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.
Nearly two-thirds of respondents in a poll of users of local news websites—including The New Mexico Independent— say they are more satisfied with that site than with their local mainstream new source. The survey of 19 community news sites, conducted by…
Former Republican state legislator Ben Hall and former Democratic Doña Ana County commissioner Bill McCamley both want to clean up the powerful and scandal-plagued state Public Regulation Commission. The men, who are fighting over outgoing Commissioner Sandy Jones’s District 5 seat, both told The Independent they want to see increased PRC scrutiny of utility and insurance companies’ rate hikes, and increased accountability at the PRC’s semi-autonomous Division of Insurance. But the candidates differed on how they would achieve those goals.
Court records for cases that did not result in a conviction will remain public record, the New Mexico Supreme Court decided on Thursday. An advisory board had recommended that courts not keep records from cases in which defendants were…
An obscure branch of the federal government responsible for distributing millions of tax dollars to religious organizations is drawing criticism for poor oversight of how the money is spent. Good-government advocates warn that without rigorous transparency, the likelihood for corruption, ethics violations and unconstitutional spending of tax dollars is high.
Republican Susana Martinez out raised Democratic Lt. Gov. Diane Denish by a two-to- one margin over a two-and-a-half month period that ended last week, bringing just over $2 million to Denish’s nearly $800,000, according to a campaign finance report and Martinez campaign statement released Monday. A Denish spokesman, however, tried to douse any idea that Martinez’s fundraising prowess equated to momentum in the 2010 governor’s race.
Add another item to New Mexico state lawmakers’ to-do list: Soon they’ll have to take a course on ethics, the Santa Fe New Mexican reports today.
The course is being developed in collaboration with New Mexico State University and…
Former state elections director A.J. Salazar tells Heath Haussamen over at NMpolitics.net today that he doesn’t share his attorney’s sentiment that New Mexico Attorney General Gary King is playing election-year politics.
On Thursday, Salazar’s attorney, Rudy Martin of…
Controversy has surrounded the state’s approval of a 21.3 percent rate hike on 40,000 Blue Cross and Blue Shield of New Mexico health insurance policyholders, but the state Division of Insurance approved Presbyterian Insurance Company’s even larger, 24 percent health…
Democrat Diane Denish and Republican Susana Martinez both say if elected governor they would support sending more money to the agency, which despite its oversight role and several high-profile corruption scandals, has endured deep budget cuts in recent years. The New Mexico Livestock Board and the Gaming Control Board work with annual budgets nearly double the size of the State Auditor’s office. Even Legislative Building Services at the State Capitol, at $4 million, gets more money.
The state’s new Superintendent of Insurance, John Franchini, began work Monday — just two days ahead of a public hearing scheduled for Wednesday on the controversial Blue Cross and Blue Shield of New Mexico health…
Citizen Action New Mexico is calling for a public hearing on Kirtland Air Force Base (KAFB)’s state hazardous waste permit for open burning and detonation of old munitions, but New Mexicans must request such a hearing by Friday evening.…
The biggest winner of Thursday’s gubernatorial debate on education may have been someone not even in the room: state auditor Hector Balderas. In a rare meeting of the minds Thursday night, both Denish and Martinez said that schools need to be more financially responsible and that more and better auditing is necessary. The State Auditor’s Office is charged with an oversight role in how taxpayer money is spent, but has not always gotten the money it needs to do that. “Everybody publicly supports the concept of auditing,” Balderas said Thursday night, noting that his agency has been cut more severely than the rest of state government.
Citing a “crisis of confidence in the impartiality of the judiciary,” former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor has called for reform of election campaigns for state judges, urging more states to adopt systems similar to those in Arizona…
Citizen complaints against police are public records and subject to disclosure under New Mexico law according to a state Court of Appeals ruling, the Associated Press is reporting.
New Mexico’s second-highest court made that determination Monday.
The New Mexico…
Since December 2008 A.V. Ley has experienced two double-digit increases to the monthly health care premiums he pays Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Mexico, he says. So when the retired engineer learned Monday that New Mexico had won a $1 million federal grant to strengthen how New Mexico vets health insurers’ rate-hike requests, he cheered. New Mexico was one of 45 states to win $1 million Monday to help beef up how it reviews rate-hike requests by health insurers. U.S. Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius on a conference call with reporters Monday characterized the money as a way to “restore some basic fairness” for consumers who find themselves battling a perennial rise in the cost of health care.
New Mexico was one of 45 states to win $1 million Monday to help crack down on health insurance premium increases, U.S. Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced.
New Mexico plans to use the federal dollars…
Health insurers contributed nearly $428,000 to New Mexico elected officials from 2004 to 2008, according to campaign finance data analyzed by The Independent. The data show the companies, an industry association and political action committees spread the campaign contributions around, giving to several state office holders and nearly every state lawmaker in the Legislature. The role of health insurers in policy-making decisions is coming under additional scrutiny at a time when a battle is brewing in time for the 2011 legislative session. Lawmakers and health insurers likely will face off over the question whether policy makers should re-write state laws to strengthen how New Mexico vets health insurers’ requests to raise premium rates.
Along with e-mails supposedly from wealthy but financially inept Nigerian royalty, a leading form of financial scam targeting New Mexican consumers involves mailed counterfeit checks that arrive with instructions to cash the checks and wire proceeds to an out-of-state corporation…
Bernalillo County finally released an investigative report completed two months ago that examined nepotism and other problems at its drug and alcohol detox center, the Albuquerque Journal reported today.
The report examined a situation involving a former deputy county…
In the wake of the nation’s new health care law, millions of Americans are coming to grips with a fact few understood before now: state regulators often have little power to stop cost hikes to health care premiums, the…
