I am writing today to announce the closure of the New Mexico Independent. After three and a half years of operation in New Mexico, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news…
While environmental activists played their part yesterday during demonstrations at the capitol building, going so far as to dress up as solar panels and to sing the tune of “You Are My Sunshine,” their counterparts, the anti-cap-and-trade contingency who has…
Roughly one quarter of University of New Mexico students are unimpressed with the state’s flagship public school, according to a survey that questioned college students about their higher education experiences.
U.S. Rep. Raul Grijalva
Former New Mexico Attorney General Patricia Madrid may be in the running for secretary of interior, but she has some stiff competition for the post. Democratic Arizona Rep. Raul Grijalva is also cited in news reports, and he appears to have much more forest, basin and range cred for the job than Madrid.
Grijalva, 60, has it all, the Arizona Republic wrote Saturday. The son a immigrant Mexican bracero, he worked in Tucson-area politics until his election to the U.S. House in 2002, where is on the progressive end of the spectrum. He is on the House Natural Resources Committee and is chairman of the national parks, forests and public lands subcommittee — a pulpit he used in June to kill a Bush administration plan to mine uranium near Grand Canyon National Park.
Not content to be just an opponent of Bush-era policies, Grijalva in October published a 23-page report slamming the last eight years titled “The Bush Administration’s Assaults on Our National Parks, Forests and Public Lands.” The League of Conservation Voters gives him a 95 percent rating, according to the environmental blog Gristmill.
And did we mention that Grijalva is a Hispanic co-chairman of a national Obama organization? That may have had something to do with why Obama won the presidency and gave Sen. John McCain a run for his money in McCain’s home state.
Grijalva said late last week that he hasn’t heard from the transition team. If Madrid has any realistic expectation of getting the nod for Interior, she better hope that’s true.
