Update: The attempt to recall Mayor Ortiz was unsuccessful.  See this story from Capitol Report – New Mexico

Las Vegas Mayor Alfonso Ortiz is taking heat after he refused to enforce the no-fracking oil-drilling ban passed by the city council last year which was pushed by a Pennsylvania group.  Mayor Ortiz says the ban on fracking is unconstitutional.  Now Lee Einer, a hardcore leftist featured in Michael Moore’s SiCKO documentary, is leading the charge as his leftist army circulates a recall petition against Ortiz.

New Mexico has a history of bare-knuckle political fights and in Las Vegas, N.M., it doesn’t get much more bad-to-bone than the current battle between the mayor and a group assembled to throw him out of office.

“These people who are part of this, to me, they’re extreme radicals,” Mayor Alfonso Ortiz Jr. told New Mexico Watchdog of the effort to recall him from office.

“This whole thing has all the dirt of Chicago politics squeezed into a small town,” said Lee Einer, a long-time critic of the mayor and co-founder of the Committee For Honest Government, which is looking to oust Ortiz, who has three years left in his second term in office.

In addition to the recall effort, there have been charges from both sides of attempts at political intimidation as the recall petition-signing drive gained momentum in the town of 15,000.

Supporters of Mayor Ortiz claim that one of the co-founders of the recall committee harassed the city clerk — something Einer called “dirty tricks” — while supporters of the recall effort accuse opponents of vandalizing signs that called for the mayor’s ouster.

And looming over the entire political battle is another controversial issue: Fracking, the use of hydraulic fracturing, the procedure oil and gas companies employ when drilling.

Last year, the city council approved a ban on fracking but Mayor Ortiz has refused to enforce it.

“The people behind this recall effort are people who are against fracking and they’re going after me because I didn’t sign the ordinance, which is as unconstitutional as you get,” Ortiz said. “That’s the major impetus.”

“No, not at all,” said Einer, a big supporter of the anti-fracking measure. “It’s one of the issues but it’s not all of it. It’s multiple issues … The short answer is there has been a continuing pattern of misconduct.”

The ordinance passed in April of 2012. It’s largely a symbolic measure since few people think oil and natural gas producers are going to start erecting drills within the city limits but the move has been a major topic of debate ever since.

Ortiz says he actually supports the measure in theory.

“But the real issue is not fracking,” Ortiz said, “it’s that the community rights ordinance is unconstitutional … it will supersede our charter. It’s anti-government. It would violate my oath of office if I signed it.”

An environmental group from Pennsylvania helped draft the ordinance and one of its representatives raised eyebrows when she told a reporter last year, “What people don’t understand is sometimes we have to step outside the boundaries of the Constitution to get things done. Laws are made to protect corporations and we need laws that protect Mother Earth — earth, air and water.”

Einer and Ortiz have tangled before. The 73-year-old Ortiz has lived in the Las Vegas area his entire life and has held a number of government and education positions, including jobs at New Mexico Highlands University.

Einer, an accounts receivable specialist who says he’s currently unemployed, has been an active voice from the political left for a number of years in Las Vegas. He describes an appearance in the movie “Sicko” by liberal filmmaker Michael Moore as, “‘I guess what you would call my claim to fame.”

Einer alleges that Ortiz has concentrated political power through his office.

Ortiz, who up until this past December was also the San Miguel County Treasurer, says there’s “nothing to it.”

“We’re dealing with people who, when you provide a legal argument, they just tear it apart,” he said.

Another factor in the recall effort has been rising water rates in Las Vegas that Ortiz insists are economically necessary.

Read more at the New Mexico Watchdog here.