What do you call a public financing for a mayor’s race with 7 candidates but the ONLY candidate to get taxpayer dollars to run their campaign is the incumbent who is also looking for a 3rd term? Some terms that come to mind are “failed,” “corrupt,” and “anti-democratic.”

RGF’s president recently sat down with KOAT Channel 7 to discuss why Albuquerque’s public campaign financing system, how publicly-financed candidates like Keller “double dip,” and why that is a problem.

Check out the story here:

The Rio Grande Foundation has repeatedly called for reductions to New Mexico’s tax burden with eliminating the personal income tax and reform to the harmful gross receipts tax being our top priorities. Unfortunately, the Legislature and Gov. have not prioritized average New Mexicans’ needs. Instead, the money has helped create New Mexico’s sovereign wealth funds which amount to $61 billion while New Mexico remains among the poorest states in the country.

A new report from the LFC shows that the State general fund continues to see growth despite lower oil prices. According to the LFC, New Mexico’s general fund collected $272.4 million MORE than was expected between July 2024 and February 2025.

Despite MLG’s budget for FY 2025 having been a whopping $10.517 billion, an increase of $948.9 million, or 9.9%, above the FY24 that would leave New Mexico with an FY 2025 budget surplus of $2.95 billion, just shy of $3 billion.

On this week’s Tipping Point Paul interviews Marcos Gonzales who heads up economic development efforts for Bernalillo County. Marcos and his team are currently hosting a series of public meetings across the county.

Paul and Marcos discuss those meetings, the economic development situation and programs within the State and County, and some of the challenges facing the County when it comes to attracting business. You don’t want to miss this conversation from an insider’s perspective on economic development in New Mexico’s most populous county!

When it comes to training conservatives to work in politics nobody does it better than the folks at Leadership Institute. They are bringing their grassroots training efforts to New Mexico on April 15 for a day-long session on running for office or volunteering. The Rio Grande Foundation is not directly involved in this effort, but is pleased to share this information. Find all the details below:

On this week’s podcast Paul and Wally take a closer look at the Gov.’s comments on Face the Nation. MLG rarely gives televised interviews to the NM media, so each conversation with the national media is worth scrutinizing. Even when she says factual things her remarks often make us wonder what about her statements and their accuracy and intent.

Paul’s opinion piece on New Mexico’s film industry and the recession/depression facing it ran in the ABQ Journal recently.

Gubernatorial candidate Deb Haaland uses some imprecise language to attack “millionaires and billionaires” in a recent tweet.

 MLG says a special session of the Legislature is coming soon. What does she want the Legislature to do? And, why now given the timing of the Medicaid changes.

 An awesome new website helps users track the movement of people and their money as they move from state to state.

Imagine a system within the New Mexico economy that government manages poorly and that has failed. I know, hard to believe!

Everyone agrees (as do the data) that the system is a failure. What does the Legislature do? Do they address the problem head-on making needed changes? Heck no. In New Mexico, we don’t reform broken systems whether they be our K-12 system or our health care system. That would involve taking on powerful special interests whether those be the teacher unions or trial attorneys (both of which are powerful Democrat funders). Those groups might pull money from campaigns or support the opposition in a primary or even general election.

So, what DOES happen? Left-wing Rep. Liz Thomson claims in the Albuquerque Journal that we just need to spend a few more dollars to bribe more doctors to our State. That’s also the view of left-wing gubernatorial candidate Deb Haaland. So, the answer is to simply keep the system in place without addressing medical malpractice, taxes, the State’s attractiveness to doctors, or anything else. Just pour more oil and gas money (an industry both Thomson and Haaland loathe) and hope for the best.

GOP Rep. John Block has actual solutions and calls out Thomson for defending the status quo in his own opinion piece.

And, of course, RGF has its own solutions which we offered back in 2023. Those include medical malpractice reform, gross receipts tax reform to end taxes on medical providers, Medicaid reform, and overcoming licensing barriers (the proposed compacts are a good solution), telemedicine, and even improving our crime situation and overall tax code to make New Mexico friendlier to high earners like doctors.

Our friends at Think New Mexico are calling for New Mexicans to contact their legislators and the Gov. asking them to put the compacts on the agenda for the upcoming special session.

With gas prices having dropped in recent months (thanks in part to President Trump’s pro-energy policies) concern over gas prices has waned. But, that could change in New Mexico as the State prepares to embark on implementation of the “Clean Fuel Standard.” The Rio Grande Foundation (while attempting to correct the record that it is NOT a 50 cent/gallon gas tax, has noted that the Standard will indeed increase gas prices dramatically over time). 

But, then we see this articles from the Albuquerque Journal which notes that “some advocates are worried it could do more harm than good.” By “advocates,” the reporter is referring to some environmental groups and “more harm than good” refers to increased pollution. Sadly, reporters tend to only care about “advocates” when they are on one side of the issue and “harm” when it is bad for the environment.

Will overall pollution be worsened by the new policy? It is hard to say, but during the 2024 (30-day) session, RGF was often in the room during hearings and some environmental groups opposed the bill. Also, ethanol which is often used to replace crude oil in such efforts is considered worse for the environment than traditional fuel.

There is a lawsuit and investigation going on at New Mexico’s Office of the Superintendent of Insurance. The state is spending nearly half a million dollars of your money investigating what they call “potential irregularities” in New Mexico’s insurance fraud fund. But, rather than investigating companies for alleged fraud they are investigating internally.

They are looking into how the money that funds the investigations is being collected and spent.

“It’s ironic in this case that an agency that’s tasked with investigating fraud is itself being accused of fraud,”

RGF president Paul Gessing had the opportunity to discuss a bit about the OSI and how it is funded as part of the story. Check out the story here or below:

Check out this recent article from the Santa Fe New Mexican. It discusses challenges the City of Santa Fe is having with regard to capital outlay money from the State. As we have discussed, New Mexico has built up a massive backlog of unspent capital outlay money.  According to the article, “Unspent capital outlay statewide likely exceeds $7 billion.”

At the Rio Grande Foundation we believe that one of MANY problems with New Mexico’s capital outlay system is that local priorities should be funded locally (not on a statewide basis). Legislators often prioritize projects whether they are really a local priority or not. As the article notes, “State lawmakers are frustrated with the municipalities’ ability to quickly spend capital outlay allocated for local projects, something that may affect what they choose to fund in upcoming sessions.”

And, due to the lack of project prioritization and any comprehensive analysis of NEEDS vs. WANTS vs. POLITICAL PORK, “One lawmaker has said she refuses to give Santa Fe more money until a sewer line connection in her district is complete, while other said their main focus is funding shovel-ready projects.”

As Santa Fe Public Works Director Regina Wheeler told a City Council committee in early July, “The Legislature funds their priorities more than they fund the city priorities.”

And, of course, New Mexico remains ranked near the very bottom of various national lists like the following from US News & World Report. See below:

Over the weekend Gov. Lujan Grisham appeared on Face the Nation, one of the many “news magazines” designed to give the politicos of both parties an opportunity to provide long-form commentary on the issues of the day. You can find the full transcript of MLG’s comments here. MLG is hardly the only politician that fails to tell the truth, but with a biased media that often overlooks New Mexico we decided to check some of her statements:

1. Paperwork: Bizarrely MLG begins her remarks complaining (rightly) about the absurd amount of paperwork involved in health care. But there is no connection between increased health care paperwork and the BBB. Interestingly in a recent executive order (separate from the Big Beautiful Bill) Trump did something that will hopefully reduce paperwork in health care. MLG’s statement is meaningless and she offers no solutions or arguments.
2. MLG accurately states “We need to be moving out of poverty.” But, as governor of the most impoverished state in the nation over the past 7 years she has done nothing substantive to reduce poverty in New Mexico.
3. MLG claims “We (New Mexico) are in really good financial shape that takes planning and effort. New oil and gas discoveries pouring money into New Mexico’s coffers has nothing to do with MLG except the fact that she keeps attacking the industry while New Mexicans remain the poorest in the nation.
4.  MLG implies that jobs numbers or the economy are worse than when she was in college. There is simply no planet on which she is right about this unless the Gov. was in college during the 2008 economic crisis (she wasn’t). 
5. MLG claims “Susana Martinez canceled behavioral health.” That’s not exactly true, but, according to a June 2025 Source New Mexico report:. While there’s been a rise in the number of people accessing mental health services, utilization data indicates that it’s not necessarily translating into better outcomes. 

Watch the full interview here:

There is no question that Deb Haaland is an extreme leftist. Everything she has done in her political career is indicative of that. Unfortunately, New Mexico is a Democrat-dominated state and the Party continues to move further and further left (both in New Mexico and nationally). Take the rise of self-described socialist Zohran Mamdami who is running for Mayor of New York or Omar Fateh who is running for mayor in Minneapolis. A recent Axios article written by former AP reporter Russell Contreras even lumped Albuquerque candidate (not a self-described socialist to our knowledge) in with these others for his far-left political stances.

The point is that Democrats nationwide are moving further and further left and there is no sign they are coming back to the middle anytime soon. Deb Haaland is the frontrunner in the Democratic Party’s primary for governor. That makes her tweet (below) extra scary.

New Mexico is a poor state, but it’s not because of our overwhelming number of millionaires and billionaires “taking” all the money.  In fact, New Mexico only has ONE billionaire and he runs a solar company. Of course her tweet uses imprecise language and fails to tell readers WHAT she’d do about the situation. What kind of “fix” to the “broken” system is she referring to?

And, we included the rejoinder comment because when she joined the Biden Administration Deb Haaland listed her net worth as “zero” according to Forbes. It’s nearly impossible for a 64 year old attorney to have ZERO assets, but this is Deb Haaland we’re talking about.

On this week’s interview Paul talks to former Cuba Schools teacher and author of an impactful op-ed Blake Gumprecht. You can read his opinion piece from the Albuquerque Journal here in which he decried the pressure he and other teachers experienced to pass unprepared students along. He also had concerns about the vast gulf between student achievement and graduation rates.

Gumprecht and Gessing certainly agree that what is happening in Santa Fe regarding education is unacceptable but don’t necessarily agree on solutions. Check out this impactful conversation!

It’s official, MLG is going to call a special session of the Legislature. We’ve heard September, but expect something to happen this fall. As Dan Boyd of the Albuquerque Journal notes in his article the Gov. plans to:

Reinforce state’s Medicaid and food assistance programs in response to federal budget bill.

• Enhance criminal penalty for felons convicted of possessing a firearm.

• Prohibit New Mexico cities and counties from entering into agreements with federal government on immigration detention facilities.

Each of these issues plays in some way into the work of RGF. We’d likely oppose or at least want to tweak the 1st item, support the 2nd, and oppose the 3rd. Here we’ll discuss the 1st which will likely occupy a fair amount of time as it is easily the most complicated of the three. The options are as follows:

1. The Legislature (as we’ve noted) has plenty of money and can easily pour state money into the Medicaid and SNAP programs to replace lost federal funds. This is the wrong approach but also by far and away the most likely one.
2. The Legislature could replace SOME, but not ALL of the federal cuts which would result in overall cost savings and a somewhat streamlined Medicaid budget. This approach has potential, but it would require MLG and the Legislature to tacitly admit that Congress and Trump are at least partially correct in reducing Medicaid spending.
3. The Legislature COULD leave the cuts intact and make needed changes to medical malpractice laws, GRT taxation of medical service providers, and enter New Mexico into various health compacts. They COULD have done that in the 60-day session, but won’t.
4. Another approach (possibly by Republicans) could be to push for efforts to ensure that Medicaid dollars are spent for their intended purpose, not fraudulently. The link is to a 2022 LFC report highlighting potential steps to that end.

We don’t know exactly what the Gov. will put on the Legislature’s agenda. Undoubtedly MLG will be trying to avoid a debacle like the crime-focused special session of last year.

A UNM professor recently spoke to a business group and called New Mexico an emerging economy. What’s that supposed to mean?

Santa Fe Studios recently was put up for sale amidst a depression in Hollywood filmmaking. What’s the deal?

NM’s new automatic voter registration law will create big problems.

The East Central Ave. rework isn’t going to solve our pedestrian death issues.

I have it on good authority that MLG is going to have a special session in September to discuss health care issues. Also, the Albuquerque Journal editorial page was dominated by health care/doctor shortage issues on the editorial board page this Sunday.

Under the American system of federalism one of the easy ways to see which states are successful and which aren’t is to see how people move from state to state. While there are plenty of reasons for people to NOT move from one state to another, economics happens on the margins. And, over time (and for generations) people and their money have moved towards greater economic freedom.

Sadly, as anyone who follows New Mexico or the Rio Grande Foundation knows, New Mexico has long been a bastion of LESS economic freedom in the American Southwest. So, that means that people and their money continue to leave our state. You can check out the site and play around with its numerous useful features.

Below I have used the site to compare New Mexico and Arizona. RGF’s president wrote recently about the myriad economic advantages Arizona policies have over New Mexico’s. Taken directly from https://votewithyourfeet.net/

From 2012 to 2022, more people moved from New Mexico into Arizona than moved into New Mexico from Arizona.

In total, 16,335 people moved into Arizona, (referred to as the Net Domestic Migration), and took $599,689,000 with them, defined as AGI to individual income tax state data as provided by the IRS.

You can compare New Mexico and numerous other states against each other or find out how they are performing on a variety of population and financial metrics.

Since the days of the Richardson Administration the Rio Grande Foundation has opposed the State’s film subsidies. Under Bill Richardson the subsidy was 25% of film expenses (thus Hollywood could receive up to 25% of the costs of operating in New Mexico).

That spending was capped under Susana Martinez at $50 million in annual spending. But, when MLG was elected she immediately cut Hollywood a check for $300 million and (along with the Legislature) expanded the subsidy program up to 40% of film expenses.

Now, due to a collapsing film industry (filming in New Mexico has fallen from $740 million annually down to $323 million from July 2024 to June 2025) the owners of Santa Fe Studios are looking to sell. 

Sadly, while New Mexico will actually save money due to the decline in Hollywood filming with the massive subsidy, Santa Fe studios received subsidies above and beyond the State’s 40% credit. According to the Santa Fe New Mexican, the “Studios received a $10 million grant…from the state, and (Santa Fe) County kicked in another $3.6 million worth of infrastructure improvements for the project. It also is guaranteeing $6.5 million worth of a $10 million loan the studio’s principals secured from Los Alamos National Bank.”

That’s in addition to a $22 million Industrial Revenue Bond (IRB) which exempted the facility from property taxes.

That’s a lot of money. But, New Mexico continues to pump money into other film-related programs like $40 million for the Next Generation Media Academy and millions of additional dollars supporting various film programs through the corporate welfare “LEDA” program.

Industry insiders question whether the Industry will ever recover or whether this is a “new normal” for the Industry. Only time will tell. But, rather than going all out to attract one industry, New Mexico’s political leaders should be focused on making the State an attractive destination for businesses of all kinds with low taxes and reasonable regulations.

I was not at the recent presentation by University of New Mexico Professor Manuel Montoya, but the article in the Albuquerque Journal makes it sound like Montoya is off his rocker. He compares New Mexico to the “BRICS” group of so-called “emerging” nations. (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa.” But Montoya actually thinks New Mexico is MORE similar to an even more nascently emerging group of nations: Mexico, Indonesia, Nigeria and Turkey (he calls them MINT).

In summary, Montoya claims, ““Frankly, (New Mexico) looks, acts and thinks like the emerging economies that by the end of this century are going to become (epicenters) of the world economy.”

Say what? In 75 years (by the end of this century) New Mexico and these other nations are going to be epicenters of the world economy? Based on? Neither the BRICS nor MINT nations (nor New Mexico) are particularly fast-growing based on population numbers. Nor are their economies growing especially quickly (India and China are).

Nor are these countries (or New Mexico) adopting free market policies (like Argentina as an example).

Ultimately, COULD New Mexico “emerge” like some of these countries? Sure, we believe New Mexico has massive potential, but (like Argentina) has been held back for decades by bad public policy. Currently, New Mexico shows no signs of embracing economic policies that will generate that economic growth. In fact, New Mexico is in the process of missing out on a transformative economic boom thanks to politicians’ failure to use massive growth in oil and gas revenues to diversify and grow the State economy.

Could New Mexico still “emerge?” Of course. But, like the BRICS and MINT nations such emergence will have to come from significant economic changes.  As the Rio Grande Foundation found recently neither New Mexico’s population growth or GDP growth are on a particularly positive trajectory. 

PS: we plan to reach out to Professor Montoya to see if he’ll come on Tipping Point NM.

On the latest Tipping Point NM Paul talks to Carter Swanson. Carter has been an intern with the Rio Grande Foundation for over a year. He is heading to Australia to study abroad. Paul and Carter discuss what “the kids” in New Mexico think of free markets and freedom, his educational and career aspirations, and more. If you are concerned about the next generation this episode may alleviate your concerns!

There are several issues with this KOB 4 story which seems to imply that things are getting better on Central Ave. in Albuquerque. But let’s start with the treatment of the group Together for Brothers as if they are some kind of experts on how to improve East Central. This group actually led the way in creating the “free” city bus system which in turn led to a decline in safety and the need to hire more security on buses (covered recently by none other than KOB). 

Why does KOB give extensive airtime to this group even though their single policy achievement is a failure? Good question. More importantly, while they accurately note that Albuquerque is the second-deadliest city in the country for pedestrians and that East Central is a big part of that problem, the situation is not going to change with a “road diet” (which will make driving on East Central more difficult and shift traffic elsewhere) or more and better crosswalks. The problem is too many drug addled and homeless who throw caution to the wind when walking on and around Central.

Of course, the Keller Administration and New Mexico’s politicians have a long track record of throwing money at problems when the issue has nothing to do with money or the latest big government project. You can bet this will wind up as another costly mistake on Central.

In 2023 and against the wishes of most conservatives (including the Rio Grande Foundation) New Mexico’s Democrat-controlled Legislature passed “automatic voter registration.” The new system under which people are registered when they head to the DMV or deal with nearly any other government agency (like signing up for SNAP) took effect on July 1, 2025.

Here is the experience of one RGF friend:

I needed to renew my driver’s license yesterday so I went to my normal vendor on 4th street.  It was a simple renewal, new pic, eye test, but at the end of the process I was required to register to vote – I saw no option to opt out, I didn’t see a button that said “no thanks, already registered”.  I even queried the employee and said, I’m already registered, why must I fill all this out?  She didn’t have an answer.

The process is all on-line and you sign the vertical screen with your finger – good luck matching signatures with that system down the line.

So, presumably, I’m now registered as a voter twice.

This could be solved with a “No thanks, I’m already registered” button, but if it was there, I missed it.  I really don’t think I had an option…

So, existing inaccuracies in New Mexico’s voter rolls will be worsened as already registered voters may be registered under duplicate names or with slight variances in their names and addresses…and to what end? So a bunch of people who can’t be bothered to register to vote will be registered whether they want to or not.

On this week’s Tipping Point NM conversation Paul and Wally discuss:

New Mexico’s impending demographic disaster.

State Sen. Harold Pope is running for Lt. Gov., but all he can talk about is Trump.

Surprising absolutely no one, a Wallethub report finds New Mexico dead last in education.

Trump cancels $4 billion in federal funding for CA high speed rail.

RIP Ed Fuelner of Heritage Foundation.

Paul discusses his family vacation to DC, Philly, and NYC.

The Rio Grande Foundation is pleased to announce that we have received a completed candidate survey from Christopher Sedillo. Sedillo is running for Albuquerque City Council in District 3 which is currently occupied by Klarissa Peña.

You can find Christopher Sedillo‘s survey. It is also embedded in the post below:

A few years ago the Rio Grande Foundation filed an ethics complaint (you can read it here) with the New Mexico Ethics Commission regarding campaign finance concerns over documents linked her to a nonprofit once led by convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell, longtime associate of Jeffrey Epstein. RGF had received an anonymous tip that Stansbury was involved in TerraMar Project, a now-defunct nonprofit founded and led by Maxwell. Our hope at the time was that an investigation would be undertaken by the Commission to understand what involvement Stansbury had (if any) with Epstein and Maxwell. Sadly, no such investigation ever took place and allegations relating to Stansbury have swirled since shortly after she was elected to Congress.

Recently, with so much attention focused on the “Epstein list” and other issues relating to the case the Pinon Post wrote a piece citing RGF’s ethics complaint and Daniel Chacon of the Santa Fe New Mexican wrote a story for which we provided public comment. Both stories are worth a read if you are and they include comments from Stansbury as well. What is the truth? We may never find out.

But, as John Block notes in his Pinon Post article:

Only after the Rio Grande Foundation filed a public complaint linking the disclosure to Maxwell did Stansbury amend her form. On April 21, 2021, she quietly changed it to say “Terramar Consulting Group – Santa Fe, NM.” Then, in a 2022 disclosure, she listed a third variation: “Terramar, Inc.,” another Santa Fe entity, which had been incorporated and dissolved by Cristina Mormorunni — behind the “Terramar” entity in Santa Fe — and campaign donor to Stansbury.