2019 legislative session

ACLU: NM has flawed data about solitary confinement

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Cover of ACLU-NM report about discrepancy in NM solitary confinement statistics. The American Civil Liberties Union New Mexico appears to have uncovered a significant statistical deficiency in New Mexico criminal justice data. In September 2018, the state Corrections Department reported 4 percent of inmates in its prisons were being held in solitary confinement — defined as spending 22 hours or more a day alone for 15 or more consecutive days. A research team working with the ACLU found that the rate was actually 9 percent. Steve Allen, policy director for the ACLU of New Mexico, chalks the disparity up to a lack of uniform policies, practices and data collection.

2019 legislative session

With days to go, ethics commission legislation stalls

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A few weeks ago, Rep. Greg Nibert, R-Roswell, mentioned the option of passing a memorial creating a task force to study an independent ethics commission through 2019. Just in case, he said. Nibert wanted to see legislation that dictates what powers such a commission would have and how it would operate. But it was clear, even weeks ago, that agreement on a subject the Legislature has debated for 13 years might be difficult despite 75 percent of New Mexicans voting to enshrine the idea in the state constitution this November. But Nibert waited before asking a legislative agency to draft the memorial.

2019 legislative session

Lobbyists weigh in on disclosure, ban on spending proposals

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House State Government, Elections and Indian Affairs committee discussing HB 131. As the House of Representatives geared up for a late night on the floor last Monday, a group of lobbyists were asked to provide dinner for legislators: green chile cheeseburgers from Lota Burger. A few days later, on Thursday, Rep. Jane Powdrell-Culbert, R-Albuquerque, thanked a group of “lobbyists, about 40” who paid for what’s now an annual tradition — a catered lunch for House members from her extended family’s restaurant, Powdrell’s barbeque. The mood on the floor was jovial. To some, the displays did not quite square with the lawmakers’ vote the previous Sunday to ban lobbyist spending on lawmakers during a legislative session.

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Immigration bill would change how law enforcement interacts with ICE

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Earlier this month, a thief stole a truck parked in the front yard of Dulce Ozuna’s home. She lives about an hour from Aztec, N.M. But rather than call the San Juan County Sheriff’s Department, she drove across the Colorado state line to report the theft in Durango. “I don’t trust the San Juan County Sheriff’s Department,” Ozuna told New Mexico In Depth through a Spanish interpreter. Her skepticism traces to when her family reported the 2016 killing of their dog by a neighbor. Nearly three years later, the killer has not been caught.

2019 legislative session

Lawmakers get another chance on methane regulations

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Thermal image of emissions that aren’t visible to the naked eye. Credit: Sharon Wilson, Certified Thermographer, Earthworks Oil and Gas Accountability Project. Reducing methane emissions from the state’s oil and gas industry was among the promises Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham made in her campaign, reiterated in her state-of-the-state speech in January and then acted on in an executive order. The order cites leaked, vented, and flared natural gas, the primary component of methane, as costing the state $244 million a year, and directs  state agencies to develop a regulatory framework for those reductions from both new and existing sources. Methane, often released from oil and gas development, ranks among the most potent greenhouse gases, with a short-term warming potential that far exceeds that of carbon dioxide.

2019 legislative session

Proposed oil regulation would increase transparency on spills, violations

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In mid-February, 300 barrels of crude oil and 1,000 barrels of the salty, chemical-laden water that comes out of the ground along with fossil fuel spilled from a pipeline in northwestern New Mexico and ran for 1.6 miles down a wash. An employee with the company that runs the pipeline called the Oil Conservation Division. The agency’s online incident report describes an effort to stop the spread with earthen dikes and berms. Then, it snowed, covering the trail. The operator used absorbent pads and booms to try to recover some of the oil and liquids, and told the division it has plans to flush the area with fresh water to move the contaminants to a single collection point. Weeks later, the records don’t show whether the cleanup of either the water or oil was successful.

Uncategorized

Senate implodes, disrupting the annual House-Senate basketball game

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Every legislative session, the basketball game between House and Senate lawmakers – a sacrosanct ritual of feel-good joviality – gives state lawmakers a chance to vent steam toward the end of each year’s arduous slog of lawmaking. Perhaps more importantly, it raises tens of thousands of dollars for the UNM Comprehensive Cancer Center.  

On Wednesday evening, no one was jovial, and tensions were high, as Capitol police interrupted the annual roundball contest to drag seven senators back to the state Senate to debate a piece of energy legislation. For the first time in as long as anyone can remember at the Roundhouse, the basketball game had become collateral damage to legislative strife. And a lot of longtime Roundhouse observers were trying to remember the last time something like this had happened.

2019 legislative session

NM lawmakers pass high dollar education legislation

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The House and Senate on Tuesday both overwhelmingly passed multimillion dollar education bills that are in large part an answer to the Yazzie Martinez funding lawsuit that found New Mexico was shortchanging at-risk students in violation of the state Constitution. The nearly identical bills, which will now have to be reconciled in a committee from both chambers, put about $337 million toward raises for teachers and other educators, extend the school year by 25 days for up to 91,000 elementary school students and more than double dollars dedicated to those at-risk students: low-income, English language learners and Native American students. “This bill is a once in a lifetime game-changer for all the students across the state. While many components of House Bill 5 address the requirements of the recent lawsuit, there are multiple dimensions that will have far reaching impact over decades to come,” House Floor Leader Sheryl Williams Stapleton, a co-sponsor of the bill, exhorted forcefully as she called for a vote. “For example, by doubling the at-risk funding factor, schools will make important decisions that will fit their students to help them be successful.”

The bill passed that chamber successfully by 53-14.

2019 legislative session

Important House committee passes ethics legislation

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A House bill creating an independent ethics commission with subpoena power passed an important House committee Wednesday, sending the measure before the full House of Representatives for a vote possibly as early as later this week.  

Members of the House Appropriations and Finance Committee approved the measure unanimously after a short discussion and lowering funding for the proposed ethics commission to half a million dollars, from $1 million. Committee chairwoman Patricia Lundstrom, a Democrat from Gallup, explained the Legislature could add money to the commission midyear when state officials learn how much a full year of its operations would cost.Lundstrom’s explanation was heartening to committee member Rep. Phelps Anderson, R-Roswell, who had expressed a desire that the commission be fully funded. Rep. Patricia Lundstrom, D-Gallup, chairwoman of the House Appropriations and Finance Committee. New Mexico state lawmakers are trying to flesh out the powers, funding and operations for the seven-member independent ethics commission after 75 percent of voters added the commission to the state constitution in November.

2019 legislative session

Life after coal: San Juan miners, economists wonder what’s next

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It’s like cruising along in a refurbished airplane, which works well enough, but isn’t shiny anymore, then looking down at a new plane and deciding to jump out to ride in that one instead. And you’ve got all the parts in your hands to make a parachute, but you’ve got to put them together on the way down. That’s how one coal miner says the planned shut down of the San Juan Generating Station and its associated mine feels right now. He was one of a trio of miners who drove the three and a half hours Thursday to tell lawmakers in Santa Fe not to forget their communities as the San Juan Generating Station is taken offline. Already, he’s transitioned his kids through a recent divorce, he told House Labor, Veterans and Military Affairs Committee members, and now he faces the end of his job sometime before the generating station shuts down in 2022 and the possibility of moving if he can’t find work.