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Rep. Heather Wilson (R-N.M) will run for the New Mexico Senate seat that is expected to open up officially later Thursday when Sen. Pete Domenici (R) declares that he will not seek reelection in 2008, according to a source familiar with Wilson’s decision. Domenici has taken Wilson under his wing in recent years, and as he has gotten older, Wilson’s name has topped the list of potential heirs. A strong campaigner, she has survived several multimillion-dollar challenges in a swing district ...

WASHINGTON — Democrat Bill Richardson said today that he's not giving up his presidential bid to run for a Senate seat that has opened in his home state of New Mexico. "I am not running for the Senate. I'm running for president," Richardson said in a brief phone interview with The Associated Press. The governor and his campaign advisers did not rule out a Senate race if he does not win the Democratic presidential nomination. "Right now," said his spokesman Tom Reynolds, "we're 100 percent committed to running for the White House."Republican Sen. Pete Domenici planned to announce Thursday in...

Just breaking on CNN. Domenici is supposed to announce his retirement tomorrow.

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The soldiers think they can win. Some Senators lose their nerve. Richard Lugar of Indiana, George Voinovich of Ohio, Pete Domenici of New Mexico, and John Warner of Virginia have together served more than a century in the world's greatest deliberative body. Historians will remember their time in public office for Reagan's challenge to the Soviet Union, for the success of pro-growth economic policies, for welfare reform, for the reinvigoration of a constitutionalist approach to the courts, for the framing of a foreign policy for the post-9/11 world. None of these men played a leading role in any of these...

During the last few days, both Sen. Pete Domenici (R-N.M.) and Rep. John Doolittle (R-Calif.), two conservative Republicans, have broken with President Bush's policy on Iraq, both in very public ways. Here's a link on Domenici's statement on Iraq (via ThinkProgress), although it's still unclear on how far he will go in opposing Bush, and here's an article on Doolittle's recent comments in Iraq. Beyond being Republicans and facing tough re-election campaigns next year, Domenici and Doolittle have another thing in common - they are both under fire for ethics legal problems. Domenici is being investigated by the Senate Ethics...

July 05, 2007 Read More: Iraq Domenici is the latest.... .... To break with the president over the war. In Albuquerque today, Sen. Pete Domenici (R-N.M.), a six-term incumbent who faces reelection next year, said he was "unwilling to continue our current strategy" in Iraq. The announcement follows the split of two other high-profile Republicans with the president over his handling of the war. Last week, Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) and Sen. George Voinovich (R-Ohio) called on Bush to start withdrawing troops. Domenici did the same today by endorsing a Senate bill that would adopt recommendations of the Iraq Study...

3:23 PM Sen. Pete Domenici (N.M.), a 36-year Republican veteran of the Senate, abandoned President Bush's Iraq war policy today by publicly endorsing legislation designed to withdraw nearly all U.S. troops from Iraq by March 2008. Domenici, a member of the defense appropriations subcommittee, is the fourth senior Senate Republican to sharply criticize Bush's war strategy in the past two weeks. He announced during a press conference in Albuquerque that he was co-sponsoring legislation that would embrace the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group, which called for a major redeployment that would leave only a limited number of troops in...

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) -- U.S. Sen. Pete Domenici on Thursday joined a growing chorus of Republicans who are calling for a change in course in U.S. military strategy in Iraq -- sooner rather than later. Domenici, R-N.M., said he supports a bipartisan Senate bill that would create conditions that could allow for a drawdown of U.S. combat forces in Iraq by next March. The bill, based on recommendations released six months ago by an independent study group, would make the group's 79 recommendations the policy of the United States. "I do not support an immediate withdrawal from Iraq or a...

Domenici calls for change in Iraq strategy ALBUQUERQUE — U.S. Sen. Pete Domenici on Thursday joined a growing chorus of Republicans who are calling for a change in course in U.S. military strategy in Iraq — sooner rather than later. Domenici, R-N.M., said he supports a bipartisan Senate bill that would create conditions that could allow for a drawdown of U.S. combat forces in Iraq by next March. The bill is based on recommendations released six months ago by an independent study group. “I do not support an immediate withdrawal from Iraq or a reduction in funding for our troops...

Former U.S. Attorney David Iglesias was fired after Sen. Pete Domenici, who had been unhappy with Iglesias for some time, made a personal appeal to the White House, the Journal has learned. Domenici had complained about Iglesias before, at one point going to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales before taking his request to the president as a last resort. The senior senator from New Mexico had listened to criticism of Iglesias going back to 2003 from sources ranging from law enforcement officials to Republican Party activists. Domenici, who submitted Iglesias' name for the job and guided him through the confirmation process...

In 2005, Doña Ana County District Attorney Susana Martinez had a nearly beheaded teenage corpse on a ditch bank. In 2006, Bernalillo County Sheriff Darren White had a deputy dead in the East Mountains. Federal law enforcement agencies led by the FBI were there to help. But Martinez and White said they had to kick and scream to get the attention of the U.S. Attorney's Office, run by fellow Republican David Iglesias. Martinez threatened to go to the president of the United States to get help in her case. It worked, and federal prosecutors took over the drug-related kidnapping and...

4 in N.M. charged with corruption ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. - A former state senator and three other people were charged with corruption Thursday in a highly politicized case that a former federal prosecutor told Congress he believes led to his firing.A federal grand jury accused former New Mexico Senate President Pro Tem Manny Aragon and the others of conspiring to skim $4.2 million in public funds meant for construction of a county courthouse.David Iglesias, one of eight U.S. attorneys fired late last year, told Congress this month that he rejected what he believed to be pressure from U.S. Sen. Pete Domenici...

Sen. Pete V. Domenici (R-N.M.) has hired a top defense attorney to handle the pending ethics investigation into allegations that he pressured a federal prosecutor to bring indictments against New Mexico Democrats on the eve of the 2006 elections. Lee Blalack, who recently represented former [convicted] congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham (R-Calif.) ... said today that he has signed on as Domenici's attorney in the wake of allegations from fired U.S. Attorney David C. Iglesias. Iglesias alleged that Domenici phoned him at his home and asked about a pending public corruption investigation. The Senate Ethics Committee indicated Monday that it has...

WASHINGTON — New Mexico Sen. Pete Domenici acknowledged Sunday that he called a federal prosecutor to ask about a criminal investigation, but insisted he never pressured nor threatened his state's U.S. attorney. The prosecutor, David Iglesias, was fired by the Justice Department in December. Iglesias says he believes he was dismissed for resisting pressure from two members of Congress before last year's election to rush indictments in a Democratic kickback investigation. Iglesias, a Republican, has said he would not name the lawmakers unless asked under oath

Masked intruders forced their way into the Silver Spring home of a U.S. senator's daughter yesterday morning, startling a nanny who ran outside with the lawmaker's 2-year-old granddaughter and left his youngest grandson behind. A Montgomery County police SWAT team later found the baby safe in his crib. Police think the incident was a burglary gone awry because the intruders apparently didn't realize the house was occupied. The burglars approached the red-brick house on the 2400 block of Hayden Drive in Forest Glen about 9:30 a.m., police said. After hearing suspicious noises outside, the 42-year-old nanny opened the door. "When...

On April 4, the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee will hold a hearing to discuss a white paper that Senators Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) and Pete Domenici (R-NM) released on a mandatory cap and trade program for carbon dioxide emissions. The majority of panelists that will provide testimony in the hearing are for a cap-and-trade program, suggesting the Committee views global warming to be a serious problem and that a cap-and-trade approach is the preferred mechanism for fighting it. The hearing's timing couldn't be better, as it coincides with an intense global warming propaganda campaign by the media that is...

In February last year, the chairman of the Senate energy committee sat down at Los Alamos National Laboratory for a private briefing on climate change. Was global warming real, Sen. Pete Domenici wanted to know. He turned for answers to a federal lab that he had gazed on admiringly since he was a boy. In a barrage of computer slides, Los Alamos scientists showed the 72-year-old Republican senator a planet tipping into uncertainty. Greenhouse gases were increasing in the atmosphere and the trapped solar radiation was boosting temperatures worldwide, with cascading impacts on natural and human welfare. Natural causes alone...

WASHINGTON, April 3 — During the heated immigration debate on Capitol Hill, some Republicans have portrayed immigrants as invaders, criminals and burdens to society. But for Senator Pete V. Domenici, Republican of New Mexico, the image that comes to mind is that of his mother and the day the authorities took her away. It was 1943, World War II was raging, and federal agents were sweeping through Albuquerque hunting for Italian sympathizers. They found Mr. Domenici's mother, Alda V. Domenici, a curly-haired mother of four and a local PTA president who also happened to be an illegal immigrant from Italy....

Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Pete V. Domenici (R-NM) confirmed he will press to include Arctic National Wildlife Refuge leasing in this year's budget resolution. The disclosure came as he complimented Interior Sec. Gale A. Norton for her department's support Mar. 2 of environmentally responsible development of oil and gas resources along ANWR's coastal plain. Norton appeared before the committee to discuss the department's proposed fiscal 2007 budget. Domenici also praised Norton for the department's effort to begin an oil shale leasing program and urged her to move quickly to get streamlined permitting fully operating in the Rocky...