Rick Lass, Green Party nominee for Public Regulation Commissioner, polled 43.74% of the unofficial vote in his race. The returns on the Secretary of State’s unofficial webpage show Lass with 75,731 votes, and his Democratic opponent with 97,405 votes. The Public Regulation Commission regulates public utilities. New Mexico is divided into 5 Public Regulation Commission districts; each district elects its own commissioner in a partisan election.

Lass’ vote is far more than 5% of the presidential vote cast in New Mexico this year. Therefore, his vote should mean that the Green Party has again regained status as a major party (i.e., a party that nominates by primary). However, the law is somewhat ambiguous. Sec. 1-1-9 says, “Major political party means any qualified political party, ANY of whose candidates received as many as 5% of the total number of votes cast at the last preceding general election for the office of Governor, or president of the United States.” The law also requires such a party to have registration of one-third of 1% of the statewide total, which the Green Party has.

Despite the word “any” (emphasized above with capital letters), some years ago a lower state court ruled that “any” means only President or Governor. An Attorney General’s Opinion previous to that said just the opposite.