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.
Erin Armstrong, the young woman who lobbied state lawmakers tirelessly for New Mexico’s medical marijuana law (which bears her name), today told Steve Terrell of the Santa Fe New Mexican that Susana Martinez’s desire to repeal the law represents an “allegiance to bad policy” and a fundamental “disrespect for the political process.”
Armstrong’s reaction followed the announcement by the Drug Policy Alliance that it would run its ad “Don’t Take Away our Medicine” during the World Series and on Oprah.
But if Martinez tries to repeal the law, and the program associated with it, will prove especially difficult, as the Independent noted in late August.
There are two routes to repeal a law: the Legislature; and a voter referendum. And neither one is easy.
Collecting enough votes among state lawmakers to overturn the law is a long shot. The New Mexico State Senate approved the 2007 bill by a vote of 32- 3. And there appears to have been no dramatic change of heart in the Legislature to lead anyone to believe a repeal effort could win passage, lawmakers told The Independent.
An even rockier path for overturning a state law than the legislative route is through a voter referendum. But the last time New Mexico voters successfully repealed a law using a referendum was in the 1930s, according to the Legislative Council Service. Referendums in the 1950s and 1960s failed.
But talk of a voter referendum is moot. Opponents missed the narrow window allowed by the state constitution. In order to repeal the law by referendum, petitions should have been filed prior to the general election immediately following the legislative session during which the law passed; in other words, in 2008.
If elected governor, Martinez could appoint a secretary of health hostile to the program, officials told The Independent in August. Governors control executive branch agencies, so the state’s chief executive could direct an agency to make regulations so strict that they effectively stop a program’s day-to-day operations. The Martinez campaign didn’t answer The Independent’s questions in August about whether she might choose such an option if elected governor.
Given the obstacles to repealing the law, it’s unclear if Martinez really intends to work toward this goal or whether it’s simply an election-season promise that will gradually fade from memory if she wins next Tuesday.
