State Rep making Senate bid lives outside district; plans to move
Apr. 28—A state representative who announced last week she's making a bid for a Senate district seat in southeastern New Mexico doesn't live in the district she wants to represent.
But Rep. Candy Spence Ezzell, a Roswell Republican, said Friday she's in the process of moving from Senate District 33 into Senate District 32 — a move she says had been in the works for years.
"The old house that we're living in out here [on] the ranch is falling down," Ezzell said. "Every contractor we've talked to said, 'You're wasting your money if you try to fix it.' So, we're literally going to have to move out, tear it down and start over," she said.
Ezzell said she changed her voter registration to reflect her new address in Senate District 32 earlier this month. She said both her old and new addresses are in House District 58, which she currently represents.
Ezzell, a cattle rancher, farmer and racehorse owner who has served in the state House nearly two decades, is running for the seat being vacated by Sen. Cliff Pirtle, R-Roswell, who will not be running for another term in 2024.
Pirtle made the announcement about a month after Santa Fe police responded to a domestic dispute involving his wife, who told sheriff's deputies she and Pirtle got into a screaming match after she found him in bed with another woman at a home he was renting in Santa Fe during the legislative session.
Cliff Pirtle said he had decided not to seek reelection "over the past year" but only announced the decision after the domestic dispute.
Ezzell's current place of residence used to be in Senate District 32, according to the Secretary of State's Office.
"After redistricting at the county level was complete, the address is now in ... Senate District 33," Alex Curtas, an office spokesman, wrote in an email.
Ezzell questioned the new boundaries, saying she had no idea how she ended up in the Senate district currently represented by Sen. William Burt, R-Alamogordo.
"I don't know if they followed a fence line on our ranch or how they came up with that one," she said. "But you can see — I don't know — no thought being put into this or maybe there was an ulterior motive there to get me where I would not be eligible to do anything."
Ezzell said she and her husband started planning their move into a remodeled home about 30 miles from their current residence before the COVID-19 pandemic.
"Then we had to shut things down," she said.
The home where they currently live was built around the 1920s and has suffered weather-related damage in recent years.
"Whenever we had those tornadoes down here ... it took the roof off of our house," she said. "We've patched it up."
A hailstorm last summer did more damage, she said.
"It busted the skylights in the house, flooded the kitchen," she said. "Now we've got real, real issues."
Ezzell said she's been moving into the remodeled home, located on Spence Road west of Lake Arthur, but it's a big job.
"I've accumulated so much junk over the past 30 years," she said. "It's going to be a pain to get out of this house."
Follow Daniel J. Chacón on Twitter @danieljchacon.
Follow Daniel J. Chacón on Twitter @danieljchacon.
