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.
Gov. Susana Martinez is currently deciding whether to sign a bill to ban a practice in New Mexico schools that many assume is a thing of the past — corporal punishment. New Mexico is one of 20 states that allow corporal, or physical, punishment in public schools.
A law that would require DNA to be taken from all individuals arrested for felonies, one of Gov. Susana Martinez’s legislative priorities, has wide bipartisan support and will likely land on the governor’s desk for her signature. But after the bill is passed it will face court challenges from civil liberties groups that say the law with the tenet of being innocent until proven guilty.
Gov. Susana Martinez announced today that she is seeking an expansion to Katie’s Law to require DNA samples to be taken from all felony arrests in the state. At a Monday press conference, Martinez announced that she’ll be moving the state DNA lab from Santa Fe back to Albuquerque.
Republican Susana Martinez has said she would work to repeal New Mexico’s medical marijuana program if she’s elected governor. But undoing the state’s three-year-old medical marijuana law would represent a major undertaking. There are only two routes — through the Legislature or voter referendum — and neither would be easy.
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.
Some state lawmakers want to add a cent to the state’s gross receipts tax to beef up public school funding statewide. The tax increase, which was proposed Wednesday during a legislative hearing at the state Capitol, would generate $500 million a year.
