Make it a Three-way

Last week, Councilor Cadigan announced is return (after no time at all... really no time at all) to city politics by re-entering the race that he had left when he left the mayor's race due to an inability to qualify for public financing. The two-way race between Jeremy Toulouse and Dan Lewis became a three-way race.

Not surprisingly, a Democrat has surfaced to challenge the two Republicans interested in the District 9 seat. Our Eyes tell us that Democrat David Barber - who registered as a Democrat in the district in 2007 - plans on challenging the two Republicans.

It'll be interesting to see what effect the addition of a Democratic challenger has on the race. If it's anything like four years ago, Barber's participation will only have the effect of extending the election and perhaps handing it to the candidate who's not the incumbent. Runoff elections tend to favor the anti-incumbent crowd. If Barber makes a respectable showing in the October election, chances are Brasher would win the run off - that is assuming he doesn't win the election outright.

Meanwhile, two more candidates have eschewed (Yes, eschewed. Look it up.) public financing. The Eyes have it that Commissioner Brasher has decided to forgo using involuntary contributions from taxpayers in favor of using voluntary contributions from supporters who have decided that he's the best candidate for the job.

The other candidate who has according to the grapevine, decided to eschew public financing is none other than the former "clean" mayoral candidate Councilor Michael Cadigan. If true, Cadigan's change of heart may have something to do with the fact that he figured out that the new "ethical" elections ordinance does nothing but keep potential candidates out of a race.

There's little doubt that Brasher and Cadigan have the ability to raise the $30,000 or so necessary to compete against their taxpayer funded counterparts. What will be interesting to see is if the two (and Commissioner Armijo) decide to push beyond the dollar per voter limit set by Albuquerque's Unethical Elections Scheme thereby funding their opponents. If so, they'll be hurting their campaigns but potentially setting the stage for a 1st Amendment challenge to Albuquerque's public financing system.

We don't know whether either candidate will take on the city during an election year, but it's clear that the Albuquerque Open and "Ethical" Elections Ordinance is has some real Constitutional problems that need to be addressed by the courts.

Make it a three-way in two of five districts. The game is on and it's only early May! It'll be a fun election season to say the least.

----- Correction -----
We were rightly chastised for identifying the Republican candidate in District 5 as Dan East - who was the CD3 Republican candidate last year. Of course the candidate for city council is Dan Lewis. We got our Dans mixed up. It has been corrected above.