KRWG Public Media is covering the New Mexico State Representative race for district 53. Early voting opens October 6th. Republican candidate Ben Luna spoke to Noah Raess.
Noah Raess:
My first question is, can you tell us a little bit about yourself and why are you running for office?
Ben Luna:
I'm a husband and father of three and a business owner. I've been in the electrical trades for about 20 years. I actually took electrical trades in high school, so that helped me transition into the electrical field. I am a journeyman, and I've traveled as an electrician to work many types of job sites, government job sites. I've been a superintendent for multiple renovation projects and it's got me to where I am now. And, during 2020 is actually when we started our businesses of all years, probably the worst year anybody could start a business. But we started a facility maintenance and janitorial company and that's under my father. And, that has been a blessing to us. That actually allowed me to be on the go throughout the state. And so if you remember 2020, that was during the lockdowns and you had to show a Covid card to enter public meetings and stuff like that. So that's really when I started getting involved. I saw Gallup, New Mexico had blockades where people had to deliver groceries and water, and so something like that didn't sit right with me. It didn't seem right. And so I just started getting involved and educating myself on the process. And like many New Mexicans during that time, we started getting involved. And so Sarah Smith, not Sarah Silva, Sarah Smith in Las Cruces. I had started working with her. She was very knowledgeable in the vaccine area. And so I just spoke about American history and God in our history and a lot of buried American history that's not taught in schools anymore like African American heroes that ended the Revolutionary War. Nobody knows their names. And so I spoke about those topics and really had to teach myself because I really wasn't taught American history. I wasn't really taught civics either. And so I had to teach myself that as well. And so it was a fast learning process and the best way to learn is to plug yourself in. And that's pretty much what I started doing. So we started dealing with school boards that wouldn't allow parents to make their own decisions for children and started speaking up for them, giving them a platform. And that's where our media company kind of came into play. We actually donated media and still do to where individuals throughout the state of New Mexico can amplify their voice and their concerns. And I think, when you have media as a resource and a lot of people don't, but when you have it, it kind of gives more people confidence to speak up and stand up. And that's for any industry. You know, we've done it for the ranching industry. We've done it for the oil and gas industry and, just small mom and pop shops as well. Dealing with overregulation and I actually enjoy that part that's, probably led into the transition of running for a state representative because in a sense, I was already representing people throughout the state of New Mexico, just without the ability to produce laws and policy to actually help them. And so I actually sat in a lot of legislative sessions where good bills would be introduced and people would speak in defense of good bills, and they would go to committees that have the reputation of killing good bills and forcing bad bills. And so I didn't like that. Again, troubleshooting the process. And, I saw that there's no balance in the state legislature. And what I mean by not balanced like, there's not really debate. And a good example and I'll be releasing this later on is the Mississippi miracle has to do with the education system. They were once ranked last. Now they're ranked, I believe, 18 or 16 in the nation. But that happened because of a New Mexico bill. And so that same New Mexico bill was voted against by the current lieutenant governor candidate for the Democrat Party. Richards. And that bill had we voted for it in the state of New Mexico, the same thing probably could have happened in the state of New Mexico, but instead they used our bill. And I think there's a lot of good bills that don't even get heard. And so now knowing how the legislature is structured, you have the House speaker who is voted in by the majority. And so they all pick the House speaker. The House speaker then picks which committees receive which bills. And whenever that structure is set up to where, good bills are always going to get killed, and bad bills are always going to get forced on the state of New Mexico, that's an issue. And to create balance, you have to be able to create numbers to where it's not a one party monopoly. And I really don't care about party politics. I've actually changed my voter registration to independent before. And, but whenever it comes to holding the legislature accountable, well, you need the numbers on the Republican side to create balance. And, there's other bills as well. I plan on releasing information on many bills that were sponsored by former police officers who were legislators two years after they're done. MLG tries to rebrand that as a Democrat sponsored bill. And she couldn't even get the numbers to affect crime in our state. So stuff like that needs to stop. And as a business owner, you have to deliver a good product. If you don't deliver a good product, you don't have the business. But yet the legislature can go every year after year, not delivering a good product to New Mexicans. Bad roads. We're actually seeing the failing infrastructure statewide with all these floods, and no drainage, bad infrastructure or lack of infrastructure. You know, what I'm finding out is especially in Chaparral and rural Las Cruces, there's a lot of decade old problems that nobody's put any attention to. And the fact that we have media capabilities, we have for the first time, actually putting a big spotlight on a lot of concerns of what the constituents care about. And, and I think that's what they'll see this, this go around and beyond November, win or lose, and I believe we will win, we're still going to be a voice for the people. That's what we have been doing for the past however many years since 2020. So, I was doing it before ever running for office, and I'll do it long after November.
Noah Raess:
And you kind of get into my next question a little bit, which I was going to ask you, what are the top issues in your district and how would you kind of address those?
Ben Luna:
Well I live in Chaparral, so in Chaparral, they feel neglected completely. Whenever it comes to the failing roads and failing infrastructure, I think there's not really a pathway to get a lot of that done. And so not being an incorporated city, that does create some difficulties, but at the same time, the constituents don't want to be incorporated. And so that's where you have to be almost skillful as a legislator in sponsoring and co-sponsoring bills that not only affect an unincorporated city in district 53, but also other unincorporated areas throughout the state of New Mexico because multiple legislators would would want to give their districts more funding to to improve infrastructure, roads, everything beneath the roads as far as utilities and that really does affect the community. You could actually see how much a community is invested into by the look of the roads or even the state for that matter. And so that's been a big concern. At the doors, it is the roads and then also the data centers. Sarah Silva did push that. They have called that out. And I'm simply using her words that she has spoken as far as concerning the support for data centers. And so I think whenever a legislator pushes a project that is outside of the district, one, that's not right. And then also whenever it comes to the lack of transparency, where county commissioners did sign the NDAs, but this was still pushed, I think that was a horrible decision. And then across the street you have Meta, like it's literally a residential street from Chaparral, you have a data center. And so the fact that Chaparral wasn't involved in any kind of decision making from the El Paso side is really a big failure on their part. And that's where constituents are very upset concerning the data centers, because it's like we don't have a say. And, Chaparral technically has been left out for some time. But whenever they do this, they're almost imposing their will on the Chaparral residents. And so, people throughout the district, both sides of the ballot, have both given negative comments of Project Jupiter. And I think that's a statewide and national thing. It's not just our area, but we're seeing firsthand, in Doña Ana County, where the county commissioners did like transparency, and so did the developers. And so we're experiencing that for sure.
Noah Raess:
Kind of going off of data centers, it's been, as you mentioned, a big topic across the state. How do you think the state should handle new data centers and what do you think the state's involvement in these projects should be?
Ben Luna:
Well, I mean, there were already processes set up that weren't even followed, and the attorney general already pointed that out. And so I think everything that is in place should be followed and not bypassed and not avoided. And I think the people of New Mexico should have a say in how this does affect the utilities. When we get told it doesn't affect our utilities, but then all of a sudden our rates start going up this is like we called this out. And I think a lot of that happens. They're not being honest. They're not being truthful. And I think, one, those two things in any kind of form of government or any kind of big development needs to be there. And then I think they're going to try to do that. But even the county commissioners at Doña Ana County said they don't believe them, so, I mean, there's a big failure in that relationship.
Noah Raess:
And speaking of other, common concerns people have in the state, CYFD has been in hot water this last year between reports of them dropping a child off at the US-Mexico border and an investigation done by the Attorney General's office. I guess what do you kind of see as the best path forward for this department?
Ben Luna:
That's a tough question, because I've interviewed mothers that have gone through false allegations because they had to clear their names in the family courts and then ended up finding out the other parent was the abusive parent within their situation. And that's happened twice now. We're actually going to do a film on that, because that's a rampant issue in the state of New Mexico and in the United States. The family courts really affects, I think, 1 million families per year are added to the family courts. So CYFD not just for parents, but also for foster parents. They've gone through fabricated allegations and accusations and it's almost like a pattern where they can make it up. They could get a court order, remove your child without your consent, and then you have to clear your name. That is a very dangerous situation whenever they can remove a child based on hearsay. And so, the fact that they would do that to parents here in New Mexico and then still drop off a kid on the other side of the border, that that really endangers the child. I think that's an agency that needs a lot of reform. And I think there's more experts with better understanding of this issue. But I think the board was the senators, I think it was Senator Tobias and others, they actually were able to ask questions with the CYFD officials. I think that's a good start, because there hasn't really been a transparent forum for CYFD. It's kind of just been happening without any oversight and without any consequence.
Noah Raess:
And you kind of mentioned this earlier, and I just want to circle back to this. New Mexico has been ranked in the bottom across the nation in terms of education for many years. I guess what do you think needs to be done to turn this around?
Ben Luna:
Well, I think we need to get that same bill. Get the same bill. And what that had to do was, had to do with third grade reading level. If they don't know how to read by the third grade, then they stay in the third grade until they do know because imagine you not knowing how to read. But then you go on into other harder subjects and harder math problems, then harder, reading topics or any kind of research. You're just amplifying the issue that's not being resolved and our children need to learn how to read by third grade. And so that bill, I would bring that bill right back and implement it, maybe even make it better. But it did work already in another state.
Noah Raess:
And finally, what else do you want people to know about you or your campaign?
Ben Luna:
Yeah, I'm a business owner. I think that's kind of my approach for all of it. Business owners find a way to make things work. And whenever things go without being done, as far as infrastructure, roads, that doesn't make sense to any business owner. And that's not us being delivered a good product. So that's bad business. I believe that's bad business. For us to keep people like that in office for another two years, things do not get done. So we've put out some videos recently where it took one hour of one day, speaking at the county commissioners office to let them know of some bad roads. And I plan on doing that again for the Las Cruces side. But it took one hour out of one day to get them to repair some roads, and I think after these rains, I think a lot of people are going to be focused on roads and drainage.
