A recent Financial Times chart below illustrates, the United States is the globe’s leading natural gas exporter. As capacity grows, exports will likely continue to grow very rapidly.

Below that chart is a chart highlighting New Mexico’s growing natural gas production. In recent years New Mexico’s natural gas production has risen by 150%. In other words, New Mexico’s natural gas boom is likely just beginning and the export capacity will likely lead the world to increasingly consume natural gas produced in New Mexico and other parts of the USA.

After a session of frustration for those looking to change New Mexico’s medical malpractice law which medical professionals have cited as a leading reason for the State’s doctor shortage, it appears that Gov. Lujan Grisham may be throwing a “Hail Mary” with mere days left in the session.

The bill, if accurately defined below (we have no details) would address most of the serious issues around the medical malpractice issue. Session ends at NOON Saturday, so time is of the essence.

ALERT: @GovMLG announced a bill will be introduced to resolve the issue of medical malpractice caps for independent outpatient clinics by capping malpractice payouts to $1 million rather than $6 million. #nmpol

— Daniel Chacon (@danieljchacon) March 14, 2023

One of the most frustrating things about American politics today is the left’s tendency to attack those they disagree with as “racist” or that they are simply taking their marching orders from industry. This, as opposed to leftist politicians and advocacy groups who receive massive funding from anti-industry organizations.

Alex Epstein is the author of Fossil Future and one of the best advocates for energy freedom. He recently testified before the US House of Representatives (see footage below) and was immediately accused of these things by Rep. Stansbury, a Democrat who represents much of Albuquerque and CD1 in Congress.

Instead of addressing my detailed argument against @JoeBiden depleting the SPR, @Rep_Stansbury tried to discredit me as a White Supremacist and industry stooge.

Thankfully, @laurenboebert and @realannapaulina gave me the opportunity to respond.

Make sure to watch the end! pic.twitter.com/7QLhrDU8TS

— Alex Epstein (@AlexEpstein) March 9, 2023

A few months back investigative reporter Larry Barker blew the whistle on the City of Albuquerque paying for a turf field for the Gladiators football team which plays at an arena in Rio Rancho. We heartily agreed with Barker and his assessment and have defended New Mexico’s anti-donation clause (including in a separate lawsuit).

Well, as it turns out Albuquerque’s Inspector General recently found that the turf purchase likely DID violate New Mexico law.  And, the IG says it is NOT just because the turf would have been installed in Rio Rancho, but because it amounts to a “donation” to a private interest (the Gladiators football team).

We welcome the IG’s opinion and hope that it will result in more consistent enforcement of the anti-donation clause.

The omnibus tax bill (HB 547) passed over the weekend. It is no longer the disaster it was when introduced. In fact, it has moved from “-8” to “+1” in our Freedom Index vote tracking.  Because of its complexity and numerous pluses and minuses, it is a very difficult bill to rate and for members to vote on. Hopefully the bill is improved in the Senate, but as it stands it remains a missed opportunity.

The good:

1. The bill cuts gross receipts tax rates significantly;
2. It reduces personal income tax rates at lower income levels (which earners at all levels will benefit from somewhat);
3. Social security tax cuts from 2022 are indexed to inflation;
4. Military pension tax reduction is extended for another 5 years;
5. Motor vehicle excise taxes would be directed to roads and more alcohol taxes would be allocated to alcohol treatment.,

The bad:

1. The unprecedented $3.6 billion surplus SHOULD have been an opportunity to end New Mexico’s tax pyramiding on business services. This was not done.  Until it is New Mexico’s economy will continue to suffer.
2. Numerous subsidies are tucked in the bill for EV’s, charging stations, and energy storage projects.
3. Corporate income taxes are increased slightly (by removing a lower 4.8% rate on small corporations and taxing them all at 5.9%;
4. Capital gains taxes are increased due to a less generous exemption;
5. Alcohol taxes and taxes on cigars are increased.

Overall, the bill remains a mess of conflicting economic priorities. The only coherent strategy is that it attempts to remove taxes from those with lower incomes.

The Rio Grande Foundation has long been concerned with taxpayer subsidies for development. HB 353 would subsidize UNM development arm “Lobo Development” in order for them to develop the south campus area.

It is one of many concerning bills alive in the Legislature as it heads into its final week. Interestingly, all Republican house members voted to support the bill while several Democrats were opposed.

Perhaps most bizarre is the fact that South Campus is considered “blighted.” As the Albuquerque Journal story noted, “the tax district … area includes a science and technology park, university sports fields, Isotopes Park and student residences. Far from “blighted,” with two nearby Interstate highways, New Mexico’s flagship university, and  the Sunport the area represents a great opportunity for redevelopment WITHOUT SUBSIDIES.

One of the VERY WORST bills this session, SB 11 which would force a big new tax on New Mexico workers and businesses, is up in House Commerce & Economic Development Committee this Friday afternoon. The following effort was put together by New Mexico Restaurant Association against the bill.

Email YOUR Legislators!

We need YOUR help contacting the New Mexico legislature to ask them to oppose the unfair Paid Family Medical Leave Tax.

This new payroll tax is expected to generate $463 million for a super fund in which working New Mexicans will have the biggest burden of creating this fund, with employees being taxed $5 for every $1000 they earn. This tax will hit the lowest-earning employees the most by removing hundreds of dollars from their annual income.

Please right-click on the image below with the QR code and save to print and hang in your business.

Help us by sending your message and sharing the campaign! Even if you have participated in this campaign recently, do it again!

Event Information
Last day to buy tickets
03/31/2023, Midnight, (GMT-05:00) Eastern Time (US & Canada)

About the event:
Join the Rio Grande Foundation for a luncheon featuring speaker Todd Myers, Environmental Director at the Washington Policy Center, a market-oriented think tank in Seattle, and author of Time to Think Small: How Nimble Environmental Technologies Can Solve the Planet’s Biggest Problems.

April 5, 2023
11:45AM – 1:00PM
Albuquerque Marriott Pyramid North
5151 San Francisco Rd NE, Albuquerque, NM 87109

About Todd Myers:
With nearly two decades in environmental policy, Todd Myers’ experience includes work on a range of environmental issues, including climate policy, spotted owl habitat, old-growth forests, and salmon recovery. Currently, he serves as a member of the Puget Sound Salmon Recovery Council and was a member of the executive team at the Washington State Department of Natural Resources.

Myers’ writing has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the BBC, National Review, Seattle Times, USA Today, and he has appeared on numerous news networks including CNBC, Fox News, and CNN. Recognized as a national leader on free-market environmental policy, Myers serves on the board of two national center-right environmental organizations, the American Conservation Coalition, an environmental advocacy organization that works to engage youth on conservation and environmental stewardship, and ConservAmerica, a group dedicated to habitat and wildlife conservation.

Cancellation policy:
The Rio Grande Foundation will honor cancellation requests until Friday, March 31, 2023, minus a $5 transaction fee.

DonorboxEventWidget.embed({container: ‘donorboxEmbed’,embedFormSlug: ‘https://donorbox.org/embed_event/415530’});

Senate Bill 427 by Sen. Joseph Cervantes (D-Las Cruces), imposes a 14-day waiting period on all firearm purchases, with an exception for concealed handgun licensees. This measure will only delay your ability to exercise your Second Amendment right to defend yourself, your family and your property. This would make for the longest firearms purchase waiting period in the entire country!  For more information on this proposal, click here. If adopted the 14 day wait would be the longest in the nation. 

Senate Bill 428 by Sen. Joseph Cervantes (D-Las Cruces) creates a hostile climate for lawful firearm-related industries and transactions by facilitating an increasing amount of litigation and claims, with vastly increased liability exposure and civil penalties, for even minor suspected violations of the terms of an Federal Firearm Licensee (FFL) or the law as the basis for Unfair Trade Practices Act proceedings. For more information on this bill, click here. At least one major insurance provider has indicated they won’t insure gun sellers. 

It’s bad enough that all the bills dealing with reforming New Mexico’s medical malpractice law been killed this session by the majority Democrats in party-line votes. Here is a list of the bills that would seriously address New Mexico’s medical malpractice law: HB 63, HB 88, HB 465, SB 296, and SB 447 have all either died in committee or not been heard yet.

And then the tax omnibus bill (HB 547) which many hoped would include reform of the service taxation component which unfairly hits doctors (and other service providers) was put forth (absent reform of the service tax).  Instead, if adopted the bill would increase income taxes for high earners to as high as 6.9% while also putting more New Mexicans in those tax brackets. In response to doctors and others House Tax Committee Chair Derrick Lente (D) had the following comment for the Albuquerque Journal. 

Can doctors afford the increase? Perhaps. More importantly, they can also leave New Mexico. And, unless something dramatic changes before now and March 18 when the session ends, New Mexico’s Legislature will have done a great deal of harm.

The following appeared in National Review’s Capital Matters on March 2, 2023:

In December, New Mexico’s Legislative Finance Committee (an internal think tank for the state legislature) published a report on the state’s Medicaid program. Whether by design or accident, the report happened to coincide with the tenth anniversary of New Mexico’s Medicaid expansion. Then-governor Susana Martinez, a Republican, decided to accept the “Obamacare” expansion dollars which, at the time, were 100 percent federally funded.

The report is full of useful information about the impact of Medicaid expansion on New Mexico that likely applies to all states. In fact, the report by this internal government agency to our now-bright-blue state government gave critics of Medicaid expansion plenty of ammunition.

Today, only eleven states (including large ones such as Florida and Texas)have steadfastly refused to expand Medicaid under Obamacare. And in light of New Mexico’s experience as detailed in this new report, the decision made by those eleven states looks better today than it ever has.

In New Mexico, the LFC Medicaid study’s authors used “secret shoppers” to attempt to make appointments with primary-care physicians throughout the state. Shockingly, only 15 percent of them were able to make an appointment with a primary-care doctor.

This is just one of many data points that echo the point made by Obamacare critics over a decade ago, who said early and often that health care is not the same thing as “coverage.” But policy-makers did not heed those warnings, and since Medicaid was expanded, the number of recipients in New Mexico has exploded while the number of providers has declined rather dramatically. The LFC report, for example, revealed that 47 percent of New Mexico’s population is on Medicaid, which places the state at the very top of the list in terms of the percentage of its population receiving benefits.

The high number of Medicaid recipients is both a cause and an effect of New Mexico’s ongoing medical-provider shortage. While large numbers of newly “covered” recipients of the program may lead to problems in accessing timely care, the underlying issue is Medicaid’s abysmal reimbursement rates for doctors. Nationally in 2020, hospitals received just 88 cents for every dollar spent caring for Medicaid patients. Specifics vary by state and provider type, but there is no question that having a larger Medicaid population results in more “cost-shifting” from other programs and customers to cover Medicaid recipients. Put another way, costs increase for other patients in order to compensate for the Medicaid shortfall.

But the consequences of New Mexico’s overwrought Medicaid program don’t stop there. Sadly, with such a massive portion of the population on benefit, it is hardly a surprise that the number of people willing to enter the workforce is quite low.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, New Mexico’s workforce-participation rate in December of 2022 was just 53.5 percent. That is higher than just one state (Mississippi) and trails the U.S. as a whole, which has a workforce-participation rate over 60 percent.

At a time of exceedingly low unemployment and a tight job market nationwide (for all skill levels), Medicaid is one of many “welfare” programs that appear to keep people out of the job market.

In the meantime, the program has also caused state spending to spiral out of control. Estimated to stand at $10.5 billion next year (a 56 percent increase since just fiscal year 2019), the amount spent on Medicaid alone will be greater than New Mexico’s entire general-fund budget ($9.4 billion) next year. Simply put, this is unsustainable, both in terms of the program’s growth, but also in terms of the federal government’s financial contribution to New Mexico and other states with massive Medicaid rolls.

So, what are we getting for all this spending? The Legislature’s Medicaid report did not even consider a detailed discussion of health-care outcomes and the impact (or lack thereof) of Medicaid expansion. The report did note, however, that “the state continues to face poor health outcomes overall.” And, even more interestingly, while providing routine medical care for the poor was a stated goal of advocates for expansion, the LFC notes that an increase in “emergency room visits for non-urgent reasons” is “potentially leading to worse outcomes.”

The bottom line is that a decade on, despite massive federal and state spending growth on Medicaid, the LFC’s latest report does not point to significant positive health care outcomes from Medicaid expansion for New Mexico’s population at large. But this should not come as a surprise. A widely discussed 2013 study out of Oregon involving a large, randomized control group “showed that Medicaid coverage generated no significant improvements in measured physical health outcomes in the first 2 years.”

Well, there you have it. The largest and most expensive expansion of the American welfare state in the last 50 years seems to have resulted in bigger government and more dependency in New Mexico and across the nation. However, here in the state with the highest percentage of people on Medicaid, evidence of improved health outcomes remains elusive.

The Legislature failed to enact needed GRT reforms and instead has plenty of tax hikes. A piece in the ABQ Journal on Friday telegraphed where things were heading. Not only will doctors be among those paying higher taxes, another attempt to reform NM’s medical malpractice law failed.

MLG will end the COVID health emergency at the end of March. As of March 11 we will have been in an emergency for 3 years.

A new study finds gas stoves are safe, but the Consumer Product Safety Administration has announced they plan to study the issue.

A chart in motion highlights the growth of government in New Mexico and other states since 1962. Since 2020 (the last year of the chart) New Mexico government has grown even faster.

The votes are really piling up at our Freedom Index with more to come.

A few days ago New Mexico Gov. Lujan Grisham announced the end of the State’s COVID emergency on March 31, 2023. As a reminder, the emergency began on March 11, 2020, so we will be more than three years into the emergency by the time it is over.

Why end the emergency then? California ended theirs at the end of February and MLG LOVES to follow what California does. Also, the Biden Administration is ending its emergency which means federal dollars are drying up. There doesn’t seem to be any logical or scientific reason to end the emergency at the end of March although we welcome it.

Sadly, New Mexico’s Democrat-controlled Legislature continues to refuse to play its role in emergencies.  We don’t know what the next emergency will look like and we hope it is a long way off, but whoever the Gov. is at the time will have tremendous latitude (unless it is a Republican with a Democrat- Legislature).

UPDATE: In a bit of a shocker this bill died in its first committee.

A “dummy” bill is a bill in New Mexico’s Legislature that is introduced with no text early in the session so the majority can ram it through later on in the session. It is a bad process, but SB 520 is a worse bill.

The primary impetus behind it is to slash CO2 emissions in New Mexico starting in 2030. by 2030 when the plan is to cut emissions by fifty percent relative to 2005 levels; By 2040, the bill would mandate emissions be cut by seventy-five percent and by 2050 CO2 emissions would be cut by ninety percent.

Is this realistic? It is impossible to say, but notably Gov. MLG will no longer be Gov. in 2030, so she won’t have to deal with the problem.

And, of course New Mexico is more reliant than ever on its oil and gas industry, not to mention all the other industries and individual activities that generate CO2.

And finally, New Mexico may act, even the United States may act to drastically reduce emissions, but China is only increasing the amount of CO2 it emits and they show no signs of cutting back even while the US reduces its emissions.

If you follow the process in Santa Fe you know that all tax hike and reduction bills are tabled as legislative leaders put together an “omnibus” tax bill for the session. With $3.6 billion in surplus revenues, there are great opportunities for game-changing reforms to New Mexico’s tax structure.

Alas, the bill (HB 547) put together by New Mexico Democrats isn’t just a lost opportunity, it is an economic disaster. At a time when the Legislature should be focused like a laser on using this windfall to make New Mexico’s tax code more business friendly and attractive as a destination for capital, the bill is a hodge podge of “progressive” revenue redistribution schemes and nanny-statism. The only significant policy reform is a 0.5% reduction in the GRT. The rest of this bill (with the exception of the rebates) should be jettisoned.

We have gone through the bill and here’s what it has and doesn’t have.

The proposed bill raises personal income taxes and creates TWO new tax brackets (6.5% and 6.9%):

For married couples earning over $200,000 but not over $500,000 their top tax rate rises from 4.9% to 6.5%. For taxpayers earning more than $500,000 the top rate will be 6.9%.

Currently the top income tax rate of 5.9% starts at $315,000

For single: filers making more than $133,500 but not over $333,500 the income tax rate is 6.5%. The rate rises to 6.9% for those making over $335,000.

The bill increases New Mexico’s capital gains tax by limiting the  deduction to forty percent of up to three hundred
thousand dollars ($300,000) of sale of a business or other capital gain.

New Mexicans will receive rebates of $300 or $600 instead of $750 and $1500 as  were  originally discussed.

The bill has  numerous “green” energy giveaways including:

A “refundable” EV tax credit: of $2,500 or $4,000 depending on income levels.

A $300 EV charging station tax credit

An energy storage system tax credit of up to $5,000.

The bill increases corporate taxes by creating a “flat” corporate income  tax by eliminating the lower rate of corporate income tax of 4.8% for corporate income below $500,000. All corporate income will be taxed at 5.9%.

Tobacco  taxes increase to an across-the-board rate of 25% (a massive increase);

The bill also raises taxes on alcohol significantly in some cases.

The new rates would be:

Spirits $1.75 per liter 9% increase.
Beer $0.56 per gallon 37% increase, 34 cents per 24/12 case equivalent.
Wine $0.60 per liter 33% increase.

The only significant positive in this bill is that it reduces New Mexico’s statewide gross receipts tax rate. That tax is currently at 5.0%. It is set to drop to 4.875% in July (under existing law). Under this legislation the rate drops to 4.5% and on July 1, 2024 to 4.3/8ths. So, the BEST aspect of this bill is its reduction in the GRT rate of an additional 0.5%.

Sadly, the bill does nothing to address GRT pyramiding and taxation of business inputs. The Rio Grande Foundation has  long prioritized  eliminating business tax pyramiding, so this  is a massive  failure

On this week’s show Paul talks to Phillip K. Howard about his new book Not Accountable:Rethinking the Constitutionality of Public Employee Unions. Howard is a New York Times bestselling author, lawyer, and advocate to simplify government and restore individual responsibility.

In Howard’s latest book he exposes the fraught history of government unions which FDR (and many early labor leaders) opposed and argues forcefully that government unions are unconstitutional. Check out this timely and important conversation here!

With a $3.5 billion surplus available to the Legislature one might think that the New Mexico Legislature (regardless of party) would take the opportunity to enact policies that would help “diversify” the economy and bring new businesses to the State. Despite all the rhetoric, if one takes the proposals outlined in the Albuquerque Journal by Senate Majority Leader Peter Wirth and Senate Tax Committee Chair Benny Shendo seriously,  you’d be VERY wrong.  Let’s go through the proposals one by one.

1. Ensure that big, out-of-state corporations pay the same tax rate as homegrown New Mexico small businesses. The Senators fail to explain exactly what they mean, but the only bill dealing with corporate income taxes is the regressive, tax hike HB 322 sponsored by Reps. Harper and Maestas. It does nothing to big businesses, but increases the tax rate on smaller businesses.
2. We need to make sure the wealthiest people in our state are pulling their weight in taxes. Here they seem to be referring to HB 119 which indeed raises taxes on personal income although new rates kick in at $200,000 for married couples. Raising the top rate on personal income taxes is totally unnecessary given the massive surplus and will make New Mexico even less attractive as a destination for business and thus more reliable on oil and gas.
3. We seek to limit the tax deduction for capital gains on sales of stocks and similar financial products to a maximum deduction of $2,500, so these transactions no longer receive preferential treatment. The Senators call the capital gains tax cut under then Gov. Bill Richardson a “mistake.” As the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis correctly notes, “Taxing capital gains effectively increases the cost of funds to firms because it reduces the after-tax return to stockholders.”
4. Extending last year’s cash rebates into this 2023 tax season and increasing the Child Tax Credit will put money back into New Mexicans’ pockets. These are fine as far as they go, but neither will do a thing to improve New Mexico’s short or long term economic prospects.

In today’s New Mexico political scene Bill Richardson would be closer to the Republicans than Democrats on economic policy. As we’ve reported time and again, Richardson’s tax cuts WERE a success. 

As you can see in the recent tweet (below) New Mexico’s senior senator Martin Heinrich (D) is laser focused on eliminating gas stoves. He tweets about the issue constantly and in this post compares gas stoves to tobacco companies.

But Heinrich is wrong on the science. A new literature review of gas stoves on the topic of gas cooking and indoor air quality has been released. The topline conclusion is: Cooking with natural gas is safe and is “not a significant determinant of residential indoor air quality.”

A few additional details include:

• Indoor air quality is impacted far more by the act of cooking than the fuel you use to cook it, and the most effective method to protect health is to provide proper ventilation during cooking.
• Many additional factors influence the nature and extent of emissions during cooking, including the type of food, the oils used in cooking, cooking temperatures and time, and proper ventilation.
• Reports linking gas cooking to negative health outcomes often rely on analyses that do not make that connection.

Nevertheless, the US Consumer Product Safety Commission has just announced that the Commission has approved the Federal Register notice of the Request For Information (RFI) seeking public input on chronic hazards associated with gas stoves. This is not a regulatory option, but it is often a prelude to that type of regulation.

As New Mexico’s Legislature discusses the final details of yet another big budget increase (12.4% year-over-year). The Cato Institute has an interesting chart in motion (click here) showing how various states have grown over the decades between 1962 and 2020 (so NM’s last few years of massive growth are not included).

In short, as of 2020, New Mexico State and local spending exceeded all but one other state at 26.6% of the State economy. Interestingly enough, back in 1962 New Mexico government was much smaller relative to other states and as an overall percentage of the economy (17.2%).  Click above or the graphic below to watch the spending in New Mexico and other states evolve over the years.

Several bills have been introduced in the 2023 New Mexico Legislature to deal with the State’s doctor shortage and medical malpractice law. SB 296 is a bipartisan effort along those lines and it will be heard on Thursday afternoon (March 2) in Senate Tax, Business and Transportation Committee.

The following appeared at KRWG and in numerous other media outlets.

In October of last year, results for the Nation’s Report Card (NAEP) placed New Mexico dead-last in education among all states, the District of Columbia, and DoD schools. The test covered reading for 4^th and 8^th graders and math for the same age groups. New Mexico was last across all categories. These results should have been a wakeup call for Gov. Lujan Grisham and the Legislature.

Bold solutions are needed and there’s no time like a 60-day session to enact big reforms. Unfortunately, as the legislative session hurtles onward, neither serious education reform nor prevention of future mistakes like those made during the COVID pandemic are likely to come to pass.

As a parent, I know first-hand that the Gov.’s COVID 19 lockdowns and chaos had a major, negative impact on young people. Kept out of their classrooms for over a year, often in rural areas with poor broadband service and working parents, it is no surprise that New Mexico students suffered more during the Pandemic than those living in wealthier “blue” states. Locking kids out of school is now widely seen as a mistake that had no noticeable impact on the spread of COVID.

Sadly, efforts to give the Legislature a seat at the table in future emergencies, HB 80 and HJR 3 (one was a bill, the other an amendment), both failed on party lines in the House Judiciary Committee. They would have simply required the Legislature to approve declared emergencies lasting longer than 90 days, but that was too much for the majority Democrats.

Having the Legislature debate and vote on whether to lock kids out of their schools for over a year shouldn’t be a partisan issue.

COVID is hardly the only reason for New Mexico schools’ poor performance. The system has always been near the very bottom in producing student outcomes. Sadly, aside from continuing to spend more and more money, the Legislature and Gov. remain unwilling to shake up the system in ways that would improve outcomes.

My organization has long pushed for “money to follow the student.” The best single bill attempting to do that was Sen. Craig Brandt’s SB 109 which would have set up a system of “education savings accounts” similar to the one adopted last year in Arizona. The bill was killed on partisan lines in its first committee (Senate Education).

Though necessary, school choice remains a dirty word among New Mexico’s education establishment. But choice isn’t the only way to improve education results. Just ask the folks in Mississippi where simple reforms to how reading is taught have resulted in massive learning gains, especially in 4^th grade reading.

What did Mississippi do to achieve success? It pushed teachers to teach reading through phonics, it invested resources into teaching teachers how to teach phonics effectively, and it made sure that students understood the subject material before passing them on to the next grade (they ended social promotion).

If that sounds familiar, it’s because Mississippi’s initiative broadly reflects the reform efforts of former Gov. Susana Martinez. Sadly, union-backed Democrats in the Legislature prevented those efforts from being codified into law. Her reforms were immediately undone by Gov. Lujan Grisham.

But, as the New York Times notes, Mississippi went from 49^th on 4^th grade reading in 2013 to 29^th in 2019. Mississippi further increased its already substantial lead on New Mexico in the first post-COVID NAEP test in 2022. Notably, Mississippi spends about $10,000 per student while New Mexico spends $15,000.

New Mexico’s children (and its employers) desperately need a high-performing education system. Unfortunately, without the Legislature and Gov. embracing bold reforms that upset the status quo, improvement is unlikely to occur anytime soon.

Doing the same thing and expecting a different result is a worthy definition of insanity. It also appears to describe New Mexico’s education policy.

Paul Gessing is president of New Mexico’s Rio Grande Foundation. The Rio Grande Foundation is an independent, nonpartisan, tax-exempt research and educational organization dedicated to promoting prosperity for New Mexico based on principles of limited government, economic freedom and individual responsibility

Many business leaders and advocates for New Mexico’s economic diversification (like us at the Rio Grande Foundation) are optimistic that the Legislature will finally repeal tax pyramiding of the GRT and remove the biggest single barrier to economic growth in New Mexico. Read an excellent opinion piece about HB 367 from several business leaders here.

But, the same Legislature that MAY give us GRT reform is the very same Legislature that MAY pass SB 11, an awful new paid leave mandate. The Albuquerque Journal editorializes against that here.

The primary issues WE have with the paid leave proposal are its complexity, especially the burden on small businesses. We have no idea if the tax increases levied on businesses or their workers (the bill contains both) will be enough to fund the open-ended benefit. And, finally, the proposal will certainly not help to improve New Mexico’s abysmal workforce participation rate.

The next few weeks (and perhaps the Gov.’s veto pen) will decide what happens on both of these big issues.

As passed by the Senate, S.B. 42 would make New Mexico’s already objectionable donor reporting requirement for independent expenditures (IEs) even worse. The bill doubles down on a law the Rio Grande Foundation (RGF) is currently challenging in court for being unconstitutionally overbroad.

• Background and Ongoing Litigation. The existing law that RGF is challenging requires any organization that spends more than $3,000 on IEs in connection with a non-statewide race, or more than $9,000 on IEs in connection with a statewide race, to publicly report any source of “contributions” to the organization of more than $5,000 during an election cycle.

Importantly, IEs include not only election campaign ads, but also any messages that merely refer to a candidate within 30 days before a primary or within 60 days before a general election that are targeted “to the relevant electorate.” This includes messages asking elected officials to support or oppose legislation or take a stance on a policy issue.

• Chilled Speech. The existing law already chills organizations’ speech about issues. Donors give to their favored causes with the expectation of privacy, and nonprofits shouldn’t have to choose between speaking out about issues that are important to their mission and their supporters and violating those individuals’ privacy. This is especially so in an age of “cancel culture” when Americans can be targeted for retaliation based on the causes they support.
• Junk Disclosure. The existing law already results in junk disclosure by associating donors on public reports with messages they didn’t necessarily support or intend to fund. New Mexicans give to nonprofit causes for countless reasons and rarely give specifically for the purpose of paying for particular communications.
• An Attack on Personal Privacy. S.B. 42 doubles down on existing New Mexico law by replacing the word “contribution” in the statute with the word “donation.” Current law defines a “contribution” as funds given “for a political purpose.” Therefore, an argument could be made that an organization making IEs is only required to report donors who give “for a political purpose,” even though the context in which the existing law uses this term argues for a broader and general requirement to report all donors. S.B. 42 makes it explicit that donors who give for any purpose – not just “a political purpose” – are required to be reported if an organization makes IEs.

This makes no sense. While the IE reporting requirements purport to be aimed at organizations engaged in some political activities, S.B. 42 makes it clear that donors who give for no political purpose have to be identified on political activity reports. The intent of the bill seems to be to name and shame donors to organizations that speak out about policy issues and to deter those nonprofits from voicing their opinion in public debates.

• A Constitutional Quandary. If existing New Mexico law is held to be unconstitutional in the pending RGF litigation, S.B. 42 will be even more unconstitutional because it takes the existing law RGF is challenging and makes it worse. Even if the existing law is upheld, S.B. 42 may still be unconstitutional because it purports to require a broader scope of reporting than current law.
•