When it comes to putting champions for our queer and trans communities into public office, we take our role in vetting candidates very seriously. The 2024 elections are just weeks away, so we wanted to take a moment and share what that endorsement process looks like for the Equality New Mexico team. You can expect our official endorsements this week.
As an LGBTQ advocacy organization, we obviously want to ensure that our elected officials hold inclusive values and support policy positions on the issues that impact us. When we think about queer and trans issues, though, it’s easy to focus solely on the ones that center gender and sexuality—like working locally to protect marriage rights from being overturned by a conservative Supreme Court. In reality things are more complex. For example, housing is a LGBTQ issue because 40 percent of homeless youth are queer and trans. We don’t exist in an identity bubble.
“Members of the LGBTQ Community across New Mexico and our allies rely on us to inform them about elections and candidates and how they can be part of our fight for liberation,” says EQNM’s Executive Director Marshall Martinez. “We conduct a thorough, community-based process that honors and incorporates the realities of queer and trans people everywhere. They need nondiscrimination policies, but they also need access to healthcare, a more just criminal system, and better education. Our lives are multi-issue as queer and trans people, and our candidate endorsements must consider multi-issue frameworks.”
This is why EQNM’s endorsement process is intentionally intersectional.
Our work at EQNM happens in coordination with other progressive advocacy organizations, including OLE, NM Native Vote, and Center for Civic Action. During election seasons, we collaborate with our partners to produce a wide-ranging candidate questionnaire that covers issues like climate change, workers rights, abortion access, and criminal justice. Candidates receive the questionnaire immediately after their filing date using information available from the Secretary of State, where all candidates must file. Our organizations also reach out to them individually throughout the process: letting them know it is coming, confirming receipt, and due date reminders. Candidates who want our endorsement complete the questionnaire through a process of written responses. When their answers have been submitted, anyone who holds a position that would be considered harmful to the communities within our coalition is disqualified. This could look like a candidate being against bodily autonomy, which negatively impacts gender-affirming care and abortion access, or a candidate being anti-minimum wage increases, which harms low-income workers. Candidates whose positions could empower our communities are then sent to a committee for deeper review. The review committee is composed of 12 people who work in different sectors from various geographic locations around the state. The committee evaluates candidate responses and then conducts individual interviews. Based on how these interviews proceed, the committee makes a recommendation to Equality New Mexico’s Board of Directors regarding who should be considered for endorsement. Our Board members make the final decision.
Check our social media accounts and our blog to stay up to date on 2024 candidate endorsements.