Mary Herrera

Mary Herrera

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Democratic Party

Prior offices

New Mexico Secretary of State

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Mary Herrera (D) was New Mexico Secretary of State. A native of Albuquerque, she was the second-highest ranking Hispanic elected official in the country, after former Governor of New Mexico Bill Richardson. Herrera was one of only two statewide elected Hispanic women, and was the highest ranking statewide elected Hispanic woman in the United States.

Although she did not face re-election until November 2010, Herrera began collecting campaign contributions as early as July 2009.

Herrera lost to Republican State Senator Dianna Duran in the general election on November 2, 2010 after receiving slightly over 42 percent of the vote.

Career

Below is an abbreviated outline of Herrera's academic, professional, and political career:

Education

• Graduated from West Mesa High School (1977)
• Bachelor's degree, College of Santa Fe in business administration
• Master's degree, College of Santa Fe in business administration
• Certificate of Program Administration for Senior Executives, Harvard University
• Certificates in Labor, Employment, and Benefits Law, Institute for Applied Management
• Doctorate degree honoris causa, College of Santa Fe (2007) in humane letters

Career

• 1974-1989: Advanced from clerk typist to Assistant Comptroller in Bernalillo County Government
• 1996-2000: Bernalillo County Director of Human Resources
• 2000: Elected Bernalillo County Clerk
• 2004: Re-elected Bernalillo County Clerk
• 2006: Elected New Mexico Elected Secretary of State
• 2009: Elected President of the National Association of Latino elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO)

In her capacity as Secretary of State she served on the Public Employees Retirement Board and State Commission of Public Records.

Awards and Associations

• U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC)
• New Mexico Election Task Force
• Rio Grande Credit Union board of directors member
• Fraternal Order of Police associate member
• Henry Toll Fellowship Program (2007)

Noteworthy events

Flores email

Steve Terrell of the Santa Fe New Mexican reportedly came across an email from Herrera accusing a former employee of not doing what she wanted him to do. She had allegedly asked him to use his contacts in the Republican Party in the run-up to Herrera’s re-election campaign as a Democrat. According to the story, part of an email from Herrera to James Flores read: "I asked you a long time ago to get involved in the R party, you didn’t and now they are looking for someone to run against me."

Herrera reportedly did not deny writing the email. Terrell wrote: "Herrera said Wednesday that she’d only suggested to Flores he become active in the GOP so that Republicans would feel that her office was open to both parties. She said that Flores is one of four Republicans she hired."

Misconduct accusations

In March 2010, State Attorney General Gary King launched his investigation into allegations that Herrera solicited "donations from companies that contract with her office and ordered some of her employees to gather signatures on petitions for her re-election campaign." The source of the accusations is a resignation letter written by A. J. Salazar, a former deputy district attorney who, after only eleven months on the job, quit after having discovered what a "crooked organization" the secretary of state's office was. Herrera, while denying this and other insinuations made by Salazar, argued that the real "reason he left the office was because he wanted Spring Break off and he didn’t want to go to work."

Portions of the letter were first published by The Albuquerque Journal and the full context of it was later released to the public through the Rio Grande Sun. Despite numerous requests from local media outlets for the release of the letter, the Secretary of State's Office refused to do so, claiming that it was a personnel matter and that the email resignation did not qualify under the New Mexico Inspection of Public Records Act. The New Mexico Foundation for Open Government, however, disagreed with this assessment. Finally, a little over two weeks after Salazar resigned from office, Herrera's Office released a heavily red-acted version of his letter.

Nearly five months after the case was first brought to the attention of the State Attorney General's Office, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) was brought in to determine whether or not Gary King "attempted to cover up allegations of wrongdoing." In addition to Salazar, requests for federal involvement were made by Manny Vildasol and James Flores, both of whom worked in the Secretary of State's Office, as office manager and public information officer respectively.

Secretary of State Project

See also: Secretary of State Project

The Center for Public Integrity reported in September 2008 that Mary Herrera received a substantial donation of $50,000, or 10 percent of the campaign budget, from the Secretary of State Project, a below-the-radar 527 political organization whose purpose is to "wrestling control of the country from the Republican Party" through the process of "removing their political operatives from deciding who can vote and whose votes will count," namely the office of Secretary of State in many cases.

Elections

2010

See also: New Mexico Secretary of State election, 2010

• 2010 Race for Secretary of State - Democratic Primary
  • Mary Herrera ran unopposed in this contest

2010 Race for Secretary of State - General Election
Party		Candidate	Vote Percentage
	Republican Party	a Dianna Duran	57.5%
	Democratic Party	Mary Herrera	42.5%
Total Votes			594,170

2006

2006 Race for Secretary of State - Democratic Primary
Party		Candidate	Vote Percentage
	Democratic Party	a Mary Herrera	39.6%
	Democratic Party	Stephanie V. Gonzales	28.9%
	Democratic Party	Shirley Hooper	19.4%
	Democratic Party	Letitia Montoya	12.1%
Total Votes			119,843

2006 Race for Secretary of State - General Election
Party		Candidate	Vote Percentage
	Democratic Party	a Mary Herrera	54.2%
	Republican Party	Vickie S. Pera	45.8%
Total Votes			556,610

Campaign contributions

2006 Race for Secretary of State - Campaign Contributions
Total Raised		$380,198
Total Raised by Primary Opponent		$109,226
Total Raised by Gen. Election Opponent		$549,348
Top 5 Contributors		Bill Richardson for Governor $61,098 (16.07% of Total)
		Committee to Elect Mary Herrera County Clerk $24,512 (6.45%)
		ActBlue $24,164 (6.36%)
		EMILY's List $20,000 (5.26%)
		Bill Richardson for Governor $14,098 (3.71%)
Individuals v. Institutions		$103,920 (27.3%)
		$160,605 (42.2%)
In v. Outside State		$309,554 (81.4%)
		$70,544 (18.6%)

Personal

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Mary Herrera currently resides in Albuquerque, New Mexico with her two children, Nathan and Monique.

See also

• New Mexico Secretary of State
• New Mexico Secretary of State election, 2010

External links

• Official New Mexico Secretary of State website
• Mary Herrera's Twitter account
• Project Vote Smart - Mary Herrera biography
• Maryherreraagain.com 2010 Campaign website
  

The Internet Archive's Wayback Machine was used to recall this version of the website from October 18, 2010.

Footnotes

Political offices
Preceded by Rebecca Vigil-Giron	New Mexico Secretary of State 2006–2010	Succeeded by Dianna Duran