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.
New Mexico Secretary of State Mary Herrera just announced that by Thursday the department had registered more than 500 lobbyists and 600 lobbyist organizations for the 2009 Legislative session.
And it expects that more than 1,000 lobbyists will be registered by the conclusion of the session.
Let’s see. If there are 112 lawmakers and 1,000 lobbyists, that works out to roughly nine lobbyists for every lawmaker, which seems about right if you walk the halls of the Capitol on a busy session day.
To be fair, the state requires people you wouldn’t necessarily suspect to be lobbyists to register as lobbyists. The registration fee is $25 for each company or organization that employs them.
Still, that’s a lot of lobbyists. It gives you an inkling of the kind of pressure lawmakers are under when they decide on legislation.
“I encourage all lobbyists to study the Lobbyist Regulation Act in the Election Code Handbook,” Herrera said in her news release. ” The handbook is a compilation of election, voter, candidate, and lobbyists laws and provides a wealth of information for lobbyists and lobbyist organizations.”
You can check out who the lobbyists are by going to the secretary of state’s Web site.
