Attorney General Gary King, long talked about as a potential candidate for governor, is now saying he will indeed run for the Democratic nomination for governor in 2014.

“I think the government’s not working properly,” King said Tuesday in a telephone interview. He said there are important issues that need to be discussed outside of his work as attorney general.

King first publicly said he was running for governor Monday in an interview on Albuquerque radio station KANW.

“Actually, I’ve been at it for a couple of months now,” King said Tuesday. “I think I filed my committee papers in May. You need to start organizing and fundraising early.”

But he said he hasn’t had any type of official campaign kickoff. “I don’t even have a website yet,” he said.

King, serving his second term as attorney general, is a former state representative. He’s also the son of New Mexico’s longest-serving governor, the late Bruce King, who served three nonconsecutive four-year terms between 1971 and 1994.

King is the first Democrat to say he’s running. Gov. Susana Martinez, who is serving her first term as governor, is the presumptive Republican nominee.

Martinez hasn’t formally announced she’s seeking re-election. But last year, during a controversy about her 2010 campaign committee paying for radio ads about driver’s licenses for illegal immigrants, her campaign committee argued that it now serves as Martinez’s re-election committee. The committee argued that radio spots promoting the governor’s issues and ideas “are standard campaign activity.”

This will be the third time King has sought the governor’s office. He ran in 1998, losing the Democratic primary to Albuquerque Mayor Martin Chavez. Four years later, he tried again, but he dropped out of the race before the primary after a poor showing against Bill Richardson in the pre-primary convention and difficulty with fundraising.

Gary King also ran unsuccessfully for Congress in 2004 against Republican incumbent Steve Pearce in the southern 2nd Congressional District.

King and Martinez recently have been feuding over the use of private email for state business. King’s office has been investigating Martinez’s Public Education Department over the practice and for compiling lists for Martinez’s political director.

The state Republican Party has blasted the attorney general as “King of Hypocrisy” for using his campaign email to communicate with a campaign contributor about an official legal opinion being sought.

King said the email in question was from a lawyer in the same firm where King worked before he was elected attorney general. “We often talk conversationally,” he said.

Last week, King accused the state GOP of using public records requests to intimidate him and keep him from properly investigating the Public Education Department.

Contact Steve Terrell at sterrell@sfnewmexican.com. Read his political blog at roundhouseroundup.com.