The leftist faculty at New Mexico’s largest university (UNM) are agitating for the school to “divest” itself from fossil fuels. RGF has PLENTY of issues with UNM, but we’ll just leave the following comments from a 2017 interview with the former president of the school Chaouki Abdallah, “UNM has these spires of excellence, best in the world or top five, but like everything else around this state, the average is bad because you have to make sure everyone is taken care of.”

“Our higher ed spending is more than most other states; the trouble is we don’t spend it wisely and (we) spread it across so many entities. We do need a plan.”

While divesting from oil and gas is more symbol than substance, what if New Mexico’s oil and gas revenues were “divested” from UNM? According to a report from the New Mexico Oil and Gas Association, UNM (just main campus) received $205,157,300 in FY 20 with the oil and gas industry providing about 1/3rd of that or $68,727,696.

Set aside all the ways in which UNM works to both directly (divestment) and indirectly (global warming hysteria and left wing indoctrination) undermine its largest source of revenue, New Mexico’s higher education system needs serious reform.

The Albuquerque Journal will hopefully include some follow-up on its recent report on literacy which left out ANY realistic discussion of the school system in New Mexico.

But, at the Rio Grande Foundation we are serious about finding ways to improve educational outcomes and a state that many New Mexicans use to say New Mexico is NOT at the “bottom of the barrel” is Mississippi. Well, as it would happen, Mississippi is leaving New Mexico in the dust when it comes to arguably the most important literacy measure, 4th grade reading scores. You can see the comparison of NAEP scores for the two states below:

What is happening to dramatically improve outcomes in Mississippi schools? For starters they are focusing on it, but this article which discusses the fact that North Carolina is considering adopting reforms from Mississippi provides evidence that Mississippi’s success is turning some heads.

Finally, here are the details on Mississippi’s “LETR’s” system of reading education.

The Albuquerque Journal ran two stories on Sunday and one in today’s (Monday’s) paper about New Mexico’s literacy (really illiteracy) problem. On one hand this is exactly the kind of in-depth reporting that make daily newspapers like the Journal useful, but on the other hand the actual reporting is also what makes the media in general so frustrating.

Three stories in and there is

• No significant discussion of New Mexico’s troubled school system.
• Also, no discussion has been included at this point of Gov. Susana Martinez’s efforts to eliminate social promotion of 3rd graders who can’t read or the unions’ (successful) fight to stop that policy from being imposed.
• Nothing addressing how New Mexico’s unions fought to keep students out of classrooms over the past year and the potential impacts of THAT on New Mexico literacy levels;

Yes, New Mexico faces challenges in improving literacy, but ALL states face challenges. I sincerely hope the ABQ Journal looks at what other states are doing to (successfully) improve literacy outcomes.

The following is a press release from the New Mexico chapter of the Associated Builders and Contractors.  The Rio Grande Foundation was vehemently opposed to the County’s adoption of the rule.

The Associated Builders and Contractors of New Mexico is among plaintiffs filing suit challenging Bernalillo County’s community workforce agreement ordinance which would require local contractors to execute a Project Labor Agreement, as a condition of winning taxpayer funded public works construction contracts that exceed $7 million.

This corrupt ordinance requires contractors to employ union labor or force employees to become dues-paying union members. It also compels contractors to pay into a union pension and healthcare fund while working on a county construction project. “

This scheme is a handout for organized labor forced upon our construction community and workforce, more than 90% of which chooses not to join a union.” said ABC New Mexico President & CEO, Carla Kugler. “Employees will never see the benefits of this ordinance unless they stay unionized.” “Mandating PLAs is nonsense, discriminates against non-union firms and workers and is anti-competitive, unfair and a violation of state and federal law.”

Bottom Line: The county’s community workforce agreement rigs the bidding process for New Mexico’s construction community by violating the fundamental rights of contractors, subcontractors, and their employees under the first and fourteenth amendments and the National Labor Relations Act.

Project labor agreements drive up the costs for construction projects. Studies of government mandated PLAs in California, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, and Ohio found that PLAs increased the costs on non-federal projects funded by federal, state, and local tax dollars perhaps more than 20% per project, needlessly cost hardworking taxpayers. Twenty-four states have outlawed or restricted government-mandated PLAs, ensuring fair and open competition on taxpayer-funded projects and ultimately resulting in savings to taxpayers and more opportunities and jobs for all qualified local small businesses, minorities, and women in the construction
industry.

The lawsuit seeks to permanently prohibit the county from enforcing its community workforce agreement. Associated Builders and Contractors is a national construction industry trade association representing more than 21,000 members. Founded on the merit shop philosophy to provide
equal opportunities to all contractors and workers. ABC works to help employer members develop people, win work and deliver that work safely, ethically and profitability for the betterment of the communities in which ABC and its members work.

The COVID rules imposed by the Centers for Disease Control and State of New Mexico continue to evolve rapidly regardless of the science, but again there has been a major change to the rules. Now, according to the latest rules, masks have been dropped as a requirement for fully vaccinated people. This is for indoors as well as outdoors. Gov. Lujan Grisham has adhered to these new guidelines.

This is mostly good news, but there are a few problems:

1. Children are STILL required to wear masks because most of them have not been vaccinated and the vaccines have not been approved for children. This is hugely problematic and will require pushback from parents and school officials, especially non-public schools;
2. For no reason whatsoever the FAA (and other public transportation modes) are continuing to require masks;
3. Many businesses, especially major corporations, will likely attempt to keep mask mandates in place.

On this week’s interview, Paul talks to Charles Sullivan. Sullivan is a New Mexico-based retired attorney and writer at the popular political website American Thinker. You can read some of Sullivan’s articles here.

A fast-growing list of Republican-led states are saying “thanks, but no thanks” to the Biden Administration’s misguided unemployment supplement.

According to CNBC the list is now 14 states that have rejected the additional unemployment money which Rio Grande Foundation and others have argued is keeping Americans from rejoining the workforce.

The states include Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, North Dakota, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah and Wyoming.

A separate article from the UK Daily Mail had fantastic data but it became outdated based on the number of states continuing to grow rapidly.

The overall article is fantastic with numerous details on the economic harm of paying people to stay home and not work. While it will be a long time (never) before New Mexico’s leftist governor rejects what she considers “free” money, the number of conservative-led states is growing and it would seem that several Republican-led governors could still take action.

As has been widely-reported, New Mexico businesses cannot fill jobs while the State continues to have the 3rd-highest unemployment rate in the nation.

According to the Daily Mail the average U.S. salary for an individual in 2019 was $31,133. This means the average Americans could earn more money in coronavirus-era benefits instead of going back to work.  The following chart from the piece does a great job of illustrating how attractive staying on unemployment with the $300 supplement is relative to other options:

The following is from political commentator Joe Monahan as pertains to statements that Democrat Melanie Stansbury made in relation to military spending and the potential impact on New Mexico.

The following statements are all true:

1. Stansbury didn’t actually answer the question;
2. From an economic perspective the size and spending at New Mexico’s national labs is unnecessary and unsustainable and ultimately sucks necessary resources and talent away from New Mexico’s relatively tiny private sector;
3. Stating as such is poison for political candidates of both parties who universally agree that already federally-reliant New Mexico should receive even more money from Washington.

On this week’s podcast conversation, Paul and Wally discuss the latest revisions MLG has made to her emergency orders.

While nearly all counties are in Turquoise, Chaves County remains in the yellow for some hard-to-understand reason.

The disappointing national jobs report and rise in unemployment appears to have been caused by President Biden’s overly-generous extended unemployment benefits.

New Mexico’s unemployment rate is 8.3% which is the third-highest in the nation, but businesses are having real issues finding workers. To her credit, Gov. Lujan Grisham has reinstated a requirement that those on unemployment actually search for a job as a condition of receiving unemployment benefits. But, Montana and South Carolina are really tackling the issue by eliminating the added unemployment benefits. Montana is giving workers a bonus after they keep a job for 4 weeks. 

New Mexico oil and gas royalties set a monthly record on STATE lands.

According to a Bloomberg piece, the US will need a lot of land for Biden’s zero-carbon economy. Already government policies vastly inflate the amount of land needed for energy production.

In a shorter (10 minutes) adendum podcast Larry Behrens is head of Power the Future New Mexico. Paul and Larry discuss Gov. Lujan Grisham’s planned ozone restrictions which target the oil and gas industry in NM.

As RGF has noted recently, Gov. Lujan Grisham and other New Mexico Democrats perform a daily “balancing act” between their left-wing base which opposes oil and gas outright and economic reality which is that New Mexico is heavily-dependent on the Industry for jobs and tax revenues.

The Gov. recently outlined new rules regulating ozone which can be a pollutant at high levels. Details of those rules can be found here. These rules, if adopted, are just the latest means of imposing new regulations on the Industry, but are they needed? How bad is the ozone problem in New Mexico and specifically in the oil and gas regions of our State?

According to the American Lung Association, New Mexico’s oil patch is nowhere to be found among the 25 most-polluted areas of the US when it comes to ozone (Las Cruces is considered part of the El Paso region):

Furthermore, according to other data from the Lung Association, Doña Ana County actually has by far the highest number of high ozone days of any area of New Mexico. That part of the State produces no oil and gas and is not downwind of production.

Nationwide ozone as an environmental problem appears to be on the decline. According to the US EPA ozone in urban areas has declined dramatically over the last two decades:

Furthermore, with most of New Mexico’s oil and gas industry in rural areas, the EPA finds that ozone has declined even farther from a lower starting point:

Public comment is not open yet.

New Mexico’s counties are required to provide various public records. Unfortunately the process of requesting many of those records is onerous. That’s where the Rio Grande Foundation comes in.

We have requested, received, and published public payroll records and contracts for New Mexico counties. You can find that information here.

To their credit the following counties publish payrolls and other information online to be accessed by the public at any time:

Bernalillo County

Sandoval County

Santa Fe 

Over the winter the RGF took a drive through various “scenic” areas of Albuquerque. The short clip below is what you might see on a typical commute into downtown.

The Rio Grande Foundation is happy to see Gov. MLG (finally) moving to reopen New Mexico by bringing more counties into the Turquoise (most free) level in her recently-released framework. But we have never bought into her concept and consider the data below one of the reasons why.

The Gov.’s framework is based on three basic data sets outlined below. Broadly speaking, for the first two (case rate and positivity) lower is better while a higher vaccination rate is better.

But, to indicate how senseless the entire system is, take a look at the three real-world counties below. Two of the three are “turquoise” while one of them is “yellow.” Which one is it? Does it make any sense whatsoever? We say no and explain below.

Check out the actual county data cut-and-pasted below. We don’t want ANY New Mexico county to be in a more restrictive category. In fact, we STRONGLY believe that Gov. Lujan Grisham should end the emergency order IMMEDIATELY. But, the data presented below (and above) show Roosevelt County (Portales area) to be in the least restrictive turquoise category while Chaves County (Roswell) is performing better on all three metrics and yet remains in yellow.

San Juan County (Farmington area), also in turquoise, has much higher case rates and test positivity, but does have a higher vaccination rate. What is driving the disparity? Who knows? It is hard to make sense out of a senseless system.

Recently the US Census Bureau published data on a variety of population issues. New Mexico’s Legislative Finance Committee apparently received the data early and had a paper with further analysis ready to go upon the Bureau’s release.

I have included a few charts from the paper below with additional commentary. Most notably New Mexico’s population growth grew quite slowly compared to its neighbors and even trailed the US as a whole. The growth among various population groups is curious. The number of children and young people declined over the past decade, but saw some growth in the 25-44 year old age group. But, the number of 45-64 year olds who also tend to be at the peak of their earning potential and thus pay the highest taxes, declined. Not surprisingly New Mexico’s 65+ population grew faster than any other group by far.  Curiously, and unsurprisingly, migration to New Mexico was negative during the last decade. This is especially concerning because it shows that for all of its physical beauty and cultural uniqueness, New Mexico is not considered an attractive place to live by those who can choose to live anywhere in the US.  Perhaps, one of the problems is that New Mexico struggles with high poverty rates? More troubling is the fact that New Mexico’s high poverty levels didn’t improve much over the last decade. 

On this week’s interview, Paul sits down with Ana Garner a New Mexico-based attorney with NM Stands Up! Garner and Gessing discuss the need for change in the way Gov. Lujan Grisham has controlled the State and its response to COVID 19.

• MLG completely revamps her emergency orders. Overall, the situation is much better. Moving to full opening by late June depending on vaccination progress; Youth sports outdoors.
• Mask mandate changes. More to come?
• On May 1^stafter being closed for more than 1 month, New Mexico golf courses reopened.
• Fallout for New Mexico census, LFC report.
• Passing the buck for NM’s slow population growth.
• Stansbury tells Channel 4 the economy is her “number one issue” yet voted consistently for higher taxes.
• APS enrollment continues to plummet, yet money is not an issue at APS.
• Breaking: In a major economic shot in the arm for New Mexico, Intel will invest $3.5 billion and hire 700 permanent workers for its Rio Rancho plant.
• The Gov. says she will “incentivize” people to go back to work. RGF on KOAT 7 discussing why people aren’t getting back to work despite NM’s elevated unemployment rate.

The following appeared at National Review on May 4, 2021.

Nancy Pelosi’s majority in the House of Representatives continues to shrink. The recent swearing-in of Republican Julia Letlow of Louisiana has taken the House Democrats’ majority down to 218–212. This means that Pelosi has a mere two-vote governing majority with which to push the Biden administration’s big-government agenda.

The GOP will soon have another chance to reduce Pelosi’s margin for error when voters in New Mexico’s first congressional district (which includes Albuquerque and its environs) go to the polls to elect a replacement for Biden’s newly minted secretary of the Interior, Deb Haaland, a Democrat. Early voting begins today, while Election Day itself is June 1.

The district is classified by many in the national media as a “blue” district that should safely remain in Democratic hands, and as recently as November 2020, Haaland defeated Republican challenger Michelle Garcia Holmes by an overwhelming 58–42 percent margin. The seat was previously held by New Mexico’s current Democratic governor Michelle Lujan Grisham, and before that, now–senator Martin Heinrich, also a Democrat.

But Republicans have faced challenges in candidate recruitment in recent years in this congressional district. The last time they had a truly top-notch challenger was in 2010, when Jon Barela lost just 52–48 to Martin Heinrich, and in 2009 Heather Wilson, a Republican, held the seat, having done so for a decade. With this race being the sole topic of a special election and so much at stake in Washington, this could be a much more interesting contest than outsiders expect.

The candidates to replace Haaland could not be more different. While there is a serious independent contender and the Libertarians technically have major-party status, the Republican and Democrat contenders are state legislators with long histories of voting on important policy issues. Republican senator Mark Moores has been in the New Mexico Senate since 2013. In addition to his prior experience as a staffer for various Republican officeholders Moores played offensive line for the University of New Mexico Lobos.

Melanie Stansbury, on the other hand, was unknown in the state until she ran for the New Mexico house in 2018. Her prior political experience was in the Obama administration’s Office of Management and Budget.

The legislative track records of these two candidates are also drastically different. For starters, Stansbury strongly believes that New Mexicans should have their tax burdens increased rather dramatically.

In 2019, she voted for HB 6, which subsequently became law. Among other provisions, the bill increased taxes on auto sales, imposed taxes on Internet purchases, and increased New Mexico’s personal income tax. Ironically, this tax hike took New Mexico’s top personal income-tax rate from 4.9 percent (set by former Democratic governor Bill Richardson and the Democrat-controlled legislature) and brought it up to 5.9 percent. Moores voted against the tax hike, but it was subsequently signed into law by Governor Lujan Grisham, despite the state having a surplus in excess of $1 billion at the time.

In their most recent legislative session, the New Mexico legislature was back to raising taxes, and Stansbury was more than happy to go along. Despite the COVID-19 pandemic and a state unemployment rate that remains among the worst in the nation, the combined forces of New Mexico’s resurgent oil and gas industry and the massive economic stimuli out of Washington again put the New Mexico budget comfortably in surplus territory.

Nonetheless, Stansbury and other Democrats in New Mexico’s legislature voted for and passed numerous tax hikes. HB 122, which failed after House approval, was subsequently folded into SB 317 and ultimately signed into law. Stansbury voted for the bills both times. The bills increase a tax imposed by the state on health-insurance premiums from 1 percent to 3.75 percent — a tax increase of 275 percent. Moores voted against the tax hike.

As if that were not enough to illustrate the stark difference between these candidates, Stansbury joined her Democratic colleagues in the New Mexico House to push even more egregious tax legislation in the form of HB 291. This bill which passed the House with Stansbury’s support would have again increased New Mexico’s personal income tax, this time to 6.5 percent, but (more problematically) would have revised the state’s personal income-tax structure to make the higher tax rates kick in at much lower income levels than under current law.

On top of this, the proposal Stansbury endorsed would have allowed property-tax assessments to increase by up to 10 percent annually if the property was not occupied by the owner. The current cap in New Mexico limits annual increases to the already-substantial rate of 3 percent per year. The measure was intended to target Texans with second homes in New Mexico, but it would have applied to apartment and condo dwellers as well.

Fortunately for New Mexicans, cooler heads prevailed in the (also Democrat-controlled) Senate Finance Committee, which eliminated the tax hikes from HB 291 before the bill passed into law.

These are just the tax hikes endorsed by Stansbury in her three short years in the New Mexico legislature. During her time in office, she has voted to ban local governments from enacting “Right to Work” laws on the local level, and she voted for New Mexico to abandon the Electoral College, saying instead that it should dedicate its five electoral votes to whatever candidate won the popular vote. The latter would have dramatically diminished what influence small-population New Mexico has in presidential races for no benefit aside from her ideology.

Stansbury is a true big-government radical. Her advocacy of big government in the New Mexico legislature places her to the left of Nancy Pelosi. At a time when every race matters in a closely divided U.S. House, conservatives cannot ignore this special election in a “blue” but winnable district.

The Rio Grande Foundation and New Mexico Business Coalition are among the  organizations that have raised the alarm about “enhanced” unemployment benefits and how they are a big factor making it less attractive for workers to find employment than to remain out of the work force.

Albuquerque Mayor Tim Keller recently said that the City would “hold jobs for people until their unemployment runs out.”

You can see a story Channel 7 KOAT TV did on the issue below:

On this week’s podcast interview Paul sits down with David Clements. A libertarian-leaning law professor at New Mexico State University, David once ran for US Senate as a Republican, but he (like Paul) was not necessarily a fan of President Trump in his run for the White House in 2016.

Clements not only had a change of heart during Trump’s time in office, but he has actively engaged in tracking down many problems and issues with the 2020 election. David has also spoken out publicly against “critical race theory” and efforts to stifle free speech in the halls of academia. Don’t miss this timely and informative interview! You can find out more about David and his numerous interviews and discussions at: https://www.theprofessorsrecord.com.

Golf was always a safe activity throughout COVID 19. We said as much in EARLY April of 2020. That didn’t stop Gov. Lujan Grisham from shutting courses down on March 20, 2020 and again shutting them down for two weeks in November.

The truth is outdoor activities were NEVER dangerous and scientists have acknowledged that.

The picture below was taken on May 1, 2020 at Paradise Hills Golf Course. Unfortunately, even under the Gov.’s latest orders (unless they change) when my daughter attends a golf camp this summer she’ll be forced to wear a mask OUTSIDE. Of course, golf is a relatively low-impact sport, other student athletes like cross country runners will continue to face mask requirements for no good reason. Gov. Lujan Grisham CONTINUES to not follow the science.

KOB TV Channel 4’s Chris Ramirez recently sat down with CD 1 Congressional candidate Melanie Stansbury. Interestingly enough she says that turning around New Mexico’s economy is a top priority. Set aside what she can do about this issue,  it is hard to square her economic concerns with her votes in the New Mexico Legislature.

See the postcards below, but note that she voted for a major tax hike (HB 6) in 2019  and  three times in 2021 including TWICE for a tax hike on health insurance in 2021: HB 122 and SB 317 and HB 291 which would have raised income taxes and allowed for massive property tax hikes.

• Name
•  Email address
•  Phone number
• Address
• Preferred mode of communication (email, text, phone call)
• Brief note describing your situation (age of child affected, anything you want to add about what transpired, etc)

—

Sarah Smith

Las Cruces, NM

New Mexico Freedoms Alliance

Free People of the Southwest

Gov. Lujan Grisham has AGAIN altered her deeply-flawed COVID reopening plans. The good news is that she has  “liberalized” the county rules so most counties will be in green or turquoise by this Friday. Also, masks will no longer be required outdoors which is a good thing.

Finally, the state will lift most restrictions, including capacity restrictions, when it hits 60 percent of those age 16 or older who are vaccinated, which the state projects will happen by the end of June.

NM is maintaining it’s requirement for masks during youth sports specifically because children are not eligible to be vaccinated. That’s an abomination.

This is mostly good news, but the fact that we’ve seen yet another massive change to the playing field is a pretty strong indicator that science is not driving the process. Of course we knew that already, but it is important to know and remind people that the new rules are just as arbitrary as the old ones, even if the new ones are a bit better.

For better or worse the virus itself is no longer the issue. The Gov. is pushing vaccination.

The list of awful New Mexico legislators is a long one. You can find more about Rep. McQueen and his big-government voting record here.

When the House GOP took to Twitter to rightfully point out that New Mexico remains a donut hole of bad economic policy in the American Southwest, Rep. McQueen responded with a Tweet of his own blaming none other than Susana Martinez for the last decade’s failings. Of course, New Mexico ALSO has one of the highest unemployment rates in the US. I’m sure Susana Martinez can be blamed for that as well.

McQueen is a sitting member of the New Mexico House. Does he not know who makes the laws in our State? (Hint, it’s the Legislature).

I wonder who was Governor most of the last decade? 🤔 pic.twitter.com/WTdFepdMgN

— Matthew McQueen (@mcqueenfornm) April 28, 2021