems sure: if Steve Pearce is confirmed as BLM Director, we can expect him and the NM MAGA Party to continue working in lockstep to advance their own personal interest at the expense of New Mexican families.