But voters approved an amendment allowing the state to waive college tuition for some — but not all– honorably discharged combat veterans, changes in the constitution’s antiquated wording on who may vote in N.M., and an amendment providing property tax exemptions to military veterans’ organizations.

At least two of the successful amendments are controversial and may result in court challenges, according to analyses by the Legislative Council Service.

According to an analysis by the Legislative Council Service, the veterans’ scholarship amendment may “invite a potentially disruptive legal challenge” because it excludes veterans who enlisted while residents of N.M. or who have lived in the state for 10 years. The U.S. Supreme Court has prohibited similar restrictions on veterans’ benefits, as violations of the U.S. Constitution’s equal protection clause, according to the report.

And the seemingly innocuous proposed amendment to remove offensive words (“idiots” and “insane persons”) from the Constitution’s Article 7 definition of who may vote in N.M. also eliminates the current constitutional prohibition of voting by convicted felons who have not been restored their political rights by a judge, the Legislative Council Service analysis also noted.

“Despite a title that indicates the opposite, the proposed amendment eliminates” that prohibition, according to the Service analysis. “The amendment invites a potentially disruptive legal challenge because the ballot title does not accurately reflect the language and provisions contained in the body of Constitutional Amendment No. 3.”

There were five proposed constitutional amendments on the ballot:
• CA1: PASSED, (74.1% to 25.9%, according to unofficial Secretary of State returns as of 10 p.m. Tuesday), to allow colleges to waive tuition for honorably-discharged military veterans of armed conflicts since 1990 who were N.M. residents when they originally enlisted in the military, after they have exhausted their GI Bill and other federal education benefits.
• CA2: FAILED, (15.5% to 84.5%), to relax county commissioners’ term limits from eight years to 12 years.
• CA3: PASSED, (54.2% to 45.8%), to modernize language about who can vote in N.M.
• CA4: PASSED, (52.4% to 47.6%), to exempt veterans’ organizations from state property taxes
• CA5: FAILED, (18.7% to 81.3%), to allow state lawmakers to resign from the Legislature to serve in other branches of state government.

The Democrats have a comfortable majority, and they will confirm her. I said as much on my blog immediately after she was nominated. Actually, I said as much even before she was nominated. Apart from those two posts, I’ve written nothing about her.  What was the point, after all?  Her confirmation was inevitable.

Then I read what Jude at Hugh Hewitt’s blog wrote:

A friend asked me why Republicans would bother to oppose the Sotomayor nomination, since her confirmation seems assured. My feeling is that we only get to have this important conversation on the occasions of Supreme Court nominations, so we should always have it. That is, a real discussion about what the role of government is and should be, what rule of law means, and whether we should embrace a “living constitution” or if doing so endangers all our freedoms by undermining the Constitution itself.

For me, for every other conservative I know personally, and for almost every conservative whose blogs, writes editorials or books I read, or hosts the radio and TV shows I enjoy, that is precisely the issue:  what the role of government is and should be, what rule of law means, and whether we should embrace a “living constitution” or if doing so endangers all our freedoms by undermining the Constitution itself.

And yet, to hear what liberals say, you would think that the issue was keeping non-white, non-males out of positions of power — or even worse. Much, much worse, according to my fellow NMI columnist, V.B. Price, who wrote last month:

Negative stereotyping is the ugly common denominator connecting the race baiting of U.S. Supreme Court nominee Judge Sonia Sotomayor and the recent hate-crime killings around the country.

Some say the murder of a physician who performed therapeutic abortions; the killing of Stephen Tyrone Johns, an African American security officer at the National Holocaust Museum; and the random murders of two members of the congregation of a Unitarian church in Tennessee last year by a man who hates liberals, were catalyzed by the endless caterwauling of right wing hate radio and propaganda TV.

So anyone who thinks Sotomayor’s repeated statement that she would “hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would, more often than not, reach a better conclusion” than a white male judge smacks of racism, is race-baiting?   And is, by some incomprehensible leap of logic, somehow responsible for racist murders? My head spins as I try to connect the dots. Is it really those of us on the right who are hate-mongering and caterwauling?

Price continues:

Stereotyping is the same tactic white supremacists used against African American slaves, misogynists use against women, and the Nazi Party used against Jewish people. Did Hitler’s endless speeches denouncing Jews as non-human “others” catalyze the Holocaust?… Is there any doubt?

And what about trying to ruin the character of a Supreme Court nominee by accusing her of racism because she refers positively to her background and personal history?… If you attack Judge Sotomayor for being a “Latina,” accusing her of being helplessly prone to some kind of ethnic bias, couldn’t you also accuse the Supreme Court itself, with seven of its members being white males, as a sexist and racist institution on the face of it?

Of course, Hitler’s characterization of Jews as subhuman catalyzed the Holocaust.  But has any Republican characterized Judge Sotomayor in particular or Hispanics in general as subhuman?  For that matter, has any Republican attacked Sotomayor for being a Latina?

Of course they haven’t. They have merely pointed out that her statement that she would hope that a wise Latina would make better decisions than a white male smacks of racism and sexism. To imply — nay, to come right out and say — that pointing this out is attacking her as a Latina is the basest of misrepresentations. That accusation smears those of us who are concerned with protecting the integrity of the Constitution as Nazis.

Sadly, this has become a common tactic on the left. If you disagree with someone, call him or her a racist, and you win automatically. That’s exactly what some have done to me in the past.

The fact that Judge Sotomayor believes that policy is made in the courts troubles strict constructionists.  All too many on the left dismiss this legitimate concern as nothing more than thinly disguised racism. Any opposition to Sotomayor is racist by definition.  Case closed.

Never mind that we would not even be having this discussion if it weren’t for Ted Kennedy and the other Senate Democrats who turned Supreme Court nominations into political bloodsport. Before the unsuccessful nomination of Robert Bork in 1987, confirmation hearings were concerned with judicial qualifications. Leftist ideologues turned the Bork hearings into a political witch hunt that made his very name a synonym for a politicized attack.

Democrats started this game. Now some of them are calling us Nazis for playing it.

One even called me the Marie Antoinette of New Mexico.

Conservatives are routinely branded as heartless by those on the left.  We are said to be uncaring and selfish, concerned only with holding onto our own money whatever the consequences for those less fortunate.

Once when I was in grad school, a good friend and fellow student said to me in angry, almost tearful frustration after the U.S. Senate had voted down a social program she thought should have passed, “Those Senate Republicans are just evil. They want children to die!”

Even though I was a closet conservative (I wanted that doctorate, after all), this friend knew the terrible secret of my political persuasion. She knew my policy position was the same as the “evil” Senate Republicans, and yet she knew I wasn’t evil, and didn’t want children to die. We’re still friends all these years later, and she knows full well that I am not as heartless as the infamous French queen who quipped that if the peasants had no bread, then let them eat cake.

Nevertheless, as a good liberal she had been conditioned to believe that fiscal conservatism meant cruelty, and the idea that a friend whom she knew to be kind and compassionate could be opposed to a “necessary” social program created such cognitive dissonance that she simply couldn’t keep to our usual practice of not talking politics.

Conservatives believe in the founding principles of our republic. We believe that the appropriate role of the federal government is set forth clearly in the Constitution, and that most of the powers it has arrogated to itself over the last century have been unconstitutionally usurped, and then given the false cloak of legitimacy by judges who have taken it upon themselves to view the Constitution as a “living, breathing document” whose meaning can be stretched beyond recognition to cover just about anything the federal government cares to do.

Conservatives believe that most people are capable of earning a living and taking care of their own needs for food, clothing, shelter and medical care — or at least they would be if they weren’t (a) paying so much income, Social Security, property, gasoline, utility, import, sales and who knows how many other taxes to support our many layers of government bureaucracy, and (b) being told by demagogues on the left that they shouldn’t have to take care of themselves because they really aren’t capable of it at all.

Our society’s culture of entitlement is asphyxiating the spirit of enterprise that made this country great. Leftist fear-mongering has persuaded increasing numbers of Americans that they are like helpless children who need government hand-outs to survive.

If, when told the poor have no bread, a conservative points out that farm subsidies the federal government unconstitutionally doles out increase the price of that bread, leftists interpret this as, “Let them eat cake.” Indeed, any answer save, “Then give them some bread and charge it to the 1 percent who pay 39 percent of the federal income taxes (while earning 18 percent of the pre-tax income)!” gets us branded as the moral equivalent of Marie Antoinette.

The Democrats in Congress and the White House seem to think there is a bottomless pit of wealth into which they can reach to bail out failing businesses, fund desperate spending sprees in hopes of “stimulating” the economy, and tack still more federal programs onto the rickety scaffolding of the bureaucracy that has still not won the “War on Poverty” Lyndon Johnson declared more than 40 years ago. They think, to rework the Marie Antoinette metaphor a bit, that they can have their cake and let us peasants eat it, too.

There is no bottomless pit of wealth. Their socialist vision of America’s future is eroding the spirit of enterprise that is necessary to create wealth. They are gobbling up the last of the bread and the cake and there are not enough productive bakers to replenish the supply.

In the final analysis, where conservatives and leftists differ, it is because the latter are utopians and the former are not.  Conservatives do not believe government can solve all the ills of the world. The world has always, and will always, have ills to spare. Recognizing this is not tantamount to saying with brutal unconcern, “Let them eat cake.”

About the utopian dreamers who think they can fix all the ills of the world if only we relinquish to them enough of our money and our liberty, I will say, “Let them read the Constitution.”

The most contentious issue in the New Mexico Legislature session that just ended was, of course, the establishment of domestic partnerships. Opponents charged that the bill was simply a foot in the door to legalizing gay marriage and breathed a sigh of relief when the Senate voted 17-25 against the measure, a significantly larger margin of defeat than many expected.

Supporters of the legislation vowed they would be back to try again next year, and many blamed the defeat on lobbying by the New Mexico Catholic Church.

The vote took place six weeks ago, and so is old news, but the debate over the Catholic influence continues to rage and remains relevant.

I’ve read numerous letters to the editor from readers filled with outrage that the New Mexico Conference of Catholic Bishops had come out against the measure and that their opposition had swayed some Senate Democrats who had been supporters of a domestic partnership law. This, many alleged, was a violation of the separation of church and state.

Only two days ago, The Santa Fe New Mexican ran a “My View” commentary by Michael J. Sheehan, archbishop of Santa Fe, defending the church’s role in the debate:

The Church believes it has an obligation to share its rich 2,000-year tradition of social teaching with others, and the Constitution protects our right to do so. It is not a violation of the separation of church and state to do so! We do not state support for or speak against any political party or politician running for office.

Yeah, right, say angry Democrats: When you preach against abortion and gay marriage, you’re essentially supporting the Republican platform. In its self-righteous indignation, the party chooses not to make an issue of the church’s outspoken opposition to the death penalty, since in that instance the church is with the Democrats.

Whether the church is on the side of Democrats or Republicans is, however, beside the point. The issue isn’t ideology; it’s law: Is the church or is it not violating the constitutional separation of church and state?

Democrats say “yes” when they’re talking about abortion and homosexuality and keep their mouths shut when the issue is capital punishment. Republicans generally say “no” regardless of the issue, though some libertarian-leaning Republicans disagree.

Not long ago, I got into a debate with a fellow Republican who was bemoaning the damage all those religious-right types were doing to our party. He insisted that arguments based on religious beliefs had no place in political discourse, and that religious leaders interfering in the political process, as the New Mexican bishops had done, violated the separation of church and state.

I begged to differ, pointing out that the only mention of religion in the Constitution is in the First Amendment, which reads,

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…

This means only that Congress may not set up an established church of the United States the way Britain has an established Church of England, supported by tax revenues and with special privileges accruing to members of the established church. My fellow Republican replied that that isn’t all it means. So what does it mean? I pressed. He just repeated that it meant more than that but did not provide any justification for why he thought so.

I came home and double-checked the Constitution just to make sure I wasn’t crazy, but no, that indeed is all it says.

It seems pretty clear to me that a Catholic bishop expressing his opinion on a piece of legislation does not constitute the establishment of an official Church of the U.S.A., nor does it prevent any other citizen from freely exercising his right to his own religious beliefs. The fact is, Catholic bishops are entitled to express their opinions just like plumbers and architects and newspaper reporters and waiters and housewives and congressmen and prostitutes.

I only quoted the beginning of the First Amendment above. The rest of it reads:

or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Arguing that a Catholic bishop may not express his opinion on a piece of legislation is essentially depriving the bishop of his freedom of speech.

You can argue all day that he has more authority before his congregation than an ordinary citizen and that the weight of the church’s authority standing behind his pronouncements gives them some sort of coercive force over Catholic legislators and citizens, but that argument simply won’t hold water. When Archbishop Sheehan expresses his opinion against abortion or gay marriage or the death penalty, Catholics are free to agree (as I do on the first two issues and most Democrats do on the third) or disagree (as most Democrats do on the first two issues and I do on the third).

A lot of people allow their opinions to be swayed by what celebrities say — though for the life of me I’ll never understand why — so theoretically if we’re going to say Catholic bishops can’t opine, maybe we ought to say that Sean Penn and Susan Sarandon can’t either.

The fact is, Archbishop Sheehan has the same right to freedom of political speech as you and I do. His ordination did not strip him of the rights the Constitution guarantees him.

When the archbishop opines politically, he is exercising his freedom of speech; he is not establishing a taxpayer-funded church.