Who Is Running RPNM? By Gary Person

Note: the commentary below is a guest commentary by frequent contributor and former New Mexico Republican Party SCC Member Gary Perry.

“Republicans in New Mexico deserve a direct answer: who is running the Republican Party of New Mexico — the elected State Central Committee, the Uniform State Rules, or paid staff?

This question matters because Leticia Muñoz is serving as RPNM Executive Director and Treasurer. That should alarm every county chair, SCC member, donor, and Republican voter in New Mexico.

The Executive Director is a paid employee. The Treasurer is responsible for party finances. Those roles should not be combined without full disclosure, clear authority, and strict oversight. When one person sits in the middle of operations, spending, records, reporting, and bank access, that creates a serious financial-control problem.

RPNM should answer plainly: Were CFIS records updated? Were bank signature cards changed? Were county chairs and SCC members told? Are expenditures being authorized, recorded, and reported by the same person?

Those are not personal attacks. They are basic governance questions.

Then there is Torrance County.

If RPNM tried to restructure, rearrange, replace, or reorganize Torrance County, then RPNM must identify the rule that allowed it. The Uniform State Rules give that authority to the State Central Committee, not to the Executive Director, not to paid staff, and not to headquarters acting on its own.

So where is the SCC vote? Where are the minutes? Where is the official call? Where is the legal basis? Where is the finding that Torrance County failed to hold a proper convention or that a valid factional dispute was formally presented to the SCC?

If Leticia Muñoz, as Executive Director, suggested or helped drive the restructuring of Torrance County, RPNM needs to explain what authority she had to do so.

Robert’s Rules of Order does not allow bylaws to be ignored because leadership wants a faster result. RPNM’s own rules go even further: the Uniform State Rules cannot be suspended at the state or county level. That means there is no “because we said so” exception.

This is not about personality. It is not about whether someone likes or dislikes Leticia Muñoz. It is about authority, money, records, and rules.

A paid Executive Director should not also serve as Treasurer without full disclosure.

A paid Executive Director should not drive county restructuring without clear authority from the proper governing body.

A political party should not allow one unelected staff position to control operations, expenditures, records, reporting, bank access, and county intervention without strict oversight.

And if party funds, bank access, financial reports, property, signatures, or official filings were handled without proper authority, RPNM should not dismiss that as gossip or factional fighting. It should order an independent audit and legal review. I am not accusing anyone of a crime, but if money, property, or official records were mishandled, that can become more than an internal political problem.

RPNM should immediately release the authority for Leticia Muñoz serving as Treasurer, the current CFIS information, current bank-signature authority, and all documents connected to any Torrance County restructuring.

Republicans cannot demand election integrity from Democrats while refusing rule integrity inside our own party. We cannot preach transparency to voters while hiding records from county chairs and SCC members. We cannot claim to be the party of law and order while treating our own rules as optional.

RPNM belongs to Republican voters, county parties, and the State Central Committee.

It does not belong to one chair.

It does not belong to one faction.

It does not belong to paid staff.

So the question remains:

Who is running RPNM — and are they running it under the rules, or around them?”