Shall we let Project Jupiter run our lives? Or elect our officials?
I’ve watched Micaela Lara Cadeña grow from an idealistic first-term legislator to someone who knows her way around Santa Fe but still fights for us. I appreciated her gutsy rebellion against big money and party leaders, and her insistence on looking honestly at the harm Project Jupiter would do us.
Immediately, Jupiter’s “lobbyist” Vanessa Alarid and unidentified LLCs started attacking Cadeña. (Today, just to watch baseball clips on Yahoo, I endured repeated ads about how Cadeña is stealing from us.)
Cadeña is a local woman with guts and brains devoted to District 33. But they found a passable candidate to run against her.
I lunched with Ramona Martinez during her run for District Attorney. I liked her. She’s a pleasant, somewhat progressive criminal-defense lawyer. She finished third.
I wondered initially why she was running against Cadeña, who has mostly done a great job and is pretty well-liked here. When I asked, Martinez said constituents were angry about Cadeña not getting enough state money into local infrastructure.
When it developed that Jupiter’s Alarid, an oil-and-gas lobbyist, was giving Martinez money, Martinez explained that she’d known Alarid and “Moe” Maestas – Alarid’s powerful husband, who had helped sneak through Jupiter’s free pass on our Energy Transition Act – for twenty years. They were friends. Martinez didn’t mention that the pre-campaign anti-Cadeña “hit jobs” sent to all District 33 residents or the PAC “Jobs 4 NM,” which apparently hasn’t comlied with New Mexico law.”
As Martinez sees it, she’s a competent, progressive lawyer who got nowhere running for D.A. but would like a position. Her old pal offers to help. (One almost wonders whether Martinez first got the idea of running or Alarid suggested it.)
As Cadeña sees it, she stood up against big money and leadership. Her constituents received three vicious mailers attacking her. Then she got “primaried” by a woman whose financial support came mostly from Alarid and Project Jupiter supporters like an L.A.-based carpenters’ union. Meanwhile Jobs4NM is spending huge money on attack ads.
I didn’t know all this when I questioned them both on radio. But Martinez’s nutty answers about Project Jupiter were a giveaway. “Would you reign in Jupiter?” “I’d favor any big project that’s sustainable and follows the laws.” Jupiter had gotten supposed environmentalist public officials to change the law, and sure won’t be sustainable. “Would you make Jupiter subject to the ETA,” a caller asked? A pretty easy yes-or-no question. Should Jupiter have to follow our law on renewable energy transition? “If it made sense,” Martinez waffled.
I looked up her financing. $2,000 from Alarid, $2,200 from that carpenters’ union, modest contributions from other citizens from elsewhere in New Mexico and elsewhere. Something from a local fellow who’d written the Sun-News a letter urging the County Commission to approve Jupiter the same day the League of Women Voters wrote urging the Commission to wait and get all the facts. Everyday citizens from Las Cruces contributing? Just one unemployed guy, $50. No groundswell of local support.
Can big-money outsider advertising toss out a decent local representative?
Daisy Maldonado, who got fired over a lawsuit against the Jupiter project, is running for county commission, District 1. She’s experienced and caring. Her opponent, a strong advocate for children, seems less experienced; and pro-Jupiter entities are helping her some. Our commission subordinated our interests to Jupiter’s. Maldonado never will.
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[The above column appeared Sunday, 24 May 2026, in the Las Cruces Sun-News and on the Sun-News website (Project Jupiter Election Influence ) and (presently) on KRWG’s website. A shortened and sharpened radio commentary version of this Sunday column will air during the week on KRWG (90.1 FM) and on KTAL-LP (101.5 FM / http://www.lccommunityradio.org/)]
[It’s Bob Dylan’s birthday, as Ron Cooke’s Music they Don’t Want you to Hear just reminded me. ]
[ I will also be emailing folks my suggestions on voting in this spring's primary. That will also appear here, but not on the other websites or as radio commentary. ]
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