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.
Governor-elect Susana Martinez is altering how she talks about education and Medicaid, two programs she has repeatedly said would be protected from cuts, Heath Haussamen at NMPolitics.net reports.
Four local residents who contributed big to Martinez’s gubernatorial campaign were named to committees charged with identifying cabinet secretary candidates, according to the Farmington Daily-Times.
Also Martinez will make the final decision on whether the state of New Mexico proceeds with a land sale for a new “supercomplex” government office building south of Santa Fe, the New Mexican reports.
Alcohol is banned from the newly refurbished Pit and University of New Mexico’s stadium it appears, according to the Albuquerque Journal.
How chaotic is the leadership battle in the state House of Representatives at the moment? Have you got a hour or so to run through all the scenarios?
Here goes:
For the past year on the campaign trail Governor-elect Susana Martinez has hammered away at the corruption and serial scandals that have plagued New Mexico since 2005. Her response always to voters was that she’d treat corruption as what it was – a crime. And then she’d talk of creating a special State Police unit charged with investigating public corruption. Now, with two months before her first legislative session, Martinez must convince state lawmakers of the worthiness of her idea.
Governor-elect Susana Martinez and the outgoing administration Gov. Bill Richardson swapped accusatory statements Thursday over how bad New Mexico’s budget woes are.
Before it was all over Martinez was accusing the Richardson administration of playing “financial shell games”…
Much has been written recently about a challenge to Democratic House Speaker Ben Lujan and whether House Democrats, who hold a 37-33 majority over Republicans, will throw him overboard or keep him on as leader.
Less noted is…
The Attorney General’s Office violated the state procurement code in 2009 when paying out $9,300 in registration fees for a training seminar on animal cruelty laws without signing a contract first, the Associated Press is reporting.
Are the Richardson and Martinez administrations already shooting death rays at each other, and so soon after all the smiles Tuesday?
Heather Wilson, Governor-elect Susana Martinez‘s transition guru, released a letter yesterday in which she called out
Republican Governor-elect Susana Martinez said Wednesday that layoffs of state workers isn’t her first option, but she acknowledged that the possibility isn’t off the table.
“I would like not to have layoffs,” Martinez said Wednesday at an Albuquerque news conference. “People are already in furloughs in state government. We have to make sure we are providing the necessary core services and so I would never say they are off the table.
Outgoing Gov. Bill Richardson met with Governor-elect Susana Martinez yesterday at the State Capitol, the Santa Fe New Mexican reports.
The relaxed, friendly mood described by the paper offers a striking contrast to the white-hot rhetoric that defined this year’s…
Republican Gov.-elect Susana Martinez promised repeatedly during this year’s election to try to repeal a law allowing illegal immigrants to get New Mexico drivers licenses and to revoke thousands of already-issued documents. But interviews with state lawmakers this week make clear that undoing the law isn’t a sure thing when the New Mexico Legislature convenes in Santa Fe in January for one of the toughest sessions in recent memory.
Between Aug. 1 and Nov. 1, a high-risk pool set up under the nation’s new federal health care law for hard-to-insure individuals has added 133 New Mexicans to its rolls, state officials said Monday.
That’s a better rate than neighboring states like Texas and Arizona, a government fact sheet shows.
The numbers of residents enrolled in the newly created federal high-risk pool in New Mexico comes at a time when some are questioning how well the programs are working across the nation as a stopgap measure to help hard-to-insure individuals. More …
Republican Gov.-elect Susana Martinez spoke with the Las Cruces Sun-News in one of the first in-depth interviews the Dona Ana County prosecutor has given since winning the election Tuesday of last week.
Closing the state’s budget gap is her…
This week Gov. Bill Richardson spoke to The Independent’s election-night panel on KNME about the campaign between Susana Martinez and Diane Denish, and about his record.
Republican congressional leaders made noise Wednesday about targeting the nation’s new federal health care law after winning control of the U.S. House of Representatives and adding a few more Republicans to the U.S. Senate on Tuesday, the Washington Post reports.
It’s no secret that the GOP made repealing the law one of the battle cries of the 2010 midterm congressional elections, a position that helped fueled what the Post called the largest Republican sweep in nearly half a century.
But the GOP has few easy paths to repealing the health care law, the Associated Press writes in an analysis published earlier this morning. More …
Republicans appeared to pick up several seats in the state House on Tuesday, significantly narrowing the Democrats’ margin of control in the chamber, GOP lawmakers said late Tuesday night. Tuesday’s election returns caused GOP legislative leaders to wax about the coming changes they predicted after apparently picking up eight seats.
State Sen. Dianna Duran made history Tuesday, becoming the first Republican to in 80 years to win election as the New Mexico Secretary of State. Unofficial results showed Duran winning nearly 59 percent of the vote to defeat first-term incumbent Mary Herrera, who collected just over 41 percent.
Republican Susana Martinez cruised to victory Tuesday, riding a crest of voter discontent and anger over a broken economy to become New Mexico’s first female governor — and the first Hispanic woman in the country to lead a U.S. state. Unofficial results late Tuesday showed Martinez capturing nearly 54 percent of the vote, to Democrat Diane Denish’s 46 percent.
Dianna Duran is ready to claim a victory in the Secretary of State’s race.
“I am ready to say the people of New Mexico have spoken,” she told The Independent before taking the podium at the Albuquerque Hilton where Republicans…
Brian Sanderoff and NBC News have projected that Republican Susana Martinez will win the race for governor.
Sanderoff, a respected pollster who does the Albuquerque Journal poll, made the call on KOAT-TV a few minutes ago.
Meanwhile a big cheer…
We thought it was just New Mexico. But it’s also Illinois, California, Nevada.
New Mexico’s next governor faces several challenges once she takes office, but none is bigger than the state budget. But with one day to go in a negative gubernatorial election neither Republican Susana Martinez nor Democrat Diane Denish has presented exactly what can be called a comprehensive, detailed plan to address the challenge. Instead they’ve made vague promises: no raising taxes during the first year, no cuts to K-12 education or Medicaid, programs that represent more than half the state budget.
Turns out, New Mexico isn’t unique. Candidates running for governor in several states, including those mentioned above, are adopting similar strategies, according to the Associated Press. More …
