2023 New Mexico Statutes › Chapter 1 - Elections › Article 26 - Nonpartisan Judicial Retention › Section 1-26-5 - Judicial retention; district court judges.

A. Each eligible district court judge shall be subject to retention or rejection at the general election in the last year of the six-year term of office for the position in which the judge is serving.
B. Terms of office for positions on the district court in each judicial district shall be staggered, as follows:
(1) the term of office for division 1 and for every third division number thereafter shall expire in 2026 and every six years thereafter;
(2) the term of office for division 2 and for every third division number thereafter shall expire in 2028 and every six years thereafter; and
(3) the term of office for division 3 and for every third division number thereafter shall expire in 2024 and every six years thereafter.
C. The administrative office of the courts shall maintain current on its website a list of the names of the currently serving judges of each judicial district and the year in which the term of office for each position expires.
D. The initial term of office for a newly created district court judgeship shall be staggered in accordance with the provisions of Subsection B of this section, even if the result is a shortened first term for the office.
E. As used in this section, "division" means the divisions established pursuant to Section 34-6-18 NMSA 1978.
History: Laws 2019, ch. 212, § 176; 2021, ch. 74, § 1.
ANNOTATIONS
The 2021 amendment,
effective June 18, 2021, staggered the initial term of office for newly created district court judgeships, even if the result is a shortened first term; and added a new Subsection D and redesignated former Subsection D as Subsection E.
Temporary provisions.
— Laws 2021, ch. 74, § 3, provided that pursuant to Article 20, Section 3 of the constitution of New Mexico, the legislature finds that the judicial term adjustments provided for district court judges in Laws 2021, ch. 74, § 1 and for metropolitan court judges in Laws 2021, ch. 74, § 2 are needed to:
A. balance the number of judicial positions appearing on the ballot in any one election cycle;
B. enable more effective evaluation of judges by the judicial performance evaluation commission; and
C. create greater continuity of judges at the trial court level by not having all judges up for judicial retention in the same election cycle.
Constitutional amendment implicitly repealed the requirement that all district and metropolitan court judges stand for retention at the same time.
— Where petitioners, sitting district and metropolitan court judges and their association, filed a petition for writ of mandamus challenging the constitutionality of §§ 1-26-5 and 1-26-6 NMSA 1978, which provide for staggered retention elections of district court and metropolitan court judges, respectively, claiming that N.M. Const., Art. VI, § 33, specifically requires that retention elections of all district judges statewide occur at the same time and that N.M. Const., Art. XX, § 3, generally authorizes the legislature to stagger the dates of elections of district officers, and that because the two constitutional provisions conflict, the general provision must yield to the more specific provision, and as a result, §§ 1-26-5 and 1-26-6 are unconstitutional, the petition was denied because, although Art. XX, § 3 irreconcilably conflicts with N.M. Const., Art. VI, §§ 33, 35, 36, and 37 and Art. VI, § 33 is the more specific of the two provisions, Art. XX, § 3, as amended by the voters in 2020, implicitly repealed the requirement in Art. VI, § 33 that all district and metropolitan court judges stand for retention election at the same time. Article XX, § 3 therefore, authorized the legislature to amend §§ 1-26-5 and 1-26-6 to stagger retention elections for district and metropolitan court judges.
State ex rel. Franchini v. Toulouse Oliver
, 2022-NMSC-016.