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.
Let’s be honest: Though it’s become crystal clear in the last 24 hours that, certainly and without a doubt, the proposal to create a state ethics commission is dead in the New Mexico Legislature (picture feigned surprise), we already knew that.
We knew the proposal had no chance of passing the Senate. Majority Leader Michael Sanchez, D-Belen, and an ethics commission opponent, pretty much told reporters that, before the start of the session and a couple of times during the session. We all know he controls what gets heard on the Senate floor and what doesn’t, and he’s also an influential voting member of the Senate Rules Committee, where ethics-reform bills tend to go to die.
His statements attest to the fact that the ethics commission proposal has never, despite several years of lobbying, made it to the floor of the Senate for consideration.
That’s why, though I’ve focused on ethics reform this session, I’ve only devoted one in-depth story to the ethics commission proposal.
The proposal was dead on arrival.
An ethics commission bill passed the House this week, as it has the last two years, but it was immediately referred to the Senate Rules Committee — which is done meeting for the session. And the several ethics commission bills introduced in the Senate this year, including one sponsored by Rules Committee Chairwoman and state Sen. Linda Lopez, D-Albuquerque, have literally languished in the committee for the entire session.
One has to begin wondering if some of these bills are being introduced simply so their sponsors can say they introduced them. It’s not as if they honestly thought their bills were going to pass.
If you want the official word on the death of the ethics commission proposal in the 2009 session, you can click here.
