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.
When the free-market Illinois Policy Institute looked into the range of salaries paid to state legislators across the country, it found that the states that pay their legislators the most also have the highest budget shortfalls. It used this correlation to recommend that Illinois pay its lawmakers less.
Here in New Mexico we don’t pay our state legislators anything but a small per diem; we also have one of the smallest shortfalls (according to the numbers in the report).
But what the report didn’t point out is that the 10 states that pay the highest salaries and have the biggest shortfalls are some of the wealthiest states (in terms of household income), including California, Massachusetts, Alaska and New Jersey.
The high legislative salaries pointed to in this survey also correspond with states that have lengthy legislative sessions that take up the bulk of the year, unlike New Mexico, where sessions alternate between 30-days and 60-days each year.
Stateline.org pointed out in a piece about the report that one criticism of lengthy legislative sessions is that legislators don’t have an incentive to get their work done, because they are perpetually in session.
But as a New York Times article illustrates, not being able to agree on a budget doesn’t necessarily work in favor of full-time legislators. Some New York legislators have been required this year to take out loans, borrow from family, or draw on retirement money because they haven’t gotten paid since April.
