House Minority Leader Tom Taylor on NewsNM

Tom Taylor

Tom Taylor a Republican from Farmington and the New Mexico House of Representative Minority Leader will appear on News New Mexico for an early interview Wednesday morning. Taylor is scheduled for the 6:30am to 7:00am time segment. We will ask Taylor for his take on the upcoming Speaker of the House vote. There have been several reports from News New Mexico, Capitol Report New Mexico, and NMPolitcs.net regarding a behind the scenes movement around the state to remove sitting speaker Ben Lujan at the beginning of the upcoming session. Lujan's tenure was opposed by Joseph Cervantes (D-Las Cruces) in the Democratic Party Caucus held in Santa Fe in November.

Joseph Cervantes

Various reports have placed the number of speaker votes Cervantes received within his own party during the lengthy caucus meeting at somewhere between four and ten votes. And in recent days there has been considerable speculation by political observers from around the state that Cervantes has the support of 30-31 Republicans and as many as ten Democrats. If this vote count estimate is accurate, it would total more than the 36 votes needed to make Cervantes the next Speaker of the House. Of course nearly all discussions regarding the speaker contest have been speculation, except perhaps for a conversation Rob Nikolewski of Capitol Report New Mexico had with Andy Nunez (D-Hatch). Nunez was reported to have said he believes the votes are in place to make a change at the speaker position.



House Minority Leader Tom Taylor on NewsNM