Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
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SANTA FE — A complex proposal to overhaul New Mexico’s chronically underfunded pension system for public employees won endorsement Tuesday from Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham and a host of Democratic legislative leaders. The proposal — set for a legislative hearing today — builds on the work of a task force established by the governor earlier this year, but with some changes. The legislation would establish a “profit sharing” model for the annual cost-of-living adjustments that most retirees now receive. Rather than an automati...
Clovis dairy farmer Art Schaap still can't sell the milk or meat from his cows. It's been more than a year since the animals tested positive for toxic chemicals that leaked into the dairy's water wells from nearby Cannon Air Force Base. But Schaap's situation might change soon, thanks to a new $4.8 million Environmental Protection Agency fund to research cleanup of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in the nation's agriculture sector. EPA Region 6 administrator Ken...
ALBUQUERQUE - It is no secret that when it comes to lists about education, New Mexico is usually ranked near the bottom. But a recent report by move.org shows there is at least one list where the state fares fairly well. New Mexico is the second-least expensive state for college tuition in the United States, with an average in-state tuition of just $7,154 a year and an average out-of-state tuition of $10,695. And, as many college administrators in the state pointed out,...
ALBUQUERQUE — The New Mexico attorney general and the Environment Department have filed a motion asking that the U.S. Air Force be required to quickly clean up contamination from toxic firefighting foam that leaked into the ground on and near Holloman and Cannon Air Force bases. The preliminary injunction, filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court, asks the court to compel the Air Force to outline the contamination plume and test groundwater and drinking water. Another demand is that the Air Force provide alternative water s...
Most rational people could quickly stipulate Alex Jones is a conspiracy nut, Milo Yianopolous is a provocateur who solicited neo-Nazi and white supremacist figures for feedback and story ideas and Louis Farrakhan has a history of anti-Semitism as a minister who heads the religious group Nation of Islam. And rational people could also quickly agree banning them on social media sites really doesn’t damage public discourse one bit. As private entities, Facebook and Twitter can make the case they have the right to decide who c...
Any parent whose child competes at anything knows the feeling: the stomach-clenching anxiety, the blood-boiling righteous indignation when you feel your kid was robbed — likely outstripping the level of emotion of the actual competitor. They might clench a fist, say a prayer, mutter an expletive (hopefully under their breath). But there’s a line. At least, there oughtta be. And some New Mexico cheer and dance students, parents and coaches have clearly crossed it. According to an April 14 Albuquerque Journal article, the New M...
An informed observer could have spotted this showdown a mile away. Democrats took the New Mexico House of Representatives and the Governor’s Office, bolstering the majority they already had in the state Senate. As one mass shooting after another dominated the news, Democrats rolled out gun control measures, ultimately passing a measure that requires background checks for nearly all gun buys. In response, at least 26 New Mexico counties passed “Second Amendment sanctuary” ordinances. A number of sheriffs declared they flat-out...
It’s hard to imagine New Mexico without Tom Udall in elected office. Nearly 30 years have passed since the now-70-year-old was first voted in as New Mexico’s attorney general. He went on to win a seat in New Mexico’s 3rd Congressional District in 1998, was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2014 and is currently the most senior member of the state’s Congressional delegation. Udall’s announcement last week he will leave the Senate in 2020 at the end of his current term puts a period on government service for the “Kennedys of the We...
A bocce court. Public murals. A dog park. There are more than 100 Albuquerque projects funded in the 2019 Legislature’s capital outlay bill. A long-term solution to the metro area’s rampant homelessness problem is not one of them. And so, unfortunately once again, the many senators and representatives elected by the area’s 911,000 area residents to represent them in the Legislature have failed to form a coalition to advance solutions to a big challenge almost every one of them witnesses daily. There is no question homel...
Two-term U.S. Sen. Tom Udall, D-New Mexico, announced Monday morning he will not seek re-election to a third term in 2020. "I'm confident that we could run a strong campaign next year to earn a third term, because of all the work you and I have done together, along with my wife, Jill, and my incredibly dedicated staff," Udall said in a statement. "But the worst thing anyone in public office can do is believe the office belongs to them, rather than to the people they represent. That's why I'm announcing today that I won't be...
SANTA FE — Lawmakers can expect to take up a proposal next year to make New Mexico the 11th state in the nation to legalize recreational marijuana. Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham said she will add the issue to the agenda of the 2020 legislative session. It’s a 30-day session, so the governor has some power to set the agenda. A bipartisan proposal to legalize recreational cannabis through state-run stores narrowly won House approval this year but stalled in the Senate. It was the first time a recreational marijuana bill pas...
Legislators passed bills with wide-ranging implications for New Mexico’s future. What they did: The 2019 legislative session was one of the busiest in recent state history. Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham has until April 5 to act on bills passed during the final three days of the session, which ended Saturday at noon. Here is a summary of some of the legislation debated during the 60-day session: Budget/taxes Passed: A $7 billion budget bill with hefty spending increase for public schools; a broad tax package that increases s...
SANTA FE — A proposal to raise income taxes on high-earning New Mexicans — as part of a broader tax package — won approval in the final minutes of the 2019 legislative session. The last day also included final passage of legislation for a new ethics commission and a proposal to decriminalize the possession of small amounts of marijuana. The tax package was a product of 11th hour negotiations between lawmakers and top officials in Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham's administration. It passed the House on a voice vote Saturday morni...
Darci Pierce in 1987 kidnapped a woman who was 8 months pregnant. She drove her to a remote area in the East Mountains where she strangled her, cut out her baby with a key, then tried to pass the baby off as her own. Frank Martinez and two other men in 1993 raped a 12-year-old girl, stabbed her, and choked her with a belt as he drowned her in a puddle of muddy water, then set the body on fire on Mount Taylor. And in 2003, Gabriel Avila raped and murdered a 22-year-old woman who was walking home from a party in Las Cruces. He...
SANTA FE — New Mexico lawmakers are sending Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham a proposal that would raise the statewide minimum wage to $12 an hour by 2023. It’s the product of a late-night agreement struck in the final days of the legislative session. The Senate adopted the agreement late Thursday, and the House signed off in the early-morning hours Friday. Lujan Grisham helped negotiate the proposal with lawmakers after the two chambers adopted different proposals and couldn’t agree on identical legislation. The $12 level is hi...
SANTA FE — New Mexico lawmakers on Thursday rejected a proposal that would have repealed the state’s 1969 anti-abortion law — an issue that emerged as one of the most emotional of the session. The legislation, backed by Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, failed on a 24-18 vote after a brisk debate on the Senate floor. Eight Democrats joined all 16 Republicans in voting against it. A few lawmakers shared intensely personal stories — speaking about miscarriage, grief, religion and the sanctity of life — during speeches on the Senate...
Southeastern New Mexico is riding a monster wave of oil production, with output flooding into a record of 250 million barrels in 2018. That’s up 46 percent over 2017, when the state produced 171 million barrels, also a record at that time. And it’s nearly three times the 86 million barrels produced in 2012, when the modern technologies of hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling unleashed a years-long gusher from previously untapped shale oil reserves in the Permian Basin in southeastern New Mexico and West Texas. Nat...
SANTA FE — New Mexico lawmakers late Thursday pushed the state closer than ever toward legalizing recreational marijuana for adults. In a late-night debate on the House floor, Democratic Rep. Javier Martinez of Albuquerque unveiled legislation crafted after bipartisan, bicameral talks involving House Democrats and Senate Republicans. The state House passed the bill 36-34 – the first recreational marijuana proposal ever passed by one of New Mexico’s legislative chambers. No Republican voted for the bill. Martinez, a co-sponsor...
SANTA FE — Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham has signed into law a high-profile bill that will add New Mexico to the list of roughly 20 states that require universal background checks for gun purchases. The governor, who pushed for gun control measures on the campaign trail last year, said the measure could lead to a decrease in gun violence, specifically citing a study that fewer law enforcement officers are shot and killed in the line of duty in states with such laws. “We all have a constitutional right to be safe in our hom...
SANTA FE — The Senate voted late Friday to approve a plan to gradually increase New Mexico’s minimum wage to $11 per hour by 2022, despite concerns about its impact on small business in rural parts of the state. The final 27-15 vote came after the bill’s sponsor, Sen. Clemente Sanchez, D-Grants, fended off proposed amendments from both flanks — Republicans trying to delay or shrink the proposed wage hike and several Democrats trying to boost it for tipped workers and high-schoolers. “I think this is reasonable,” Sanchez sai...
SANTA FE — A proposal to expand New Mexico’s background check requirement for gun sales is almost on its way to Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham — an enthusiastic supporter of the bill. The proposal, Senate Bill 8, won approval 42-27 in the House late Monday, the last major step needed to send it to Lujan Grisham, a Democrat who took office at the beginning of the year. The bill has just one more procedural step before going to the governor — the Senate must concur with a minor, one-word change made to the bill in a House committ...
SANTA FE — A proposal to take more money from New Mexico’s largest permanent fund for early childhood programs hit a brick wall again in the Roundhouse on Monday, when three Senate Democrats joined with Republicans to block it from moving forward. But Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham said later in the day that she’s not giving up the fight and threw her support behind a scaled-back measure. The first-term Democratic governor acknowledged she had no commitments from Senate leaders that the new proposal would pass before lawmakers w...
“My sister deserves better. My family deserves better. My friends deserve better. All of us deserve better.” — Serina Serna, who lost her sister last summer to Xanax laced with fentanyl It’s the kind of event that’s so important in what it offers and so awful that it’s needed here. It’s the National Youth Summit on Opioid Awareness. Today it will take over Rio Rancho’s Santa Ana Star Center. The City of Vision joins Salt Lake City, Louisville, Kentucky, Charleston, West Virginia, and Philadelphia as host sites because o...
SANTA FE — A familiar name provided lunch for the state Senate last week. Former Rep. Debbie Rodella, a Democrat who represented Española, lost her re-election bid last year, but she’s still a presence in the Roundhouse. Now she’s a lobbyist for an association of community bankers, and, as many lobbyists do, she provided lunch for lawmakers as they worked on a recent afternoon — enchiladas with red chile. Rodella is one of a few former officials who were public servants last session and lobbyists this year — including...
SANTA FE — The state House late Friday adopted legislation that would reshape New Mexico’s tax system and raise about $356 million a year in new state revenue for public schools, government operations and roads. The 134-page proposal would increase personal income taxes on some New Mexicans — especially high earners — and raise taxes on cigarettes and car sales. It would impose new taxes on some hospitals, online retailers and e-cigarettes. Tax breaks are also built into the proposal — including bigger tax credits for low-...
