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.
If Gov. Bill Richardson vetoes the food tax, Sen. President Pro Tem Tim Jennings, D-Roswell says he should make up the $68 million dollar budget difference by cutting tax incentives for the film industry.
Gov. Bill Richardson is deliberating whether to veto a controversial food tax provision in legislation state lawmakers sent him last week, saying he doesn’t want to balance the budget on the backs of ordinary citizens. But one state lawmaker is questioning the depth of Richardson’s stated concerns over how the provision will affect the state’s population, describing the governor’s public protestations as a “dance.”
Gov. Bill Richardson on Wednesday reappointed David Harris and named Catherine A. Allen (of the Santa Fe Group) and Doug Brown (of UNM’s Anderson School of Management) to the State Investment Council (SIC), complying with a new law that re-organizes…
“The Richardson administration pulled out all the stops to keep Gary Bland on the SIC,” Foy’s attorney, Victor Marshall, said at a small news conference Tuesday. But four SIC members said they never felt pressure from the Richardson in the days before the former state investment officer resigned.
A bill to boost the state’s cigarette tax by 75 cents cleared an important legislative committee Tuesday afternoon, after a bit of arm-twisting and some last-minute horse trading by two Democratic lawmakers. The sheer effort to push the bill out of the House Taxation and Revenue Committee gives one a sense of how difficult the New Mexico Legislature is finding it to pass out a state budget.
A proposed state budget currently before state lawmakers would grant Gov. Bill Richardson a power the New Mexico Legislature has zealously guarded in the past: the power to cut monthly allotments to state agencies. The last time a governor tried to unilaterally fiddle with the monthly general fund allotments, the Legislature sued. And won.
Legislative leaders have struck a budget deal, and just in time. Details are few, but Gov. Bill Richardson saw it Friday and pronounced it good. Here are the general outlines of the deal. The recently struck deal involves raising $233 million in revenue. That revenue would come from increasing the state’s gross receipts, cigarette and compensating taxes. Certain foods also would be taxed for the first time in years, although it’s unclear what food items would fall under the state’s gross receipts tax. The proposed budget agreement also relies on spending decreases. State agencies are expected to shave spending. Public education, meanwhile, would be reduced by about 1 percent.
Hours after two state representatives joined GOP lawmakers to table a major budget bill, the pair changed their votes and the bill moved forward. What happened between two major votes on Feb. 17, the next to last day of the regular session, offers a glimpse into how the New Mexico Legislature operates, especially when rank-and-file lawmakers buck a coalition of power brokers.
High-powered lawmakers are in Santa Fe today trying to persuade Gov. Bill Richardson to delay the special session planned for tomorrow.
House leadership is already meeting with Richardson, said Sen. John Arthur Smith, D-Deming, and chairman of the…
The House and Senate ensured Thursday morning that New Mexico won’t go broke this year, by agreeing to sweep more than 1,500 stalled brick-and-mortar projects for money to beef up this year’s reserves.
SB 182 claws back $130 million from…
A bill to authorize $40 million for projects around the state cleared the House early Thursday morning. Lawmakers voted 37 to 31 to fund everything from a Hewlett Packard center in Rio Rancho to a technical support center at
A House committee on Tuesday removed two Belen projects from a bulging capital outlay bill (SB182), setting up a possible showdown between the House and Senate.
The capital outlay bill is meant to sweep $130 million in state money…
State lawmakers should have judged Neri Holguin on her professional qualifications, not her past political work, Gov. Bill Richardson said Tuesday, after the Senate rejected his nominee to the state Environmental Improvement Board by a vote of 17…
Gov. Bill Richardson (Photo by Heath Haussamen)
Gov. Bill Richardson came out in favor of one of two State Investment Council reform bills Tuesday, saying he prefers House Speaker Ben Lujan’s version. That comes as no real surprise; Lujan’s version keeps Richardson on the State Investment Council, while the Senate bill gives him the boot.
“The speaker has a very good bill that has more balance in representation,” Richardson said at a mid-day news conference in his fourth-floor Capitol office.
When asked if he’d veto the Senate bill if it got to his desk, Richardson said he hadn’t seen it.
Over the past three weeks, the Senate bill worked its way through that chamber with multiple hearings before Senators passed it unanimously last week. Lujan’s bill, on the other hand, materialized as if by magic Sunday while lawmakers were on the House floor. Using a floor substitute, Lujan turned a five-page bill specifying who sits on the SIC board into a 20-page piece of legislation that substantially alters how the agency is governed. The House voted 68-0 in favor.
It was all over within minutes. The altered bill didn’t go through a single House committee.
Lujan’s bill, now in the Senate, has one committee referral – Senate Finance Committee – compared to the two House committees the Senate bill received.
A single committee referral often signals an easier path to passage than multiple committee referrals.
The House’s action Sunday increased the potential for back-room maneuvering and haggling to see who gets credit for reforming an agency at the center of an ongoing scandal.
The state investment agency is at the center of a growing investment scandal with ties to New York and California. It also is the subject of a federal Securities and Exchange Commission probe and a federal criminal investigation into pay-to-play allegations.
In many ways, the amended House legislation appears to mirror the Senate’s reform bill. It would de-centralize authority at the SIC, removing power from the State Investment Officer and giving it to the State Investment Council.
But there are differences.
While the Senate version removes the governor from the State Investment Council, the governor remains on the board in Lujan’s version.
And where the Senate version requires a certain level of investment expertise among some SIC members, the House version doesn’t include that requirement, according to a quick read of the 20-page bill.
The two bills appear in agreement in several areas, however. Both the Senate and House bills:
The move to take authority away from the State Investment Officer came after revelations that former State Investment Officer Gary Bland made decisions on advisers and outside managers without informing the State Investment Council.
Bland, the former State Investment Officer, resigned in October after New Mexico’s former investment adviser pleaded guilty to securities fraud in New York. As part of the plea deal, Saul Meyer of Aldus Equity admitted to pushing certain deals to New Mexico’s two investment agencies — the SIC and Educational Retirement Board —because politically connected individuals here recommended them.
Message to New Mexico state lawmakers: Don’t take off next week if New Mexico remains without a state budget for next year.
Gov. Bill Richardson told media Tuesday he’d call state lawmakers back into special session if they don’t…
Speaker Ben Lujan, D-Santa Fe, said the House should vote Tuesday on whether to accept substantial changes to the state budget made by the Senate on Saturday. If the House agrees with the changes, that means the state budget…
Gov. Bill Richardson picked sides Monday, saying he preferred the House state budget to the one passed by the Senate Saturday.
“New Mexico taxpayers expect serious solutions to the budget impasse, rather than taxing tortillas as the Senate proposes,” Richardson…
Speaker Ben Lujan is trying to keep the House from voting on an open government bill that would override one of Gov. Bill Richardson’s 2009 vetoes, Rep. Paul Bandy, R-Aztec, charged Monday.
The Senate voted to override Richardson’s veto…
The House passed its own stab at reforming the State Investment Council (SIC) Sunday. The 68 to 0 vote occurred quickly and without much fanfare on the House floor, and follows by two days the Senate’s passage of its own more aggressive reform bill.
The House’s action now sets up a scenario where the Legislature has dueling SIC reform bills and increases the potential for back-room maneuvering and haggling to see who gets credit for reforming an agency at the center of an ongoing scandal.
New Mexico would tax food for the first time in years, add $1 to the state cigarette tax and net taxes from out-of-state owners of business partnerships on income earned here.
Meanwhile, state agencies would get fewer dollars and several hundred jobs would disappear from state government. That mixture of spending cuts and tax hikes was part of a $5.276 billion state budget proposal that the Senate passed 25 to 17 early Sunday morning to help close a projected shortfall of several hundred million dollars next year.
