Jane Fonda to campaign for Stephanie Garcia Richard in state land commissioner race

Sep. 22—Actress and activist Jane Fonda will be stumping for state Land Commissioner Stephanie Garcia Richard next week.

Fonda, who started a political action committee whose mission is to "defeat fossil fuel supporters and elect climate champions at all levels of government," is scheduled to appear at two campaign events for the incumbent Democrat Wednesday and Thursday in Santa Fe.

"They had to pinch me yesterday when we learned Jane Fonda was coming to New Mexico to support our campaign for re-election and all the work we've done around climate the last four years," Garcia Richard wrote Wednesday in an email to supporters.

Garcia Richard, who was endorsed by the Jane Fonda Climate PAC in her 2018 race, is running against Republican Jeff Byrd, a member of the state Public Regulation Commission and independent write-in candidate Larry Marker in the Nov. 8 general election.

Byrd said Garcia Richard is free to run her campaign as she wants, but Fonda's support illustrates "her desires" to hurt the economy in New Mexico.

"She talking about how the wind and solar leases are going to bring $250 million into the state over the next 10 years," he said. "But the reality is the petroleum industry does that in a month. By getting rid of the petroleum industry, you're getting rid of nearly 50 percent of the budget for the state of New Mexico. That's going to hurt our economy."

Byrd initially declined to talk about Fonda, saying it wasn't pertinent to the race. When pressed, he said he had "a lot of differences between what she thinks is the perfect world and what I believe is the perfect world."

He cited the military as an example, a reference to Fonda sitting on an anti-aircraft gun in North Vietnam in 1972, which earned her the nickname "Hanoi Jane."

"I believe that to have been a bad position to be in for her because our guys, the guys coming back home, should have been welcomed for the service they provided, not trashed and spit on," Byrd said. "It wasn't the way to handle it."

Byrd said Fonda could hurt Garcia Richard at the polls.

"There's a lot of proud military families in New Mexico," he said. "I think that's not a good move, but I'm not her campaign manager."

Tarin Nix, who is Garcia Richard's campaign manager, was ecstatic about Fonda's support.

"For us, it's our second go at a high-profile race, and it's our first really big, major national name that's come in," she said. "Given what we've seen from just the [announcement that Fonda is supporting Garcia Richard's reelection campaign], people are pretty excited."

Nix said there are "a plethora of reasons" why Garcia Richard would be on Fonda's radar.

"One, Stephanie ended the use of fresh water when it came to fracking," she said. "We tripled our renewable energy portfolio at the Land Office with the largest wind farm in the western hemisphere, and there's finally an accountability program that saved over $20 million in taxpayer dollars for cleanup costs in the oil fields."

Nix said Fonda's visit may include a walking tour from the state Land Office to the Roundhouse for a news conference, but plans have not been finalized. The campaign wants to be sensitive to Fonda, who is 84 and recently announced she had been diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.

Fonda is no stranger to New Mexico.

In 2000, the two-time Academy Award winner purchased a 2,300-acre ranch about 25 miles east of Santa Fe that had a 3 1/2 -mile stretch of the Pecos River running through it. Fonda bought the ranch after her divorce from media mogul Ted Turner, who also owns property in New Mexico.

"It's where I healed after my marriage — it's where I came to understand my life so far," Fonda told Architectural Digest in 2014.

Follow Daniel J. Chacón on Twitter @danieljchacon.