A federal lawsuit alleging that Rio Rancho has systematically ignored its own legislative rules has become a central pillar for one candidate in the city’s upcoming mayoral race. The city denies the allegations in the lawsuit and maintains that it has complied with all applicable rules and regulations.
Corrine Rios, the lead plaintiff in Rios et al. v. City of Rio Rancho, is one of six candidates vying to succeed Mayor Gregg Hull in the March 3 election. The legal challenge, filed in July 2025, alleges the city enacted multiple ordinances—including tax and water rate increases—without a formal “sponsor” from the Governing Body.
Accountability on the ballot
Rios, a decline-to-state candidate for mayor who ran for the New Mexico House District 57 seat in 2024 as a Republican, argues the process violated residents’ constitutional rights to representative government and procedural due process. She says the lack of an identified elected sponsor leaves residents without a clearly accountable official to contact with concerns.
“This is not a technicality,” Rios stated in court filings. “At the national level, the state level and in cities across the country, legislation is introduced and sponsored by elected officials because legislative authority belongs to those voters elect—not to staff.”
For Rios, the legal battle was the catalyst for her campaign.
“This is the issue that pushed me to run for Mayor,” Rios told The 528. “I believe in a simple principle: government exists to serve and protect the people — not manage them, not exploit them and not ignore them.”
The city’s position
The City of Rio Rancho has moved to dismiss the suit, asserting the plaintiffs have misinterpreted the rules. In a June 2025 email to Rios obtained and reviewed by The 528, City Attorney Josh Rubin clarified that the City Manager has authority to place items on the agenda that are “routine or ministerial in nature” without an elected sponsor.
While city officials said they do not comment on pending litigation, background information notes that municipalities like Albuquerque, Santa Fe and Las Cruces all operate under different, self-adopted rules. The city maintains that its current process is authorized by the City Charter and that procedural “technicalities” do not invalidate the laws themselves.
Rios challenged Rubin’s letter in a text message to The 528, saying “Under definition, legislative items such as ordinances are not considered routine or ministerial in nature.”
According to Rios, the city is ignoring procedural errors as long as the Governing Body voted on the ordinances.
“They are basically giving themselves immunity to violate any rule they want as long as the city council passes it,” Rios said.
Water rate Ordinance 007
Rios and the City of Rio Rancho do agree on one issue however.
Plaintiffs point to Ordinance 007 as a concrete example of why sponsorship matters. In July 2025, Rios and other plaintiffs discovered that nearly 40,000 residents had been prematurely billed for increased water rates beginning in 2020—before the new rates were legally in effect.
On Sept. 16, the City of Rio Rancho said that a water rate increase had been prematurely applied to residents’ bills. Some residents were accidentally billed twice after a new payment system was launched. The city said that a “billing/programming” issue caused the new rates to affect accounts for part of the monthly billing cycle. He added that customers were notified of the problem on their billing statements and would receive a credit on a future bill.
“This confirms that the City of Rio Rancho has been charging the new water rates early every single year since 2020,” Rios said, noting she brought the issue to the utilities department and the mayor in September 2025. “Unfortunately, instead of straightforward answers and corrections, we have encountered delays.”
Rios took to social media to highlight a message sent to residents on their water bills acknowledging the error. The message stated: “It has been determined there was an issue implementing the July 1st rate adjustments between fiscal years 20–25. The average total credit that will be posted to a residential account on a future billing statement will be less than $5.”
Plaintiffs argue that the lack of an identified elected sponsor for these ordinances left residents without a responsible representative to explain the billing errors or advocate for corrective action.
Allegations of unlicensed legal practice
The litigation has been marked by sharp procedural friction. The city filed motions for sanctions against Rios, accusing her of the “continued unlicensed practice of law.” Because Rios is not an attorney, she is only permitted to represent herself; however, the city claims she has continued to draft filings and submit evidence on behalf of more than a dozen other residents.
The city has also asked the court to admonish Rios for citing a “spurious” court case that appeared to be a hallucination of artificial intelligence. Rios characterized the citation as an “honest error” resulting from a lack of access to professional legal databases.
The case remains pending in federal court as voters head to the polls for the March 3 election.