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.
Reading this year’s legislative scorecard put out by the Albuquerque-based Association of Commerce and Industry, you would think Doña Ana County’s legislative delegation is pretty unfriendly to business.
“Don’t buy it,” the Las Cruces Sun-News’ Walt Rubel writes in a recent commentary.
ACI is one of a number of groups that put out such rankings following legislative sessions. Rubel writes that, while the scorecards “may have some value to the members of those organizations in letting them know who is supportive of their pet projects, they are of little value to voters.”
Why? Such scorecards “invariably favor one party over the other based on the special interest they are representing,” Rubel writes. In the ACI report, for example, the top rankings all went to Republicans, while the bottom spots were all held by Democrats.
But that isn’t the biggest problem, Rubel writes:
The greatest failing of all these scorecards is that they are incredibly shallow. They provide a snapshot of the legislative session, and not the panoramic view needed to truly and fairly evaluate your senator or representative.
There were 896 bills introduced in the House and 693 in the Senate this past session. That doesn’t count memorials and resolutions. The ACI rankings are based entirely on 23 House bills and 17 Senate bills.
I’ve highlighted some aspects of this before in writing about Conservation Voters New Mexico’s 2007 legislative scorecard. The bottom line: Such scorecards are designed to help push an organization’s agenda, not give voters unbiased information to help them make decisions.
