Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
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Lawmakers grappling with the issue of gun violence endorsed a number of proposals — including imposing a 14-day waiting period to purchase a gun and prohibiting carrying or using guns near an Election Day polling site — at a committee meeting Tuesday at the Capitol. The endorsements made by members of the interim Courts, Corrections and Justice Committee don't necessarily mean the bills will win enough support to pass during next year's legislative session, But they do put a spotlight on legislation that could be heard dur...
The head of the state Department of Finance and Administration gave lawmakers some good news Monday when he told them yes, there is a Santa Claus: New Mexico can expect nearly $13 billion in recurring revenue for lawmakers and Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham to enjoy come January. Citing the famous New York Sun editorial "Yes, Virginia, There is a Santa Claus," Wayne Propst, secretary of the state Department of Finance and Administration, told members of the Legislative Finance Committee on Monday the forecast of nearly $12.768 b...
The Public Education Department is asking for a 21% increase in its overall budget, from $4.2 billion this year to nearly $5.1 billion in fiscal year 2025. However, Thursday's budget request before the Legislative Finance Committee was largely overshadowed by lawmakers' criticism of the Public Education Department's proposed rules, which would require 180 days of instruction for all schools beginning in the 2024-25 school year and impose a new school accreditation process. Lawmakers from all over the state and across the...
A Republican-led challenge to New Mexico’s congressional maps appears to be over. Ash Soular, spokeswoman for the state GOP, wrote in an email Wednesday that the party has no plans to pursue a rehearing “at this time” of the state Supreme Court’s recent ruling upholding the districts. That means the case, which has been playing out in the state courts since after the new maps were approved by lawmakers in 2021, ends in a victory for Democrats and the current lines will remain in place. In late November the state Supreme...
New Mexico’s highest court will soon decide whether local governments have the right to restrict abortion in the face of state laws protecting abortion access. Attorney General Raúl Torrez, who is challenging several conservative eastern New Mexico cities and counties that have passed anti-abortion ordinances, said during Wednesday’s state Supreme Court hearing that such ordinances are “preempted by state law.” This doesn’t just apply to abortion, Torrez said — other laws, such as the state’s legalization of recreational c...
Federal and state grants adding up to $1 million have given the city of Clovis a chance to finish renovations of the 1919 Lyceum theater. The Lyceum has been closed since a theater group departed in 2013. With the new funding, city officials hope to reopen it in about a year. The Lyceum is one of three historic downtown Clovis theaters in various stages of revival. The Mesa and State theaters, both also closed for years, reopened in 2021 after renovations, although the State...
The state Supreme Court affirmed a District Court judge’s decision that said while Democratic lawmakers tried to dilute Republican voting power in one of the state’s three congressional districts, their efforts did not equate to gerrymandering. Pending a potential rehearing, Monday’s ruling means the redistricted boundaries will remain in place. The state’s highest court issued a four-page decision on the case Monday morning, a week after it heard oral arguments on whether Senate Bill 1, approved in a special session in late...
The state Supreme Court has rescheduled a date to hear oral arguments in an appeal of a case involving allegations Democrats in the Legislature purposefully redrew a redistricting map to give the party a better chance of winning the 2nd Congressional District. In an order issued Tuesday, the court rescheduled the date from Nov. 21 to Nov. 20. In a ruling earlier this month, 9th Judicial District Judge Fred Van Soelen of Clovis held Democrats “succeeded in substantially diluting their opponents’ votes” by dividing the GOP’s...
A state district judge has ruled that while Democratic lawmakers may have worked to dilute Republican voting power in one of the state's three congressional districts, their efforts did not rise to the level of "of an egregious gerrymander." The ruling by Ninth Judicial District Judge Fred T. Van Soelen of Clovis struck a blow to the plaintiffs in the case, including the Republican Party of New Mexico, who sued in January 2022. The GOP argued the Democratic-majority Legislature purposefully redrew the map for the 2nd...
SANTA FE -- Democratic state lawmakers are pushing ahead with a plan to revive a contentious proposal to establish a paid family and medical leave program in New Mexico during next year's 30-day legislative session. Supporters of the proposed legislation — which cleared the Senate but stalled in a House committee in the final days of the 60-day session earlier this year — hope Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham will add it to the call but believe it could still come up for consideration as a budget issue in 2024. Unlike 60-day ses...
A state district judge has ruled that while Democratic lawmakers may have worked to dilute Republican voting power in one of the state's three congressional districts, their efforts did not rise to the level of "of an egregious gerrymander." The ruling by Ninth Judicial District Judge Fred T. Van Soelen of Clovis struck a blow to the plaintiffs in the case, including the Republican Party of New Mexico, who sued in January 2022. The GOP argued the Democratic-majority Legislature purposefully redrew the map for the 2nd...
Attorney General Raúl Torrez sent a letter Tuesday to Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, alerting her he will not defend her office in any lawsuit challenging her executive order temporarily suspending the right to carry firearms in Albuquerque. The governor announced the order Friday after declaring the state in a public health emergency due to a high rate of run violence. She cited a series of shootings that have killed New Mexico children. The order, in effect for at least 30 days, has led to several lawsuits challenging its...
SANTA FE -- Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham on Friday announced a new public health order that, she said, will ban people from carrying firearms, either open or concealed, in Albuquerque and throughout Bernalillo County for the next 30 days, regardless of whether they have a permit. Lujan Grisham, a Democrat, issued an executive order Thursday evening declaring gun violence a public health emergency. During a news conference Friday, she said she expects legal challenges to the public health order and expressed uncertainty about...
New Mexico's COVID-19 fortunes — which seemed so promising only a few weeks ago — are beginning to darken, state health officials said Wednesday. Just as health care experts and hospital leaders exhaled in relief in July with a decline in the number of COVID-19 cases, an official with the state Department of Health said New Mexico is now following a national trend of increasing infections. "The trends will be the same with cases rising and hospitalizations ticking up slowly as well," Health Department spokesman David Bar...
It’s official: New Mexico will spend another year at the bottom of the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s 2023 Kids Count Data Book’s child well-being rankings. For the fourth time in five years, the state ranked 50th nationwide in the data set, an amalgamation of economic well-being, health, education and family demographic data released Wednesday from all 50 states. Despite the state’s poor showing, Amber Wallin, executive director of New Mexico Voices for Children — the statewide children’s advocacy organization that collects Ki...
Jerry Apodaca was a football player at the University of New Mexico, and that sense of competition never evaporated when he traded his shoulder pads for a real contact sport: politics. Determined and gritty, Apodaca parlayed his background in athletics, the insurance business and two terms in the state Senate into the highest office in New Mexico. A Democrat, he was elected governor in 1974, the first Hispanic to head the state in the modern era. Apodaca died Wednesday morning following what may have been a stroke at his...
SANTA FE -- As the state Taxation and Revenue Department prepares to start sending out the latest batch of tax rebates, thousands of New Mexicans are still waiting to receive last year’s checks. Some 16,000 rebate checks sent by mail bounced back as undeliverable, and an additional 18,000 have been sidelined by errors in 2021 tax returns. “We’re working really hard to get this money into the pockets of New Mexicans as quickly and as efficiently as we can because we know New Mexicans are struggling with inflation, high price...
SANTA FE -- Anti-abortion ordinances adopted by elected officials in two cities and two counties in a conservative region of southeastern New Mexico violate the state constitution’s Bill of Rights, making them invalid, Attorney General Raúl Torrez wrote in a legal brief. “The ordinances’ singling out abortion for licensure and other regulation, in contrast to other medical procedures, violates the Equal Rights Amendment’s protection against pregnancy-based discrimination,” Torrez wrote, according to a draft of the brief, file...
SANTA FE -- State District Judge Bryan Biedscheid granted a motion Monday to seal the settlement agreement and related hearings in a wrongful-death case related to the shooting death of Rust cinematographer Halyna Hutchins. The decision was based on defense arguments the privacy of Hutchins' minor son — a beneficiary — warrants confidentiality. Hutchins died and director Joel Souza was wounded Oct. 21, 2021, after a revolver held by Rust producer and star Alec Baldwin discharged a live round, striking both. Hutchins' hus...
It’s been a year since cash registers first started ringing up sales of adult-use recreational marijuana in New Mexico. They haven’t stopped. Commercial sales of recreational cannabis topped more than $300 million in their first year, generating more than $27 million in excise taxes, according to figures released Monday. “In just one year, hundreds of millions of dollars in economic activity has been generated in communities across the state, the number of businesses continues to increase, and thousands of New Mexicans are e...
Masks and physical distancing are no longer required in New Mexico courtrooms or jury assembly areas following the expiration of the statewide, pandemic-related public heath order, the state Supreme Court announced Thursday. Additionally, jurors will no longer be required to answer health screening questions to enter a courthouse. Courts will continue to make masks available to any juror who chooses to wear one, but they are not required, according to a statement issued by Administrative Office of the Courts spokesman Barry...
SANTA FE -- As Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham started her post-session news conference Saturday, she already knew the score. Of the roughly 40 public safety bills introduced this year, the governor said she championed 10. “We have about a handful up, and out of 40, it’s 10 [that passed], and not all of those would really constitute what I think are strong public safety measures,” she said. “I know that is an area that you want me to say I’m disappointed,” Lujan Grisham added. “I’m motivated. I am very motivated to find additio...
SANTA FE -- With just a little over a day to go in the 2023 legislative session, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham signed a bill into law extending learning time for students in the state's public schools. House Bill 130 will mandate an increase in learning time in public schools to 1,140 hours, plus additional professional development time for teachers, while allowing districts some flexibility in when to add the hours. That means an extra 150 hours for students in first through sixth-grades. For secondary students, it’s 60 a...
SANTA FE -- The state Senate passed a nearly $9.6 billion spending plan for the upcoming fiscal year Sunday amid accusations the proposed budget was hijacked at the eleventh hour. Discussion on the proposed budget, which would increase spending by almost 14%, or more than $1 billion, also came with a warning from the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee: The level of spending is unsustainable. “New Mexico had better be prepared in our future for the plateauing of oil and gas, and that’s not too many years away,” said...
I used to say Portales was the only town in the world where the neutron bomb had been successfully tested. The buildings are intact, but no people walk the streets. Kidding, Portales! Just kidding. (Sort of.) Still, the sleepy little college town on New Mexico’s eastern plains had better get ready. Ray Birmingham is about to roll into a regent’s parking spot at Eastern New Mexico University. P-Ville, you might want to order a few hundred cases of Red Bull, just to prepare. The newest regent on campus is not the shy, ret...
