UNM faculty and students attended a fundraiser Friday night for Democratic Sen. Jerry Ortiz y Pino’s campaign to be lieutenant governor.
About 100 people attended the fundraiser’s array of performances in Winrock Mall, which included three Albuquerque bands and poetry readings by UNM student-poets Damien Flores and Hakim Bellamy. Ortiz y Pino’s campaign raised $8,000 at the event, said Ortiz’s campaign manager.
After the poetry session, part-time UNM instructor Mark Rudd became part-time emcee when he introduced Ortiz y Pino with the mantra that, “the road to Washington is through Santa Fe.” Ortiz y Pino then gave a speech in which he called the position of lieutenant governor a “bully pit” where, if elected, he could fight for progressive causes.
Among those causes, Ortiz y Pino said, is New Mexico’s public education system. The state’s high student drop-out rate is unacceptable, he said, and he wants to reform it. An educator himself, Ortiz y Pino said he wants to stake out public education as his area of administration.
Ortiz y Pino said the position of lieutenant governor doesn’t affect higher education. However, he did say that the UNM administration and the Board of Regents are fashioned after the corporate model.
UNM Professor Renny Golden said Ortiz y Pino’s emphasis on public education makes him preferable over his opponents.
“I think it’s (about) having a
lieutenant governor who is an education czar,” he said.
Kristine Suozzi, former director of New Mexico’s Public Health Department, said she supports Ortiz y Pino because he will fight for
funding primary public health prevention services.
Ortiz y Pino hopes to mobilize progressive voters, including the student population, to vote for him in the June 1 primary, he said.
