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.
President-elect Barack Obama is asking all U.S. attorneys to stay in their positions for the time being. That seems to take the edge off the question — for now at least — of who will replace Greg Fouratt, the…
Steven Chu, who will oversee the labs at Los Alamos and Sandia as energy secretary, got his first taste of Washington Tuesday.
And by all reports it was a friendly affair.
Chu appeared Tuesday before Sen. Jeff Bingaman‘s committee,…
Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s name may be synonymous with corruption for some people these days. After all, U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald has accused Blagojevich of trying to sell the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by President-elect Barack Obama to the…
Gov. Bill Richardson, the first casualty of President-elect Barack Obama’s transition, walked a familiar path Monday when he gave New Mexico media little notice for a hastily called press conference. But instead of a revelation, or even a bit of news, the reporters gathered had expected, they were served up a heap of warmed-over, day-old news. To an outsider Richardson’s performance might seem strange. But for media who have reported on the investigation, it came as no surprise.
The Obama and Richardson camps are upping the ante in the blame game over the federal investigation that deep-sixed the New Mexico governor’s Cabinet nomination, the Washington Post reports.
One aide to Bill Richardson goes so far as to tell…
Gov. Bill Richardson’s withdrawal as U.S. commerce secretary-designate is more than a one-day story. It’s a game changer for New Mexico politics. To better flesh out the immediate impact, NMI talked with both a prominent local pollster and a University of New Mexico political scientist.
Gov. Bill Richardson is withdrawing his name for consideration as U.S. Commerce Secretary, citing a federal investigation into a California company being investigated by the FBI. A call by the Independent to the governor’s spokesman was not immediately returned.
The maiden Bernalillo-Santa Fe trip on the Rail Runner Express was an opportunity for Gov. Bill Richardson to crow about what he sees as one of his most prominent accomplishments–sometimes to the point of exaggeration.
Lt. Gov. Diane Denish and Gov. Bill Richardson have been trying to find time for a one-on-one meeting, but it’s been difficult.
“He’s out of town this week,” Denish said of Richardson on Wednesday. “I have a meeting scheduled…
Lt. Gov. Diane Denish, center, looks on as Brenda Brooks speaks. Dan Lopez stands to the right.
ALBUQUERQUE — Lt. Gov. Diane Denish said she is open to the possibility of merging state agencies once she takes over as governor.
Denish conditioned such action on it being among the recommendations she receives from a team of advisers she has empaneled to help her transition into the role of the state’s chief executive.
“I think one of the hallmarks of what we have done in our administration, specifically that I’ve done, is have a model of collaboration between agencies. But we can always do better,” Denish said when asked about the possibility of merging state agencies once she takes over. “If there’s ever a time to think of efficiencies, and smoothness, and operating collaboratively, now is the time.”
Denish’s remarks came at a news conference in downtown Albuquerque, where she named a team of advisers to help advise her as she prepares to take over as the state’s chief executive. On Monday, economists projected New Mexico will have a $450 million shortfall for the year that ends June 30 and a sizable shortfall for the following year.
“My experience with transitions is that there are some innovative ideas that come out of them and that our opportunity …we will see if we can find those innovative ideas and take advantage of them,” Denish said.
Gov. Bill Richardson, who has been appointed U.S. commerce secretary by President-elect Barack Obama, doesn’t expect to resign as governor until middle to late February when the U.S. Senate is expected to vote on his nomination.
Denish said she wanted the creation of the advisory team to send a message to New Mexicans that she is ready to take over.
“I want them to feel very comfortable that in my job as lieutenant governor I am ready to step in and take charge when the time comes,” she said after the news conference.
“The No. 1 priority is to help us have a smooth transition …so that New Mexicans know that our No. 1 to make sure there is no interruption in the work that has to go on,” she said.
She said the advisers will be broken up into teams that will focus on seven key areas: government efficiency and finance; economic stability; transportation and infrastructure; education and workforce; healthy families and communities; energy and environment; and safety and security.
Each team of advisers will solicit the public, state officials and experts in each field for ways to “achieve greater efficiency in state government” and “ways in which agencies can better integrate.” The teams also will “rank priority issues, recommend what can be accomplished in the next two years, and in the next five years,” Denish said.
“I think it is very indicative of who she is as a leader that one of the first things she seeks to do is to get the opinions of the citizens from across this great state of New Mexico, “ said Brenda Brooks, one of two co-chairs of Denish’s advisory team.
The other co-chairman, Dan Lopez, said he had participated in other transitions. “It is really some hard work. It can be useful work if we approach it correctly.”
Lopez is the president of New Mexico Tech and a former cabinet secretary at two state agencies.
Brooks said each team leader will deliver a five- to seven-page report to Denish by Jan. 15, five days before the 2009 legislative session opens.
Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich has been arrested by federal authorities for corruption. Among the charge federal prosecutors are accusing Blogojevich of is trying to benefit financially from having the power to fill the Senate seat of President-elect Barack Obama.…
A just-published article in Foreign Affairs by Defense Secretary Robert Gates provides a snapshot of an emerging irregular-warfare-heavy Pentagon — and interagency process — in the Obama administration.
Gov. Bill Richardson and his successor, Lt. Gov. Diane Denish, want New Mexico to know this: There will be a smooth transition. That phrase was uttered so often at a joint press conference Thursday featuring Richardson and Denish a day after Richardson was appointed as Commerce Secretary by President-elect Barack Obama that it began to resemble a mantra.
OK, it’s fair to say that Gov. Bill Richardson is officially tiring of questions about the whereabouts of his much-commented-on beard.
Asked Thursday if he’d gotten clearance from wife Barbara to re-grow his beard after President-elect Barack Obama
Gov. Bill Richardson admitted early on during Thursday’s press conference that he hopes his chief of staff, Brian Condit, will join him on his Washington, D.C., staff at the U.S. Commerce Department.
But it’s not entirely up to the guv…
Gov. Bill Richardson said Tuesday that he’ll be around as governor of New Mexico possibly through the end of February.
That means he’ll likely remain as governor through the first half, if not longer, of the 2009 60-day legislative session.…
The federal agency that Gov. Bill Richardson will take over as U.S. Commerce Secretary is a gargantuan “bureaucratic fiefdom” that includes agencies as diverse as the U.S. Census to the National Weather Service and the Patent and Trademark Office.
But…
Did you know Gov. Bill Richardson grew his beard “as a rebellion against those consultants who told me I had to comb my hair, shave, lose weight.”
Or that the guv believes New Mexicans have the best imaginations in the…
Gov. Bill Richardson demonstrated one of his many skills Wednesday during a short speech after President-elect Barack Obama had nominated him as U.S. Commerce Secretary: that of bilingualism.
Richardson is perfectly bilingual in English and in Spanish, which likely will…
It may have been the only sour note in Wednesday’s press conference announcing Gov. Bill Richardson as President-elect Barack Obama’s U.S. commerce secretary nominee.
Does Richardson’s nomination as commerce secretary amount to a “consolation prize” for the nation’s Latinos and…
