Bills to Watch 2009

With the Legislature in session, I plan to use this space from time to time to point out a few crazy ideas out of Santa Fe and a few that I believe are worthy of support. While the two I am listing here should appeal to free marketers, given the current legislative makeup, straight “conservative” bills probably won’t go very far, so I believe these will have a broader appeal.
1) SJR 1 introduced by Sen. Bill Sharer. This resolution would, if approved by the voters, amend the New Mexico Constitution to preserve the right of all New Mexicans to purchase their own health care. This is the ultimate check against socialized medicine. In fact, in Canada where socialized medicine is the law of the land, this right was only recently restored and only in one province, Quebec. As Brian Day, past president of the Cambie Surgeries Corporation, which operates a private surgery clinic in Vancouver states in the article:
“Access to a wait[ing] list is not access to care.” He estimated there are 75,000 people on B.C. waiting lists and more than a million in Canada.
2) The other bill of interest to those who are truly concerned about good and ethical government is SB 334 which has been introduced by Sen. Mark Boitano. As I wrote in the Albuquerque Journal a few months back, allowing governments to use taxpayer money to promote ballot measures (almost always on behalf of bigger government) is extremely dangerous and unfair to those citizens and grassroots groups who cannot suckle at the government teat.
These are just two examples of reasonable proposals to improve the state of New Mexico. I’ll be posting more examples, both good and bad, as legislation is introduced. A great place to track these bills and find out additional information is our legislative tracking site www.newmexicovotes.org.