The founder of a New Mexico-based group working to unseat Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham is repeating a claim that the Democrat overstepped her authority when she unilaterally spent federal COVID-19 relief dollars.
Brett Kokinadis, Second Vice Chair of the Santa Fe Republican Party and "StopMLG" founder, took to social media late last week to repost that claim.
Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham
| governor.state.nm.us/
"@NMDEMS State Treasurer Tim Eichenberg says @GovMLG is overstepping her authority by solely deciding how to spend over $1 billion in federal relief without legislative approval," Kokinadis said in his Friday, Oct. 15 Twitter post.
Last year, Kokinadis ran for the U.S. House in New Mexico's 1st Congressional District but lost the Republican primary in June of last year to Michelle Garcia Holmes. Kokinadis came in third, taking less than 12% of the vote.
StopMLG, which does not describe itself or its membership, has for much of this year hosted a petition on its the landing page of its website calling for Lujan Grisham to resign over sexual harassment allegations levied against her by a staff member. The page does not say how many have signed the petition thus far but it does have a donation option.
Kokinadis' Twitter post links to an Associated Press news story published the same day that cited a court briefing in which Lujan Grisham defended her authority to spend federal COVID-19 aid without the legislature's approval.
Lujan Grisham, who is up for re-election next year, referred to a New Mexico Supreme Court decision almost half a century ago that she said upheld the governor's discretion in how to spend federal funds on state universities. That decision should be more broadly applied to federal pandemic relief funds, Lujan Grisham said in the court brief.
Lujan Grisham spent the COVID-19 relief funds on replenishing the state's unemployment insurance trust, underwriting millions in vaccination sweepstakes prizes for people, to prop up agriculture wages and on incentives to get unemployed New Mexicans to go back work. Decisions are still pending on use of the relief funds, according to the AP news story.
Senate minority leader Gregory Baca (R-Belen) and Sen. Jacob Candelaria (D-Albuquerque) have asked the current state Supreme Court to intervene.