New Mexico is moving to ban the sale of gasoline-powered vehicles by 2035, and not because the state passed a law to do so. The ban will happen because an unelected board issued a new rule. Rio Grande Foundation President Paul Gessing has been trying to get the board to reject that proposal, and he speaks about his efforts on the Overton Window podcast.

Gessing says that empowering a board to make this policy decision had already been done in California. The state got approval from the federal government to apply environmental regulations to the sales of vehicles. And that’s what New Mexico is doing now.

“I think the Legislature should ultimately be responsible for making these policies,” Gessing says. “Just because California does something doesn’t mean you should do it, too. I know I sound like our moms.”

Voters can vote out elected representatives who pass policies they do not like, but they have no direct recourse with appointed boards. “You lose out on the ability and the rights of people to petition and engage with policymakers. You come up with these nameless, faceless boards that are not bound by any political repercussions,” Gessing says.

Even without direct accountability, boards have to go through a process to enact rules, and Gessing tried to get them to keep gasoline-powered vehicle sales legal. “We did embark upon an aggressive campaign called KeepYourCarsNM.com,” Gessing says. “We got large numbers of signatures from New Mexicans who opposed this policy and delivered them to the board.”

The group worked hard to get its message in local papers, talk radio stations and local television. Rio Grande Foundation members showed up at the board’s meetings to testify.

They also sent out mail targeted at the neighborhoods of the board members. “We were engaged in a process to try to make sure that their neighbors understood who these people were and what they were trying to do,” Gessing says. “That might give them some personal accountability in addition to trying to sway them through a media campaign, signatures and letters, and that kind of process.”

The board voted to ban the sale of gas and diesel vehicles 3-2, with two members abstaining. That’s all that was necessary to enact the policy.

“I felt very proud of the campaign we ran. We shed some light and some heat on these people,” Gessing says. “I’m pleased that we got 3-2. I’m pleased that an outright majority of the board did not vote in favor of this.”

But it is still a loss. The new rules will begin to take effect in summer 2026. Deferred policies make it more difficult to hold lawmakers accountable. The champion of the policy, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, will no longer be in office. “She is term-limited out simultaneously with this regulation actually taking effect,” Gessing says.

In other words, many of the people who would be upset by the move cannot vote against the people who allowed it to happen.

It can still be an issue for legislators, and Gessing wants voters to care about this issue. “All 112 members of the Legislature are up for election in 2024. So, they will have to stand on this issue in a way the governor will never have to. Educating the voters on what those legislators said and did and should be doing on this issue is absolutely the path forward,” he says.

“Changing the governor is important, but having a Legislature that does not empower an unelected board to take their own power away and do things that many of their members do not approve of is critical to restoring small-D democracy,” Gessing says.

He is going to try to make the vehicle sales ban an issue that people care about when they cast their ballots. Get enough people running on this issue and the people who win elections feel the need to do something about it.

Yet elections are complicated. People will care about other issues, too. “It’s a battle for salience. What do people vote on when they go to the polls? That’s the challenge we face,” Gessing says.

“It’s the swing voters, the common denominator, the people who may not have a great deal of information who often lead to success or failure politically,” Gessing says. “At least on this issue we would like to see small-D democracy rule rather than an unelected board. And that’s the case we’re going to make to voters.”

Check out our conversation at the Overton Window podcast.

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