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.
Proposals to expand legislative webcasting and create a state ethics commission died in the Senate today when the session ended without Senate Majority Leader Michael Sanchez, D-Belen, calling them up for debate.
The Senate Rules Committee gave a do-pass recommendation Thursday evening to a proposal to create a state ethics commission, but the bill must make it through two more committees before it could be considered on the Senate floor. The session ends next Thursday.
With the proposal to create a state ethics commission under consideration in the Senate Rules Committee, activists lobbying for the bill say they’d like to see a better balance between confidentiality and the public’s right to know than would be created by some of the bills under consideration.
If the state establishes an ethics commission, how many members should it have? Who appoints them? And how much of the commission’s work should be made public? Legislators are grappling with those decisions as three bills are combined into one.
House Minority Whip Keith Gardner says a bill intended to shine sunlight on ethics abuses may do just the opposite. House bill 43 would create and fund a state wide ethics commission to hear accusations against state officials and…
Attorney General Gary King plans to push a number of ethics-reform proposals during the 30-day session of the state Legislature that begins in January. At the top of his list is the creation of an independent ethics commission.
LAS CRUCES — Lawmakers who are crafting legislation that would create an independent state ethics commission decided Wednesday evening to propose that such a body have 11 members with subpoena power. Other key questions—the most significant being what degree of disciplinary authority such a commission would have—remain unresolved.
At a forum in Santa Fe on Wednesday night, several candidates for Lt. Governor criticized the chair of the Senate Rules Committee for failing to pass a bill that would have established an independent ethics committee, reports…
Let’s be honest: Though it’s become crystal clear in the last day that, certainly and without a doubt, the proposal to create a state ethics commission is dead in the New Mexico Legislature (picture feigned surprise), we already knew that.
As part of our ongoing coverage of ethics reform, NMI was webcasting today from the Senate Rules Committee, where several ethics and elections-related bills were still waiting. Today, the Committee voted 3-2 to table a proposal to ban all campaign contributions from contractors that do business with the state.
NMI was webcasting live from the Senate Rules Committee again today as part of our ongoing coverage of ethics reform. Many ethics reform bills have been introduced so far this session, and several are still waiting in Rules. Unfortunately, no ethics bills were discussed today, but several important elections bills were heard. Read the transcript for details.
Sen. Dede Feldman says a vote on a bill that would require disclosure of gifts from pharmaceutical companies to doctors will be a test of the Senate’s receptiveness to some reform bills that would increase transparency.
Can a state ethics commission be truly independent if it has to ask the attorney general for help when it wants to conduct an investigation? That’s the question public officials and activists are grappling with as they try to gain approval for the creation of such a commission from a Legislature that is skeptical of the proposal.
In all the hoopla leading up to the inauguration, we failed to point NMI readers to an interesting Wall Street Journal article about New Mexico’s “unusual — and lightly regulated — political culture.”
Before describing the current pay-to-play federal…
