Juan De Jesus Sanchez III, a former New Mexico Democratic party official has announced he is running for New Mexico Commissioner of Public Lands in the 2026 Democratic primary. KRWG Public Media talked with Sanchez to learn more about why he is running.
Transcript from part of the conversation:
Anthony Moreno: Juan, thanks for joining us. I wanna start with a very basic question. Why are you running for this position?
Juan De Jesus Sanchez III: Yeah. So, I’ve been kind of looking at this position for a while. I think it’s crucial especially in this time that a lot our public lands are under attack at the federal level by the current administration in Washington, D.C. We need a really strong champion to stand up for our public lands, and the state land office manages a little over 9 million acres of state trust public lands and I want to run for this because I want to step up and protect our public lands, not only for today, but for this generations to come so that our grandkids and great grandkids can be a part of the tradition of being out on the lands that we have and I think it’s also hugely important to continue to expand on the gains of the money that’s made of the state lands to support our public education system, medical institutions, and whatnot so this is a really important position and I feel like I’m up for the task for it.
Anthony Moreno: OK, so if elected, how do you plan on addressing those issues with public lands? You, mentioned some things there, but actually serving in the role, how do you plan on getting those things done?
Juan De Jesus Sanchez III: Yeah, we’ll one thing I want to do, bring into the office, is something that I think I bring very specific life experiences, and this is the fact that I’m a 13th generation New Mexican and I grew up in ranching family and for generations my family has been in the middle Rio Grande Valley and taking care of the land and managing it, and one thing that we forget about is the generational knowledge that’s passed done in our historic communities and I want to bring some of that to the forefront Ways that we can continue to do this is by expanding on the work the current land commissioner has done with the Office of Cultural Resources, and that’s making sure we are talking with tribal communities, we’re talking with traditional land-based communities across the state before we do any kind of leasing or any kind of projects on our state lands. So, continuing to work with community and bringing community to the table whenever we’re making our decisions on what our land will be. That’s one of the things I’ve plan to bring to the office in expanding upon what our current land commissioner has done.
