It’s an issue that sounds innocuous but which has had many county clerks fighting mad since 2007. The resolution is found in this paragraph of HB 198: “The secretary of state may pay from the voting system revolving fund the costs of all hardware, software, firmware, maintenance and support for voting systems, whether state- or county-owned, certified for use in state elections.”

The key phrase is “whether state – or county-owned” and is on page five of the 23-page bill, which passed during this year’s 30-day legislative session.

Deciding who pays for upkeep has been a long time coming.

The Secretary of State and counties across New Mexico have jousted over ownership because of the potential cost of maintaining the 1,900 voting tabulators and other pieces of equipment a Nebraska-based company sold to New Mexico in 2006.

After selling the equipment for roughly $18 million in 2006, the company, ES&S, turned around in 2007 and charged counties more than $1 million to maintain the machines. The state and counties have negotiated with ES&S ever since while at the same time bickering among themselves about who owned the machines – each county or the state.

Ownership meant footing the bill for maintenance costs. And many counties refused to sign an agreement with the company that they said was way too expensive.

The money involved wasn’t chump change. At one point Bernalillo County, the state’s largest county, would have had to pay $287,000 a year for maintenance. The bill for Doña Ana County — home to Las Cruces, the state’s second largest county — would have cost $79,000 a year, slightly higher than Santa Fe County’s price of $69,000.

The closest the state came to resolving the issue was in 2008, when the governor, vetoed a bill that set aside roughly $1.3 million a year in costs to maintain the machines. Richardson said in his veto message at the time that the requirement for the state to assume maintenance costs was left unfunded by the Legislature.

Later, a spokesman for the governor said Secretary of State Mary Herrera had recommended the veto.

This year’s maintenance costs are covered, mostly by the federal Elections Assistance Commission, which is giving the state more than $600,000 in grant money to pay for upkeep. But in the future the state – and not the counties – will figure out how, and where to get the money, to pay for maintenance.

New Mexico won a federal grant from the U.S. Elections Assistance Commission to pay the maintenance bill after Bernalillo County contributed $33,000, Bernalillo County Clerk Maggie Toulouse Oliver told The Independent.

“Bernalillo county put up $33,000 for all the counties in New Mexico and the EAC was going to put up the rest of the money,” Toulouse Oliver said.

Paying for upkeep of New Mexico’s voting equipment sounds like a yawner of an issue, but it’s become a hot-button issue for state and local elections officials in recent years.

That’s because of the potential cost of maintaining the 1,900 voting tabulators and other pieces of equipment a Nebraska-based company sold to New Mexico in 2006.

After selling the equipment for roughly $18 million in 2006, the company, ES&S, turned around in 2007 and charged counties more than $1 million to maintain the machines. The state and counties have negotiated with ES&S ever since in an attempt to reduce the bill.

At one point ES&S wanted Bernalillo County, the state’s largest county, to fork over $287,000 a year for maintenance. The bill for Doña Ana County — home to Las Cruces, the state’s second largest county — was around $79,000 a year, slightly higher than Santa Fe County’s price of $69,000.

The federal grant required a 5 percent contribution from New Mexico to unlock the more than $600,000, which came in the form of Bernalillo County’s $33,000, Toulouse Oliver said.

“It’s not a permanent solution,” she added.

But the federal money comes just in time as New Mexico heads into the 2010 election cycle, with the June primary election followed by the November general election.

The New Mexico Secretary of State’s office could not be reached for comment Friday afternoon.

Many people show no loyalty to online news sites and would go elsewhere for what’s going on in the world if the sites started charging according to a new survey by the Project for Excellence in Journalism, reports the Associated Press. That finding comes as some big news sites, most notably the New York Times, have announced they will start charging for some content off their Web sites.

The brutal murder of a worker at the American consulate and her husband in Ciudad Juarez over the weekend has the White House off-the-charts angry and promising to send resources to find the killers, reports the New York Times. The husband of another consulate employee was killed, and his two children wounded, around the same time, the paper reports. The murderers in both instances are believed to have links to drug traffickers, the paper reported.

Jennings’ suggestion is a loaded one, with plenty of history. Richardson has resisted repeated legislative efforts in recent years to stop or reduce the film tax incentive program. A recent study by the state’s Taxation and Revenue Department shows the Business Incentive Tax Program alone is expected to cost the state nearly $300 million in unrealized revenue from 2003 to 2009, and the film tax incentives is one of the biggest incentives in that program.

More than $111 million of that $300 million was projected to come in 2009 alone. And the bulk of the tax credits — $105 million of the $300 million in unrealized revenue – went to film production companies, the report showed.

Richardson has argued that the incentives produce local jobs, enticing companies to shoot films in the Land of Enchantment. They also have increased New Mexico’s profile among filmmakers and those in the film industry, he has said. The governor isn’t shy about pointing out the number of big-time awards some of New Mexico’s productions have managed to grab in recent years, either. Case in point: Jeff Bridges’ Oscar win for “Crazy Heart,” which was filmed in New Mexico.

For Jennings, it’s a question of who benefits.

“These are benefits that go to people from out of state,” Jennings said.

The food tax provision effectively reapplies local and county gross receipts taxes on food, which average about 2 percent across the state, while clawing back more than $65 million in annual state payments to local governments. Those payments are made to compensate for the annual loss of revenue caused by the repeal of the food tax in 2005.

The provision is one of several components to a budget package state lawmakers passed last week to close next year’s projected shortfall of several hundred million dollars.

Opponents of the food tax have said that it will affect low-income and middle class New Mexicans and advocated a surtax on New Mexico’s wealthiest residents.

The food tax provision also will have a noticeable impact on some of the state’s largest municipalities.

Albuquerque could lose approximately $1.6 million in the budget year that starts July 1 and $3.2 million in the following year. Santa Fe, on the other hand, might gain some revenue next year because of the food tax provision, but lose up to $500,000 in the following year.

The likely loss of revenue caused by the food tax provision  is due in part to the difference between the local gross receipts tax rate in Albuquerque now and the rate when the state computed how much compensating revenue to send to the city after the state tax was repealed on food.

Those and other municipalities may choose to raise taxes or cut spending to balance their budgets, state officials have said.

Ginsburg joins former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor in saying that judges shouldn’t be elected. Issues related to candidates running for state judicial posts have gone before the U.S. Supreme Court, and Ginsburg has found herself in the minority. New Mexico is one of several states that elects its judges.

A civil rights pioneer died alone and forgotten in Columbia, S.C., giving her neighbors and the city, which is the capital of South Carolina, pause. The woman, Juanita Goggins, was a civil rights trailblazer, becoming the first African American woman elected to the South Carolina legislature in 1974, the New York Times reports.

Republican Gov. Bob McDonnell of Virginia is saying that gay state workers would be included under nondiscrimination laws, the Christian Science Monitor reports. The paper used this headline: Republican governor as gay rights defender: a sign of the times?

Glenn Beck last week called on Christians to leave their churches if they pushed social or economic justice, which he said amounted to code words for Communism and Nazism. This week several prominent Christian bloggers are taking Beck on, reports the New York Times. As one example, the Rev. Jim Wallis, longtime leader of the Washington-based liberal Christian antipoverty group Sojourners, told Christians to leave Glenn Beck, the paper writes.

Finally, The New York Times Magazine has named a successor to William Safire. Linguist and lexicographer Ben Zimmer will become the new “On Language” columnist, according to BusinessWire. Safire founded the column in 1979 and wrote its columns until his death last fall.

The inquiry in New York has multiple New Mexico ties, with last fall’s guilty plea by New Mexico’s former investment adviser, Saul Meyer of Aldus Equity, perhaps the biggest.

Meyer pleaded guilty to securities fraud last and admitted that on numerous occasions, contrary to his fiduciary duty to the state, his company had “recommended proposed investments that were pushed on him by politically-connected individuals in New Mexico.” Meyer went on to say in that statement he knew “that these politically-connected individuals or their associates stood to benefit financially or politically from the investments and that the investments were not necessarily in the best economic interest of New Mexico.”

Meyer’s admission and guilty plea was one of the factors that led members of the New Mexico State Investment Council to pressure New Mexico’s former State Investment Officer Gary Bland to resign. Bland resigned days after Meyer’s guilty plea.

But back to Loglisici. His role in the whole investment scandal is “a colorful one,” as the New York Times notes in its story today.

One of his brothers made a low-budget movie called “Chooch,” which the Albuquerque Journal’s Tom Cole wrote about almost a year ago.  The movie featured, among other things, a nine-pound dachshund named Kiwi Limone. Several prominent investors seeking pension fund business (in New York) put money into the movie-making effort.

It’s unclear how, if at all, Loglisci might have been involved with New Mexico’s investment agencies.

But in pleading guilty Wednesday Loglisci said that he helped steer pension money to political contributors to former State Comptroller Alan G. Hevesi and to companies that paid kickbacks to Mr. Hevesi’s top political consultant, Hank Morris, according to the Times.

Moreover, revised numbers for last year show that fewer people were employed in California than was previously believed. So I guess the lesson here iscount your blessings. You don’t live near Hollywood Boulevard and the Walk of Fame (LA) or Coit Tower (San Francisco). But you live in a state where things are tough, not apocalyptic.

On the other side of the country, Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal has sued two of the nation’s most prominent credit rating agencies Wednesday. Blumenthal alleges the two firms misled investors about the soundness of certain types of investments and unfairly reaped hundreds of millions of dollars in revenues, the Hartford Courant reports. Here’s the money quote from Blumenthal, who is seeking to replace Chris Dodd in the U.S. Senate:

“These credit rating agencies gave the best ratings money could buy, catering to their powerful investment bank clients, rather than objectively rating risky bonds,” Blumenthal said in a statement. “Moody’s and S&P violated public trust, resulting in many investors purchasing securities that contained far more risk than anticipated and that have ultimately proven to be nearly worthless.”

Blumenthal is known for such lawsuits. New Mexico lost its share of taxpayer money due to the recent Wall Street meltdown. We’ll see how many states follow Connecticut’s aggressive move.

O.K., when you hear the phrase ‘water war’ you don’t automatically think of the Southeastern U.S. You think American West and the decades-long, multi-state tiff over the Colorado River and other waterways, right? But Georgia state lawmakers are close to passing a bill that highlights a two-decade long water-rights battle between that state, Florida and  Alabama, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports.

The bill, among other things, would curtail outdoor watering and require builders and apartment building owners to more efficiently manage water, according to the paper. Underlying the legislation is ongoing tension among the three states and who has the rights to the Chattahoochee River, which feeds a federal reservoir that metro Atlanta relies on. The paper explains:

Senior U.S. District Judge Paul Magnuson ruled last summer that Georgia has little legal right to Lake Lanier, the main drinking source for metro Atlanta. Georgia, Alabama and Florida have been embroiled in a two-decade-long spat over the sharing of the Chattahoochee River, which feeds Lanier.

Magnuson has given the states until mid-2012 ­­ — when the legislation would kick into gear — to resolve their dispute. Failing that, the judge could restrict Georgia’s access to Lanier, a federal reservoir.

This is a big, big deal in that part of the country, seeing as how metro Atlanta has grown from a sleepy Southern urban center in the 1960s of 1 million or so people, to a cosmopolitan behemoth of more than 5 million people these days. As some wise person said somewhere, water is the new gold.

In the world of science, two research teams have independently decoded the entire genome of patients to find the exact genetic cause of their diseases. The approach may offer a new start in the so far disappointing effort to identify the genetic roots of major killers like heart disease, diabetes and Alzheimer’s, reports the New York Times.

The feat heralds a new approach apparently. Geneticists had hoped to identify common diseases through a particular approach that assumed those diseases were caused by common genetic mutations. The new studies suggest common diseases, surprisingly, are caused by rare, not common, mutations, the paper goes on to report.

Geneticists said the new research showed it was now possible to sequence the entire genome of a patient at reasonable cost and with sufficient accuracy to be of practical use to medical researchers. One subject’s genome cost just $50,000 to decode. And some say the cost of sequencing an entire genome could drop to around $5,000.

Are we standing on the precipice of a brave, new world?

The new law requires multiple reforms at the SIC, including changing the makeup of the council, and was signed into law last week by Richardson. The law mandating changes at the SIC follows the agency’s emergence as a hotbed of questionable practices that led to a federal criminal probe and a federal securities inquiry.

“Catherine Allen and Doug Brown bring valuable financial and investment experience and a fresh perspective to the new State Investment Council,” Richardson said in the statement.

Brown is no stranger to Richardson. The governor appointed Brown in late 2005 to serve out the term of former state Treasurer Robert Vigil, who eventually went to federal prison on an attempted extortion conviction.

In his statement the governor went on to thank the former SIC board members whom the governor appointed but who were removed when the new law took effect last week.

“I want to thank Andrew Davis, Stephen L. Feinberg and Peter B. Frank, who served the state of New Mexico during challenging times,” Richardson said in his statement. “These men played an important role in helping us to reshape the council and provide more accountability to the state’s investment process.”

Under the new law, the State Investment Officer — the agency’s top staff member — is no longer on the SIC board and the board expands from nine to 11 members.

The removal of the State Investment Officer from the board comes after allegations that Gary Bland, the former State Investment Officer, resigned last October after several SIC members pushed for a no-confidence vote. Later, State Land Commissioner Patrick Lyons told the Associated Press that an internal inquiry had uncovered evidence that Bland had “pressured investment firms doing business with the state to hire certain third-party marketing or placement agents.”

Five of the SIC’s members under the new law serve on the board due to the offices they hold. Those include Lyons and State Treasurer James Lewis.

The remaining six SIC members are appointed by the governor and legislative leaders.

Richardson gets two appointments, which went to Allen and Brown. Legislative leaders get the remaining four appointments. They haven’t been announced yet.

The New Mexico Legislature considered a bill to tax online sales during the 30-day regular session, but the bill never got out of the first committee assigned to study it.

Rep. Eleanor Chavez, D-Albuquerque, who sponsored that legislation, said she’s planning on introducing a similar bill in 2011 if she’s re-elected.

“We have to look at every possible scenario,” Chavez told The Independent. As an example of states’ growing interest in taxing online sales, Chavez said Nevada officials contacted her during the 30-day regular session to ask her why the bill had died so quickly.

“I think people had a hard time because it died rapidly” in House Business and Industry Committee, Chavez said of her fellow state lawmakers. “They wanted to know how we were going to enforce it. They really couldn’t understand it and they thought maybe it wouldn’t be worth our while if we couldn’t enforce it.”

The prognosis for Colorado’s new law, signed by Gov. Bill Ritter on Feb. 24, is unclear, the Denver Post reports.

Amazon.com announced this week that it would no longer do business with thousands of blogs and niche websites in that state that send business its way. The Colorado measure requires online retailers to send notices to Colorado buyers that they owe state tax on their purchases, and it would fine the retailers $5 per unsent invoice if they don’t do it.

Amazon’s announcement has split Colorado lawmakers and others, with Democrats saying the state should not back down from trying to collect money it’s owed and Republicans arguing the new law should be repealed, according to the Denver Post.

Whatever happens, both sides agree the fight with Amazon could have national implications, the Post notes.

Colorado’s approach in attempting to collect sales tax from online retailers who don’t have a physical presence in the state is unique from any other state that has tried to collect the same tax.

That’s because the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1992 that firms without a physical presence in a state, such a mail-order businesses, weren’t required to collect sales tax on purchases. That has meant that states can tax online purchases from businesses with a physical presence, say like Wal-Mart. But online retailers that do not have a so-called “nexus” have used that ruling in the past to fight off the imposition of sales tax on their business.

The battle over online sales, however, has heated up after New York State imposed collection of sales tax on online sales from companies like Amazon.com in 2008, using a different collection mechanism than Colorado. Now more and more states have begun looking at taxing online purchases as potential new revenue as their budgetary problems have grown.