AZTECA – There’s one thing about the race for the third seat of the Congressional District of New Mexico: the winner will be the first to take the place.
Teresa Leger Fernández, a lawyer who has been lobbying for environmental and education reforms, is the Democratic Party candidate, while Alexis Martínez Johnson, an environmental engineer working in the oil and fuel industry, is the Republican candidate. Rep. Ben Ray Lujan in Congress, while Lujan will run for the U. S. Senate.
The pandemic will be one of the first problems the contest winner will face after taking office, and Johnson and Léger Fernandez seek to convince the electorate that they are the right ones for the position.
Johnson sees herself as a fiscal conservative, however, when she discusses the COVID-19 pandemic, the Republican nominee for Congress said the federal government wants to do anything to help small businesses and others who have lost some or all of their income.
“Right now we’re in a silent war scenario,” he said. “We’re still clear. “
The first bill I would submit if elected would be for small business owners. She said this may come in the form of low-interest loans or grants for companies to create a safe environment for customers with COVID, such as contactless repayment options.
“These are new tactics for doing business,” he says.
It supports the stimulus budget to prevent layoffs and foreclosures of companies. Johnson also the importance of reopening New Mexico.
Meanwhile, Léger Fernández is supporting more investments for non-public testing and apparatus to address the pandemic.
“What we lack in america is a national strategy to combat COVID,” he said. “New Mexico had a fair strategy, which worked well, but to achieve the discounts and control we want for COVID without a national strategy. “”
He said the country also had to deal with economic devastation through the virus and that the country needed to rebuild more than it was, including investments in infrastructure and blank energy.
“We’re going to have a very tight recovery plan that will allow us to get out of the recession,” Léger Fernandez said. “As we make this stimulus package to get us out of recession, I need to make sure that we are gathering the wonderful desires and kind of structural reorganization of the economy we need. “
She said the stimulus package can come with cash for infrastructure projects like water and broadband, but it can also include things for communities like Farmington to reduce their reliance on fossil fuels, such as a railroad that links Farmington’s dominance with Gallup.
Léger Fernandez said the country had to spend cash for others to return to work and look for tactics to spend that money that “leaves us in a better position than we used to be. “
“Our formula is a little damaged right now, ” he said. “We don’t just have to put it back together. We need to make it stronger, more dynamic. “
Johnson also supports the infrastructure structure, such as broadband, which she says can help the Navajo Nation’s opportunities for telemedicine and distance learning.
Johnson and Leger Fernandez argue that climate replacement is a domain that deserves to be addressed, however, Leger Fernandez supports strict regulations and a transition away from fossil fuels, while Johnson advocates continuous fossil fuel extraction through new technologies to reduce emissions.
“I think sustainability has its place, but I don’t think it beats all of New Mexico when we have affordable herbal gas, and we have engineers and scientists working every day, like me, to make sure their negative effects are prevented. “Johnson said. ” So I entered this career with environmental engineering education, and that means I’m very respectful of our herbal resources. “
Léger Fernandez disagreed with Johnson’s position and noted the disastrous consequences new Mexico will face if the temperature continues.
“We want to get away from fossil fuels because our New Mexico is so fragile that if we don’t, we’ll see an economic calamity that COVID will pale down in comparison,” he said.
This would mean longer droughts and water scarcity that could make it difficult for other people to survive,” he said.
Leger Fernandez said it is vital that communities like Farmington do not stay while the country moves away from fossil fuels and said the Energy Transition Act, which created investment resources for economic progress and assistance to displaced personnel in San Juan County, was a step in the right direction was not yet enough.
He said the progression of renewable energy and electric cars can generate only 30,000 jobs in New Mexico, and that proposals for existing solar panels in San Juan County can create more jobs.
“We sense that temperatures are rising,” Johnson said. I don’t think I’m opposed to the science that temperatures rise . . . We will have to come together to locate non-unusual sensory solutions, not ideas, hopes and desires. “
He said jobs will have to be created for staff who will lose their jobs when they force the closure of plants such as the Escalante power plant or the San Juan power plant. He also asked why corporations are shutting down coal-fired power plants rather than modernizing them. them with carbon capture technology, as Enchant Energy has proposed keeping the San Juan power plant open after 2022.
“What I propose is to use cutting-edge technologies as well as new technologies,” he said.
Johnson also spoke in favor of a railroad branch that runs farmington and Gallup, which he cited as a way to diversify Farmington’s economy and create production jobs.
Léger Fernandez would also follow in Luján’s footsteps by pressing through a buffer zone around chaco National Cultural Historical Park.
“My technique for solving resource progression problems is that you won’t have to sacrifice our long term for a very short-term gain,” he said.
One domain in which Léger Fernandez differs from certain environmental equipment is its position on nuclear power, while some nuclear power equipment as a means of generating emissions-free electricity, Léger Fernandez opposes and aimed at the fitness effects of some citizens of the Navajo Nation. and Laguna Pueblo due to the extraction of inherited uranium.
“They are looking to make New Mexico the sacrifice zone for nuclear waste, and I don’t need that to happen,” he said.
One of the greatest differences between Leger Fernandez and Johnson is his opinion on abortion.
Leger Fernandez has been approved through EMILY’s List, which supports pro-election candidates. He is approved through the Planned Parenthood Action Fund as a fitness care champion. She said Planned Parenthood provides essential fitness care facilities for women that will not otherwise be possible for them.
Johnson strongly opposes abortion, while Léger Fernandez said it is a choice a woman deserves to make in consultation with her religion and her doctor that anything that deserves to be dictated by the government.
Johnson describes herself as the candidate who “fights for basic American values,” adding the unborn child’s right to life and the right to arms.
And while Johnson is a company that supports gun rights, Léger Fernandez supports measures such as banning attack weapons and checking backgrounds for each and every arms sales.
Hannah Grover covers the Daily Times. Se can contact her at 505-564-4652 or email hgrover@daily-times. com.
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