A. Members of the public regulation commission shall be elected for staggered four-year terms provided that commission members elected at the 1998 general election shall classify themselves by lot so that two commission members shall initially serve terms of two years and three commission members shall serve terms of four years. Thereafter, all commission members shall serve four-year terms. After serving two terms, a commission member shall be ineligible to hold office as a commission member until one full term has intervened.

B. The governor shall by appointment fill vacancies on the public regulation commission. An appointment to fill a vacancy on the public regulation commission shall be for a term ending on December 31 after the next general election, at which election a person shall be elected to fill any remainder of the unexpired term.

C. An appointment to fill a vacancy on the public regulation commission made before the general election of 2002 shall be made from the district as it was described in Laws 1997, Chapter 262, Sections 6 through 10. After the general election of 2002, a vacancy shall be filled by appointment from the district set out in Sections 8-7-6 through 8-7-10 NMSA 1978.

History: Laws 1997, ch. 262, § 4; 2001 (1st S.S.), ch. 3, § 1.

The 2001 (1st S.S.) amendment, effective October 4, 2001, in Subsection A, deleted a proviso at the end of the first sentence, relating to commission members elected at the 1998 general election, deleted the former second and third sentences, relating to four-year terms and number of terms a member can serve, and added the present last sentence; in Subsection B, substituted "An appointment" for "All appointments", "a vacancy" for "vacancies" and "December 31 after" for "January 1 subsequent to" in the second sentence; and added Subsection C.

Subsection A is constitutional and a safe guide to the legislative intent behind N.M. Const., Art. XI, § 1. Block v. Vigil-Giron, 2004-NMSC-003, 135 N.M. 24, 84 P.3d 72.

Consecutive terms. — A public regulation commission commissioner elected to serve consecutive two-year and four-year terms may not run again for another four-year term until one full term has intervened. 2003 Op. Att'y Gen. No. 03-05.