New York

Colorado lawmakers recently decided to impose an online sales tax, a move that is generating a battle in Denver and highlighting the pressure states face to find new revenues. 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.

Senators from both parties are pushing to free up billions of dollars for federal highway projects, as Congress looks to infrastructure investment to combat double-digit unemployment, according to the Wall Street Journal. Federal highway funds to states could drop by an average of $1 billion a month, or 30 percent, from year-ago levels without a [...]

Occasionally one hears about how underfunded New Mexico’s public defenders are, but it’s unclear if New Mexico’s system is as bad off as Missouri’s vastly underfunded public defenders. A new report says that state’s criminal justice system is at the “brink of collapse” because of lack of money, the Associated Press reports.

Anyone who reads my blog will know that I did not support Barack Obama in last year’s election, but that I was gracious in defeat and more restrained in my criticism than many conservative voices online. I was willing to give him his hundred days. Now he’s had them.

There are still a couple of U.S. House seats awaiting the verdict of a special election. The 20th Congressional District in New York is the most competitive of those open seats, with both Republicans and Democrats putting significant effort into the race.
And two U.S. representatives from New Mexico, Ben Ray Luján and Harry Teague, have [...]