Beginning Wednesday the New Mexico Legislature begins its 30-day session and Santa Fe will be a hubbub of political activity, along with the corresponding socializing.
The Roundhouse halls will be bustling with our elected officials and lobbyists each with his or her individual agenda for their constituents, each representative plotting how your tax money should be spent.
More bills will be introduced than will be put into law — a lot more talk than action unless you count the ringing cash register at the Bull Ring bar, or the waiting line at Kaune’s for a lunchtime chopped salad or maybe savoring an early morning burrito at Tia Sophia’s.
Overall, we as taxpayers should continue to ask our legislators and governor to solve the conundrum of how a state with a projected budget of $12.7 billion, an increase from $7.8 billion, and fueled (forgive the pun), by an enormous surplus from the oil and gas industry of between $3.5 billion to maybe $5 billion, falls so woefully behind in areas such as public education, health and family issues, violent crime, homelessness, and drug addiction.
There is no excuse, in our opinion, for such a lack of good governance and poor problem solving. Our governor, who should set the tone for overall improvement of the everyday lives of citizens, is more concerned with turning New Mexico into a mecca for electric vehicles and instituting her own gun control policy.
Previously, our political analyst, Dr. Jose Garcia, a former secretary of Higher Education, has outlined for our readers those issues he believes will receive the most attention. We offer them again but would add that we also expect there will be legislation to enact a tax on alcohol at 25 cents a glass.
As reported by New Mexico in Depth alcohol abuse is rampant here: “New Mexico’s record-setting rate of alcohol deaths — higher than any other state and triple the national rate.” The news service reported on one physician’s experience when it wrote, “Of a dozen settings across the country in which he’s trained or practiced, he said, none comes close to New Mexico’s level of alcohol-related disease and injury. ‘There’s no question in my mind.’”
The Rio Grande Sun heartily endorses the proposed alcohol tax.
From Dr. Garcia’s analysis:
Gun control: The Governor, who earlier announced a ban in Bernalillo County on carrying firearms in public spaces only to have her order declared unconstitutional in a federal court, has indicated she might bring up this issue during the session or in a special session. Rep. Andrea Romero, a progressive Democrat whose district includes Tesuque, Pojoaque, San Ildefonso and Nambé pueblos as well as parts of Santa Fe, will introduce a bill to limit the number of cartridges to 10 in assault guns sold in New Mexico.
This sounds like a performative gesture rather than serious policy. But it will infuriate lovers of unregulated gun ownership. It will probably go nowhere, and a special session is unlikely. This is a losing issue for progressives. We may have a gun violence crisis in New Mexico (gun deaths per capita are rising, placing New Mexico third in the country, up from seventh just five years ago), but micromanaging the number of cartridges on an assault rifle is not a robust solution. Expect Republicans to make a lot of noise about these or other second amendment issues.
Education/higher education: Early childhood education has been a top priority of the administration and this year the project to construct a system for it continues, but at a lowered pace. Higher education is expecting bills to fund colleges and universities to ramp up early childhood training programs and scholarships. In public education expect some serious pushback from rural communities against the required 180-day school year which, they say, will cost a lot more to implement in disperse communities that have moved to a four-day schedule. This may become a hot issue.
Health care: Less controversial, but commendably ambitious, the governor is asking for $2.15 Billion to fund the newly-created Health Care Authority, designed to expand access to health care in rural communities and to create a mental health system destroyed by Susana Martinez’s administration, and to administer welfare programs to reduce the impacts of poverty. If implemented efficiently this $12.4 Billion project — more than the emphasis on childhood education — could actually move the needle in measurable ways, such as increasing expected lifespans and access to quality health care for thousands of New Mexicans and, hopefully, improving the current mess in state poverty programs.