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Benjamin Hayden Rodefer

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Benjamin Rodefer
Image of Benjamin Rodefer
Prior offices
New Mexico House of Representatives District 23

Elections and appointments
Last election

June 2, 2020

Personal
Birthplace
Northampton, Mass.
Profession
Business
Contact

Benjamin Rodefer (Democratic Party) was a member of the New Mexico House of Representatives, representing District 23. He assumed office in 2009. He left office in 2010.

Rodefer (Democratic Party) ran for election to the New Mexico State Senate to represent District 9. He lost in the Democratic primary on June 2, 2020.

Rodefer completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2020. Click here to read the survey answers.

Biography

Benjamin Rodefer was born in Northampton, Massachusetts. He attended Cornell University for undergraduate study. Rodefer's career experience includes working as an art dealer and as a business owner of renewable energy companies.[1]

Committee assignments

While a member of the New Mexico House of Representatives, Rodefer served on the following committees:

Elections

2020

See also: New Mexico State Senate elections, 2020

General election

General election for New Mexico State Senate District 9

Brenda McKenna defeated John Clark in the general election for New Mexico State Senate District 9 on November 3, 2020.

Candidate
%
Votes
Image of Brenda McKenna
Brenda McKenna (D)
 
53.9
 
16,095
Image of John Clark
John Clark (R) Candidate Connection
 
46.1
 
13,744

Total votes: 29,839
Candidate Connection = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey.
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Democratic primary election

Democratic primary for New Mexico State Senate District 9

Brenda McKenna defeated Benjamin Rodefer and Kevin Lucero in the Democratic primary for New Mexico State Senate District 9 on June 2, 2020.

Candidate
%
Votes
Image of Brenda McKenna
Brenda McKenna
 
49.9
 
4,177
Image of Benjamin Rodefer
Benjamin Rodefer Candidate Connection
 
25.7
 
2,151
Kevin Lucero
 
24.5
 
2,049

Total votes: 8,377
Candidate Connection = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey.
If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey.

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Withdrawn or disqualified candidates

Republican primary election

Republican primary for New Mexico State Senate District 9

John Clark defeated Bridget Condon and Tania Dennis in the Republican primary for New Mexico State Senate District 9 on June 2, 2020.

Candidate
%
Votes
Image of John Clark
John Clark Candidate Connection
 
55.1
 
2,833
Image of Bridget Condon
Bridget Condon
 
32.0
 
1,646
Image of Tania Dennis
Tania Dennis
 
12.8
 
659

Total votes: 5,138
Candidate Connection = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey.
If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey.

Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team.

2012

See also: New Mexico State Senate elections, 2012

Rodefer ran in the 2012 election for New Mexico State Senate District 9. He ran and lost against incumbent John Sapien in the Democratic primary on June 5, 2012.[2][3]

New Mexico State Senate, District 9 Democratic Primary, 2012
Candidate Vote % Votes
Green check mark transparent.pngJohn Sapien Incumbent 55.3% 2,270
Benjamin Hayden Rodefer 44.7% 1,834
Total Votes 4,104

2010

See also: New Mexico House of Representatives elections, 2010

Rodefer lost his bid for re-election to the 23rd District seat in 2010. He had no primary opposition but was defeated by David Doyle (R) in the general election on November 2, 2010.[4]

New Mexico House of Representatives General Election, District 23 (2010)
Candidates Votes Percent
Green check mark transparent.png David Doyle (R) 6,426 54.10%
Benjamin Rodefer (D) 5,446 45.90%

2008

See also: New Mexico House of Representatives elections, 2008

On November 4, 2008, Rodefer won re-election to the 23rd District Seat in the New Mexico House of Representatives. Rodefer defeated Eric Youngberg (R).[5]

New Mexico House of Representatives General Election, District 23 (2008)
Candidates Votes Percent
Green check mark transparent.png Benjamin Rodefer (D) 8,149 51.4%
Eric Youngberg (R) 7,713 48.6%

Campaign themes

2020

Ballotpedia survey responses

See also: Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection

Candidate Connection

Benjamin Rodefer completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2020. The survey questions appear in bold and are followed by Rodefer's responses. Candidates are asked three required questions for this survey, but they may answer additional optional questions as well.

Expand all | Collapse all

I am a former Member of the NM House and was twice President of the New Mexico Renewable Energy Industries Association. I moved into the district as a child in 1967, went to our local public schools and then on to Cornell University. When younger I worked for our terrific US Senator Jeff Bingaman. I have a renewable development company here and am raising my two wonderful daughters in the same town I grew up in.
  • We need to end New Mexico's unfair income tax on Social Security. This is essentially double taxation and places an unfair burden on our seniors. Most states do not tax Social Security. This will be the first bill I introduce.
  • New Mexico's Teachers are united in their endorsement of me because of my proven record as a great champion for education, including early childhood funding. We need to get more of our scarce education resources directly into the classrooms to support our teachers and students.
  • We need to create an emergency option for every New Mexican who has lost their health insurance during this crisis to buy into our Medicaid program. This is no time for any New Mexican to be without accessible quality health insurance.
Obama's NM USDA Director Terry Brunner has said "Ben's leadership was crucial to our recovering from the Great Recession. As we face a daunting post-pandemic recovery we need Ben once again to help heal our economy and community." These are tough times but I am ready to get down to work. Now more than ever we deserve proven leadership and experience and I am the only candidate in this election with prior elected experience. I was an effective and fearless voice for us while in the NM House and while President of the NM Renewable Energy Industries Association I helped that sector provide the largest job growth in New Mexico since 1992. There is a lot of hard work to be done on the economy, education, health care, infrastructure, and public safety, but together we can get through this and build a better future for all New Mexicans. I respectfully ask for your vote.
Experience and independence. I have shown during my years in the NM House that I am fearless and independent, unafraid to stand up to insider interests. During these difficult times my experience is invaluable and will be crucial to our making the hard choices and taking the decisive steps necessary for New Mexico's economy and people to recover from our current health care and economic crisis's.
An elected officials core responsibility is to represent the people of their district. One of the most important things a good leader does is listen.
I remember watching the lunar landing with my parents and also some of the Watergate hearings but the first historical event that had a real impact on me was the election of Jimmy Carter. I worked as a volunteer on his campaign here in NM at the age of 13. The results were slow in coming in on election night and my family all went to bed but allowed me to stay up listening to the small car shaped radio my grandmother had sent the prior Christmas. I kept listening until it was clear he had won and that felt important to me at the time, like something good was replacing something not good and that our future was a bit brighter for it.
The theme music from Westworld. It seems to accompany me every day on my runs along the river.
In difficult times like these prior experience is absolutely beneficial. Someone like me with prior years in the legislature can hit the ground running and get great deal of good work done right out of the gate versus a newcomer who will take a couple of years to really get up to speed.
Ideally the Governor and the Legislature should form an effective partnership whereby they work together for the betterment of our great state and treat each other at all times with mutual respect.
I've been hearing recently from families who have lost their jobs and with that their health insurance and these are thus quite scary times for them. One family is paying Cobra over $2200 per month for insurance, and this while having lost their income as well. These are heartbreaking times on so many levels but no one should be going without access to quality health care. In coordination with Speaker Egolf, the Governor's office and the Legislative Health and Human Services Committee I have been looking at solutions, both immediate and longer term.

In the short term the challenge is that our previous Governor chose to give control of our health marketplace to the Feds, unlike states like California and New York who chose to administer their own programs and thus now have the option of reopening or extending their marketplace's open enrollment period. We d not currently have the infrastructure in place to take over our own system and thus have control of it and the Trump administration has I think quite callously refused to allow us to reopen enrollment during this health crisis. The long term solution is to put in place next year the necessary infrastructure to then run our own health marketplace system. In the meantime the possible solutions for those losing their insurance now are three-fold.

Many people who have lost their jobs now may qualify with their lower income for NM's Centennial Care, our Medicaid program which is income based (not age based).

The second option is that people who have lost their health insurance through their employer may now qualify for a special enrollment period through the health marketplace and may indeed also qualify for significant income based subsidies there as well.

The last option is that the state runs what they call a high risk pool for people who are unable to get health insurance elsewhere. You can learn more about that at NMMIP.org and it is quite possible that those rates may be lower than say Cobra's.

Note: Ballotpedia reserves the right to edit Candidate Connection survey responses. Any edits made by Ballotpedia will be clearly marked with [brackets] for the public. If the candidate disagrees with an edit, he or she may request the full removal of the survey response from Ballotpedia.org. Ballotpedia does not edit or correct typographical errors unless the candidate's campaign requests it.

Campaign finance summary


Note: The finance data shown here comes from the disclosures required of candidates and parties. Depending on the election or state, this may represent only a portion of all the funds spent on their behalf. Satellite spending groups may or may not have expended funds related to the candidate or politician on whose page you are reading this disclaimer. Campaign finance data from elections may be incomplete. For elections to federal offices, complete data can be found at the FEC website. Click here for more on federal campaign finance law and here for more on state campaign finance law.


Benjamin Rodefer campaign contribution history
YearOfficeStatusContributionsExpenditures
2020New Mexico State Senate District 9Lost primary$17,926 N/A**
Grand total$17,926 N/A**
Sources: OpenSecretsFederal Elections Commission ***This product uses the openFEC API but is not endorsed or certified by the Federal Election Commission (FEC).
** Data on expenditures is not available for this election cycle
Note: Totals above reflect only available data.

See also


External links

Footnotes

Political offices
Preceded by
Eric Youngberg
New Mexico House of Representatives - District 23
2009–2010
Succeeded by
David Doyle (R)


Current members of the New Mexico State Senate
Leadership
Majority Leader:Peter Wirth
Minority Leader:William Sharer
Senators
District 1
District 2
District 3
District 4
District 5
District 6
District 7
Pat Woods (R)
District 8
District 9
District 10
District 11
District 12
Jay Block (R)
District 13
District 14
District 15
District 16
District 17
District 18
District 19
District 20
District 21
District 22
District 23
District 24
District 25
District 26
District 27
District 28
District 29
District 30
District 31
District 32
District 33
District 34
District 35
District 36
District 37
District 38
District 39
District 40
District 41
District 42
Democratic Party (26)
Republican Party (16)