Liberty on the Rocks comes to Santa Fe on Monday September 23rd
09.17.2024
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Trump was targeted in a second assassination attempt over the weekend. Paul and Wally discuss the details as they understand them.
Brian Sanderoff polling data released shows Harris/Heinrich leading in New Mexico.
MLG names close ally Marianna Padilla PED secretary.,
Paul and Doug Peterson discuss Mayor Keller’s plans for downtown in ABQ Journal.
The housing market is “broken” thanks to government policy. Now the government is supposedly trying to “fix” the problem. Will it work?
When economics and sports meet. The Lobos’ Mountain West Conference lost four members. Will UNM athletics land on its feet? How does New Mexico’s economic situation affect the situation?
Sen. Martin Heinrich recently floated the idea of a “Inflation Reduction Act 2.0” in the ABQ Journal.
Former NMSU president Garrey Carruthers decries MLG’s meddling in NMSU presidential search.
It is hard to understand New Mexico voters. For nearly 100 years they have repeatedly chosen the Party that has led New Mexico to failure, but they show no signs of changing their ways. Worse, as we saw Kamala Harris replace Joe Biden just a few months ago, she has managed to build (as pollster Brian Sanderoff calls it “a comfortable lead” over Donald Trump) in the polls. Biden (or the Biden/Harris Administration to be clear), on the other hand (as another Sanderoff poll notes) is unpopular with a majority of New Mexicans.
Kamala Harris has outlined few policies of her own and has not provided detailed explanations on any policies of Biden’s with which she now claims to disagree. So, it is reasonable to believe that if elected Harris will be quite similar to Biden when it comes to governance. Sadly, for some New Mexicans, even thought they don’t like Biden or what Biden is offering they are likely to ask for more of the same failed policies in November.
That being said, only ONE vote matters and that process begins on October 19 with two weeks of early in person voting and concludes on Election Day Tuesday, November 5.
The following appeared in The Albuquerque Journal It was co-authored by Douglas Peterson of Peterson Properties and Paul Gessing of Rio Grande Foundation and appeared on Sep 14, 2024.
Albuquerque Mayor Tim Keller recently unveiled a plan — the latest of many such plans outlined by city officials over the years — that he believes will revitalize Downtown Albuquerque.
As the president of a think tank that offices Downtown and a major property owner Downtown, we, like all Albuquerque citizens, have a stake in improving Downtown.
The plan is based on two specific policies:
He wants to create a Downtown “tax increment financing” district, in New Mexico they’ve been called TIDDs.
Secondly, he wants to create a “Business Improvement District.”
Since neither of these are commonly understood concepts, here’s a brief primer.
A TIF or TIDD is a subsidy scheme that essentially allows tax revenues to be focused on the target area, in this case Downtown. Areas of town around the TIF are thus required to pay taxes to support basic government services for the TIF area as well. Allowing a TIF for Downtown would help Downtown, but it will hurt the rest of Albuquerque.
A business improvement district (BID) is a privately managed governance tool whereby property owners vote to agree to pay additional “taxes” in order to have some kind of private sector involvement that does things government can’t or won’t do. In Downtown this has typically meant cleaning up trash and provision of other supplemental services.
But Downtown Albuquerque’s needs are unlikely to be solved by either a TIF or a BID. Like much of the rest of the city, Downtown suffers from serious crime and vagrancy issues.
Can a BID address those issues? It is hard to say, but the market for office, retail and restaurant space in Downtown is soft to say the least. Downtown has not recovered from the COVID pandemic nor the 2020 riots and the uptick in crime and vagrancy.
Imposing new taxes on Downtown property owners without addressing crime and vagrancy is sheer folly, especially at a time when Bernalillo County Assessor Damian Lara, a former employee of Keller’s, has substantially raised property taxes on Downtown property owners by as much as 100% in some cases.
We believe that Mayor Keller could get tough on crime Downtown and elsewhere, but he has been in office for nearly eight years and hasn’t done so. Now he’s trying to foist additional costs onto Downtown without resolving to solve the problem.
Likewise, a TIF would funnel additional resources to Downtown Albuquerque, but in the absence of hiring more police and tougher enforcement of laws against public camping and vagrancy, more resources won’t really help Downtown. The former Downtown BID failed because it built a hierarchical, wasteful administration, including Keller fundraiser Brian Morris as the Executive Director, and spent more money throwing parties and holding nonsensical meetings than improving public safety.
While Downtown Albuquerque is certainly not alone in struggling to fill commercial space in a post-COVID environment, the governor and Legislature could do a great deal more to help. For starters, the Legislature and governor continue to benefit from massive oil and gas surpluses. While the state has socked away $54.7 billion for future use, Downtown Albuquerque is in crisis right now.
We don’t need a TIF or a BID. We need the Legislature and governor to get serious about diversifying New Mexico’s economy. Combined with a mayoral effort to seriously reduce crime and vagrancy, Downtown might be a more likely destination for business and economic activity.
That would increase property values and make Downtown a destination rather than a dangerous place people avoid.
We all should want a strong Downtown. Our city and state would benefit greatly from it. In any event, we stand ready to help.
Douglas Peterson is an attorney and president of Peterson Properties, the largest property owner in Downtown, as well as a two-time member of the former Downtown BID’s management agent, the “Downtown Action Team,” and the former chairman of the Albuquerque Environmental Planning Commission. Paul Gessing is president of Rio Grande Foundation, which is located Downtown.
For fans of the University of New Mexico Lobos this has been a tough week. Not due any losses on the field or court, but due to the loss of four teams (Boise State, San Diego State, Colorado State and Fresno State) from the Conference which puts UNM and other Mountain West Schools in a bind as they need to find a few schools to fill the void. More importantly, UNM missed out on being asked to join the “big time” of college sports while other schools they used to compete with are moving up to the historically prestigious PAC 12.
So, how is this connected with economic policies and the issues RGF works on in New Mexico? Let’s face it, college football drives all of college sports. College football is the financial driver of athletic departments. Therefore, all of this is being driven by a combination of money and football performance (including attendance and the like). UNM hasn’t been very good at football for several years. Albuquerque (and New Mexico as a whole) also doesn’t have the corporate community (and money) that is available in Boise, San Diego, or Colorado).
Fresno is a lot like Albuquerque economically although more agriculture based, but they have a stronger team that has a proven track record of developing NFL talent and of high football attendance. Was UNM every part of the conversation? How about UNLV from fast-growing, economically-dynamic Las Vegas (but with a football team that struggles on the field and with attendance)? It is hard to say.
One thing is for sure. If New Mexico (either the Aggies or the Lobos) wish to compete in football it will help to have a more robust and diversified state economy. With a booming oil and gas industry generating massive oil and gas surpluses perhaps those Lobos and Aggies in the Legislature (not to mention MLG who is a Lobo) perhaps “big time” college sports would be enough to convince them to embrace the need for fundamental tax reform, overall tax reduction, and economic diversification?
On this week’s interview Paul talks to David Osborne of the Pennsylvania-based Commonwealth Foundation. Osborne is Senior Fellow of Labor Policy and helped author the recent report “The Battle for Worker Freedom: Grading the 50-states public sector labor laws.” Unsurprisingly New Mexico does not fare very well in the report with a “D-” ranking overall.
Paul and David discuss the report, their views on public sector unions, and some history relating to public employee unions and recent policy developments. Check out this important conversation! You can see the map highlighting New Mexico’s results relative to the other 49 states below:
President Biden recently admitted that the Inflation Reduction Act was “really a climate change bill.” Other news outlets including PBS have regularly noted that “reducing inflation was not the point” of the bill in the first place. Instead, what we have is a costly and inefficient “green” boondoggle. In fact Goldman Sachs said the law will cost $1.2 TRILLION. That’s three times what Democrats have claimed.
With that, it is utterly unsurprising that not only did Sen. Martin Heinrich support the original legislation, but he has actually called for ANOTHER massive “green” spending bill similar to the IRA. He recently told the Albuquerque Journal,
An IRA 2.0.
That’s what Heinrich hopes for the future, “if we have the right stars align in Congress.”
“If you look at the IRA, it is really the culmination of the last 16 years of legislating.
Of course Heinrich’s own statement is an admission that the IRA had nothing to do with reducing inflation. The bill included a bunch of left-wing Democrat priorities that had been around for 16 years. Instead, the law is a grab bag of so-called “renewable” energy subsidies, EV charging stations (which have been extremely slow to roll out), and numerous other so-called “green” agenda items that Heinrich and the left have wanted for years.
Of course, Heinrich wants even more with a second version of the law because Heinrich’s TRUE constituency is the radical environmental groups and their aligned interests who suck up tax dollars while doing little (or worse) for the environment.
EV charging stations are often portrayed by the Biden/Harris Administration and Michelle Lujan Grisham as winning technology that make EV’s more accessible for all. In addition to subsidizing the cost of these stations this report from Socorro’s Defensor Chieftain newspaper highlights the long-term costs of EV charging stations that local governments must bear on their own. The problem is that electricity isn’t free and as it turns out, large amounts of electricity purchased at certain times can result in high costs being passed on to taxpayers (see end of this post).
As the article begins, “It was little more than a year ago when the City of Socorro’s past and future coincided as two electric vehicle charging stations were constructed near the city’s historic plaza.
However, the future of green-energy transportation has done nothing more than shortchange the city’s coffers. For every $1 the city brings in, the expense is $3.”
According to the article, here are the expenses for the two EV chargers in Socorro:
The transformer at the plaza had to be upgraded so it had enough capacity for the electricity required to run the charger, which incurred a $49,000 expense paid to the Socorro Electric Co-operative.
The city has spent just shy of $40,000 on the project. Plus, it had to pay $27,000 for a four-year service agreement with ChargePoint to run the charging stations in addition to replacing the road that was dug up, which cost an estimated $10,000.
City records indicate in a period of nine months, from November of 2023 to June of 2024, it has received a mere $10,649.07 from fees for the two charging stations.
During the same time frame, the city has paid more than $31,897.10 in expenses. Almost all the expense is electricity purchased from Socorro Electric Co-operative because of demand charges.
Sadly, it seems, even once EV charging stations are purchased and working (at taxpayer expense, of course) they continue to impose additional costs (possibly on local taxpayers).
So, there is a housing “shortage” and prices are rising. Enter government. Albuquerque recently enacted significant tax breaks on a few housing projects. Of course, if similar tax breaks were offered to ALL home/apartment construction that would immediately have a positive impact on housing availability. And, Kamala Harris has offered her own housing plan which also includes a variety of subsidies and some undefined ideas for increasing the housing supply.
These problems are created by various federal, state, and local policies. While everyone recognizes there is a problem, there is a clear lack of willingness to actually solve the root causes of the issues. Instead, the plan (to the extent there is one) appears to be to simply throw more money at housing and hope that solves it. The obvious solution is to reduce taxes and unnecessary regulations on housing construction, not just on “favored” projects, but on ALL housing.
In a move that COULD signal a shift to economic sanity (and legacy building) by Gov. Lujan Grisham as she heads into her “lame duck” legislative sessions the Gov. has picked Rob Black of the New Mexico Chamber of Commerce to head up her economic develop initiatives. Could this represent a change of heart and a tack toward the middle by Lujan Grisham in her last two years in office? Only time will tell. We at the Rio Grande Foundation have spent a great deal of time attempting to understand the Gov.’s approach over her 6 years in office without success.
Here are some thoughts:
Black is on a VERY short list of people respected by both RGF and the Gov. on economic issues;
As head of the NM Chamber Black has often opposed the Gov.’s (and the “progressives’”) policies including (most recently) paid family leave in 2024. This bill will come up in 2025. Will Rob change his views to support the Gov. or will he push back against this harmful policy?
Rob is aware of the myriad problems with the gross receipts tax and supports reform.
The New Mexico Chamber has been supportive of traditional energy sources like oil and gas. The Gov. likes the money, but attacks traditional energy sources at every turn. This dynamic will be fascinating to watch.
The Gov. and her “progressive” base in the Legislature are at odds in the wake of this summer’s special session. Even IF the Gov. has a change of heart on economic policy (as she seems to have on crime) that by no means guaranteed success on common-sense economic reforms in the Legislature.
Aside from the Mayor and his police chief judicial elections are probably the most important single way that citizens can demand accountability for out-of-control crime. Sadly, because of the way New Mexico judicial elections “work” New Mexicans have a hard time finding out which judges are worth keeping on the bench and which aren’t.
Cindy Leos is running for retention to Division IX of the New Mexico 2nd Judicial District Court (her district includes Albuquerque). If she fails to achieve 57% of the vote, she’ll be booted from the bench.
Here are some facts about Leos that should be concerning to voters:
19-year-old Jonathan Rosales was arrested along with 19-year-old Josiah Herrera and 18-year-old Bodhi Lamariana.
Prosecutors said an APD sergeant was on Menaul, heard gunshots, and started following the teens in a car. He then claimed one of them started shooting at him.
Judge Cindy Leos released Rosales, saying the evidence that Rosales was the one actually firing the gun is low, and he has no criminal history. He can’t have guns or post on social media about guns while he’s out.
Here’s a second incident involving Leos from the Albuquerque Journal:
Arthur Ruiz, 39, was arrested on Sept. 16. He was accused of sexually assaulting two of his daughter’s friends, ages 12 and 13, and giving them alcohol during a June 6 sleepover at his South Broadway home, court records show. “After a Sept. 22 hearing, Judge Cindy Leos rejected a prosecutor’s request to hold Ruiz in jail pending trial.”
In a third incident, according to KRQE Channel 13, A man accused of killing his wife earlier this year is now back on the streets, all because of a technicality in court. So how was this able to happen if he’s still facing murder charges? “The state was ready to proceed with that hearing but defense counsel was not ready to proceed and asked for a continuance.”
Instead, Leos let Jerome Gutierrez out of jail. Gutierrez is accused of beating his wife, Kristy Rivera, so badly, she was left brain dead. She was later taken off life support.
Finally, the New Mexico Judicial Performance Evaluation Commission which has a tendency of absolving the behavior of even the worst judges, had this to say about Judge Leos:
“Judge Cindy Leos’ scores were somewhat mixed when compared to the other judges in the 2nd Judicial District Court.” They went on to say, “attorneys and resource staff rated Judge Cindy Leos somewhat lower for not always treating all participants equally and for not always displaying fairness and impartiality toward each side of the case. Attorneys also gave her somewhat lower ratings for not always conducting herself in a manner free from impropriety or the appearance of impropriety. Lastly, resource staff felt that Judge Cindy Leos does not always behave in a manner that encourages respect for the courts.
Regardless of one’s views of abortion, the idea of spending tax dollars on it is rightly seen much differently. A 2023 poll found nationally that 60 percent of Americans including 38% of self-described pro-choice individuals opposed taxpayer dollars being used to fund abortion.
Of course, New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham doesn’t care much about using the State’s considerable budget surpluses effectively and she has proven her fealty to the most radical pro-abortion wing of the Democratic Party. Today, for example, she headed to Las Cruces to break ground on a $10 million taxpayer-financed abortion clinic. Sadly, while roads and other infrastructure need to be improved, the taxpayers of New Mexico are paying to build an abortion clinic primarily to “serve” Texans seeking abortions.
And, thanks to a RGF public records request, the Foundation found that the State of New Mexico is spending $500,000 (again of our tax dollars) to advertise and promote New Mexico’s pro-abortion laws among medical professionals in Texas. Other reports have cited a $400,000 price tag for the campaign, but at $499,967.27 the overall cost is MUCH closer to $500,000.
Policy area Paul Wally
Topics for Trump vs. Harris Trump/Harris Trump/Harris
COVID policy D/F C/D
Energy A/D A/D-
Government Spending D/F C-/D-
Free Trade D/D B/C-
Regulation A/F B+/D
Immigration C/F C+/F
Education A/F A/F
Supreme Court A/F B-/F
Censorship/Open Government A/F A/C
Rule of Law C/F A/F
MLG’s latest education secretary departs. Paul and Wally discuss the depressing reality of education policy under MLG.
I attended the APS state of the district address. Here’s what I saw.
Kamala Harris no longer claims to support EV mandates. Is she just lying about her policies at this point?
RGF tracked down the cost of Doña Ana County’s new EV charging stations.
RGF is hosting two upcoming events (one in Albuquerque and one in Clovis) on the electoral college/voting.
It was a deadly August in Albuquerque.
Paul saw the Reagan movie over the weekend and really enjoyed it.
We were told that this would be a record-setting hurricane season. Where are all the hurricanes? Also, this was supposed to be a bad monsoon season in New Mexico. So far that has not been the case.
Paul is heading to Ruidoso for a talk tonight. This will be his first time in Ruidoso since the fires this summer.
On September 3, 2024 RGF president Paul Gessing had the chance to travel to Ruidoso to speak to the Lincoln County GOP. Ruidoso remains one of the most beautiful and politically-conservative areas of our State. This was his first trip since the fires that hit the area earlier this summer. Here are some thoughts (and a few photos taken of the burn area).
The photos below were taken of a part of the burn area near the burned Swiss Chalet Inn.
While it will take some time for the people and the economy of Ruidoso to recover, it is a great part of our state with great people. It WILL recover.
At Rio Grande Foundation we are constantly looking for new ways to prevent data to highlight our free market, limited government perspective. Sometimes we use existing data sets and sometimes we find other sources online or in hard copy that highlight what we are talking about.
New Mexico has been a poor state for a long time. By that we mean the people of New Mexico. The State itself is quite wealthy. That difference is one reason why we advocate for tax cuts and reforms that will make New Mexico’s economy both better and more diversified. Along with long-needed education reforms like school choice, we believe that New Mexico CAN do so much better.
Of course, poverty is a real issue in New Mexico. We are consistently ranked as being among the poorest states in the nation, but we rarely rank as the very poorest. But the following chart from VisualCapitalist.com does exactly that. Based on a three year average of data from 2020, 2021, and 2022 and using US Census Bureau Data, New Mexico is ranked as THE poorest state in the US.
The following appeared in the Carlsbad Current Argus on October 31, 2024.
A plastic bag ban is currently being considered for adoption (possibly at the City Council meeting on September 10). While I’m sure the people supporting this plastic bag ban have the best of intentions, the problem with government mandates is that they often do not work as planned.
Plastic bag bans are a great example of a policy with unintended consequences. For starters, the State of New Jersey passed a law in 2020 banning single-use plastic and paper bags in all stores and food service businesses. The law took effect in May 2022
But, as a study by Freedonia Research found that while the total number of plastic bags did go down by more than 60 percent to 894 million bags, the alternative bags ended up having a much larger carbon footprint with the state’s consumption of plastic for bags spiking by a factor of nearly three. Plastic consumption went from 53 million pounds of plastic before the ban to 151 million pounds following the ban.
I don’t think this is the result anyone was hoping for. But New Jersey is not alone in having a plastic bag ban backfire with the result being more plastic waste, not less.
A similar thing happened in California. The left-wing Los Angeles Times editorial board recently highlighted the failure of California’s plastic bag ban. Not surprising is the fact that California banned single-use plastic grocery bags back in 2016, becoming the first state to adopt such a law.
But, as the Times noted in its editorial, “In 2014 California tossed about 157,385 tons of plastic bag waste into the trash. In 2022, plastic bags accounted for about 231,072 tons of trash. That’s nearly 50% more.”
So, we have two well-documented examples of plastic bag bans creating more waste than before. Is that what Carlsbad residents want?
There are other arguments that advocates of plastic bag bans often trot out. One is that plastic bags wind up in our water supply and ultimately the ocean. According to Scientific American, 10 rivers contribute 93% of the plastic trash that flows into the world’s oceans. None of those rivers are in North America or Europe. In fact, eight of them are in Asia and the other two are in Africa.
Banning plastic bags in Carlsbad, New Mexico will result in more plastic waste, not less, and it won’t reduce ocean plastic a bit. What it will do is unnecessarily make life more difficult for average citizens. It will also place conservative Carlsbad to the left of Albuquerque on public policy.
While several New Mexico cities do have plastic bag bans in place, the largest city in New Mexico does not. And in my home those thin plastic bags are not just thrown away, they are reused as trash can liners, to pick up pet waste, and for other odd jobs around the house.
Good public policy isn’t just about passing policies that feel good. Hopefully Carlsbad’s City Council will do some research for themselves and reject this harmful bag ban.
Paul Gessing is president of New Mexico’s Rio Grande Foundation, 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.
Price:
Before September 19, 2024: $20
On and after September 19, 2024: $25
Location:
Guadalajara Restaurant: 810 E 21st St, Suite 5, Clovis, NM 88101
Price:
Before September 19, 2024: $33-35
On and after September 19, 2024: $38-$40
Location:
Indian Pueblo Cultural Center: 2401 12th St NW, Albuquerque, NM 87104
Co-Sponsored by the New Mexico Federalist Society and Save Our States. This event is hosted at the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center in Albuquerque.
The Constitution creates a multi-step democratic process to elect the president and vice president–the Electoral College. It unifies, moderates, and protects American politics, and is part of what makes the United States a federal republic. Today, this system is threatened by a campaign to manipulate the Electoral College using an interstate compact. This “National Popular Vote” scheme threatens to create a constitutional crisis.
Join the Rio Grande Foundation, as we host Trent England, founder and executive director of Save Our States, as he discusses the importance of the Electoral College and what you can do to help safeguard the American republic.
On this week’s interview Paul interviews Dr. Patrick A. McLaughlin of the free market Mercatus Center. They discuss his new “Snapshots of State Regulation 2024” report which attempts to analyze the regulatory burdens in each state. New Mexico ranks 19th overall. We discuss the methodology of the report and why certain states have allowed regulations to build up. We also discuss how states can act to reduce overall regulatory burdens and their economic harms.
This September RGF’s president will be on the air across New Mexico on KCHF Channel 11 appearing on the show Issues and Answers with Diane Kinderwater to discuss issues facing New Mexico, it’s education system, and economy. You can watch over the air without cable or online here.
Here are the show times for the 30 minute program:
Tuesday September 3rd, 11:30pm
Thursday September 5th, at 4:30pm
Friday September 6th at 6:30pm
Saturday September 7th at 10:30pm
Sunday September 8th at 2pm and 11pm
Tuesday September 11th at 11:30pm
Doña Ana County recently announced that three new charging stations had been purchased by the County and were now open to users. Here are the costs of each charger as requested from the County.
The 865 Anthony Dr. station cost: $12,062.93
The 133 Franklin St. station in Hatch cost: $15,017.48.
The 845 N. Motel Blvd. station cost: $22,000.16.
The difference is likely due to variations in installation cost. Total cost of the three charging units is just under $50,000.
Remarks made by Jonathan Macias, Assistant County Manager for Doña Ana County were interesting as reported by KRWG):
Macias said that county leadership’s been advocating for expansion of the area’s renewable energy footprint, and while the new EV chargers are a piece of that, he said that gas powered vehicles aren’t going anywhere.
“There will always be a place for [the internal combustion engine], especially in our own fleet, where we need heavy duty vehicles, and the technology is just not there yet for full electrification. What it does mean is more option and choice and quite frankly, a lower operational cost that we hope to pass back on in the form of reduced operation costs that we’ll reprogram in our funding here at the county.”
Our friends at the free market Mercatus Center recently published a state-by-state report on regulations. Basically, they counted the number of regulations and determined which states had the most and which had the least. New Mexico came in 19th worst overall which is not as bad as usual, but not great either.
While going line-by-line through each regulation and repealing it is challenging and a non-starter, one solution tried in other states and introduced in New Mexico is called a “regulatory sandbox.” A bill to create such a “sandbox” was introduced by Democratic Rep. Meredith Dixon in 2023. HB 356 would have created the Technology Sandbox Act. The bill would have
provided temporary licensing waivers for individuals and businesses that propose an innovative use of blockchain technology. The bill required that applicants submit an application including a description of the service, consumer risks, a business plan, and the expertise of the applicant among other information. HB356 required the NMAG to evaluate the risk of any entity receiving a regulatory waiver, and required a participant to post a consumer protection bond as security for potential losses and damages suffered by consumers.
In other words, it provided regulatory relief for a specific industry with a few common-sense requirements. The idea being to bring more of that industry to New Mexico. As the Libertas Institute based in Utah notes: sandboxes can be universal and they can be industry-specific. Proposals have been introduced and passed in states all across the nation from the deepest blue to the reddest red.
In fact, in 2024, South Dakota Senator Mike Rounds and New Mexico Senator Martin Heinrich introduced a bill in Congress to establish a sandbox for the use of artificial intelligence in banking.
Needless to say, this is a concept of interest to people and elected officials from across the political spectrum. While all 112 legislators in New Mexico are up for election this fall, we will be working to bring the regulatory sandbox idea to New Mexico in 2025.
No matter your political views (and we are not fans), it appears that Michelle Lujan Grisham is not an easy person to work for. Sadly, but per the usual, New Mexico kids are the ones suffering.
We refer to the latest Secretary of Public Education Arsenio Romero’s abrupt departure from his job as New Mexico’s “education czar.” We know that Romero is in the running for president at New Mexico State University, but he doesn’t have the job yet. In fact, IF there is bad blood between him and the Gov. (seems like it) it could negatively impact his chances for that job.
What does this all mean? The Gov. who came in touting an “education moonshot” hasn’t just failed after 6 years in office, rather, New Mexico’s already-struggling schools have slipped further behind and are ranked dead last in the nation in most reports.
Meanwhile MLG pushes non-sensical policies like forcing 5-day school weeks into ALL districts statewide and having schools grow their own food onsite for student consumption. We don’t know where Romero’s heart really is on education policy, but I can’t imagine he believes these policies will move the needle on New Mexico’s education system. Meanwhile, of course, genuine school choice as experienced in thriving Arizona remains a dream for New Mexico students.
And, while RGF came away impressed by new APS superintendent Blakey, we recognize that New Mexico’s failures are system in nature and that it takes a lot more than one good super to turn even APS around, let alone the entire state.
Current Vice President and candidate for president Kamala Harris has flip-flopped on numerous important policy issues, but perhaps her biggest is that she “does not support EV mandates.” This is perhaps the biggest and most unbelievable policy change in American presidential history for reasons that will be outlined below:
IF Harris has suddenly seen the light, we applaud her, but we are skeptical for obvious reasons that she will actively work to overturn Biden’s EV policies.
