On Thursday June 3rd, Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham held her reelection announcement at the Albuquerque Museum. She was met by protesters fed up with her extreme agenda.

Acknowledging the presence of the protestors she said, “I just have to say I’m sorry that we picked the same location that the QAnon lizard people meeting was at.”

Grisham, who officially launched her re-election campaign, acknowledges the noise:

“I’m sorry that we picked the same location that the QAnon lizard people meeting was at.” #NMGov pic.twitter.com/h5YP9pIs5M

— aaron navarro (@aaronlarnavarro) June 4, 2021

In response, the Rio Grande Foundation has the following statement for the governor: “Do not tread on us.”

James Yodice the sports reporter from the Albuquerque Journal has done all New Mexicans a favor with his recent article on the ongoing State mandate that young people, especially student athletes, must wear masks during competition.

Ironically, while Dr. Anthony Fauci’s emails from early in the pandemic question the very effectiveness of masks (while Fauci has changed his position, the scientific evidence on masks remains mixed at best). When asked for comment by Yodice, the Lujan Grisham Administration’s spokesperson fell back on vaccination rates (as they have done repeatedly with state reopening overall).

“In the Department of Health’s view, not enough kids are vaccinated yet,” said spokesman Tripp Stelnicki. “We’re certainly making progress. But we’re not at the point where they feel comfortable removing that requirement.”

Stelnicki  went on to say that “The DOH and the governor’s office are working on a plan to tie vaccinations, vaccination rates among teens and schools or districts to a (change) that would remove the mask requirement before the season ends.”

Of course, this completely ignores individual choice on the matter, the fact that young people are not really susceptible to the Virus, the lack of outdoor spread of the Virus, and the potential negatives associated with wearing a mask during a strenuous workout.

Of course, while summer has just begun and most State-sponsored sports are nearing conclusion, this battle is going to arise again both in terms of classroom masking during the school day as well as in athletics which are right around the corner this fall.

This article first appeared in The Center Square on June 4th, 2021.

Anthony Fauci’s emails have been released, and they tell an interesting tale about the government’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. One particular email stood out to me from Fauci to Sylvia Burwell discussing masks.

Within the body of the email, Fauci asserts that the use of masks in a public setting is generally to prevent infected individuals from spreading a virus. More specifically, he writes that the “typical mask you buy in the drug store is not really effective in keeping out virus, which is small enough to pass through the material.” This email was sent on February 5, 2020.

If the drug-store masks are ineffective, why were they forced on the general population for over a year? Did masks help contain the spread of COVID-19 at all? What else do we not know?

But I’m not here to argue about the efficacy of masks and Fauci’s handling of the pandemic. I’m here to emphasize the importance of why we are able to have this discussion today: open government and transparency.

Without access to these documents, the country might not have ever known to ask these questions. This is significant as we can analyze the events in early 2020 in a new light. Most importantly, we can hold individuals accountable if they recommended policies that were known not to be effective.

Here in New Mexico, we have a different ongoing dilemma, one that is also rooted in transparency. Thanks to the initial efforts of Searchlight New Mexico, the additional whistleblowers that have come forward since the initial Searchlight report, and some well-timed public records requests submitted by yours truly, we know that Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham and her administration are still actively depriving the people of New Mexico access to public documents through permanent and automatic deletion.

In January of this year, a directive from the governor’s office was implemented by the New Mexico Department of Information Technology: delete all messages after 24 hours. This directive came before the governor’s press secretary acknowledged the use of a creative new term: “transitory.”

The deleted messages were broadly considered “transitory” in nature, a definition that has already been debunked in the context of transparency and is not a qualified exception under the Inspection of Public Records Act (IPRA), New Mexico’s government transparency law.

“Transitory” messages have been unofficially described as “employee banter, routine check-ins between workers and other insignificant exchanges.” The rub is that they’re all public documents and subject to inspection requests, regardless of whatever “transitory” qualification they try to apply.

Fauci could have used the same term to describe his seemingly innocuous email to Burwell about masks. What if Fauci had deleted that email because it was “just transitory”?

All this and the responses from Michelle Lujan Grisham’s office that there are “no records responsive to your request” underlines a seriously dangerous trend and contemptuous attitude within the Governor’s administration. The widespread and systematic “paper shredder” policy is nothing short of criminal.

New Mexico’s Attorney General agrees: “public bodies acquiring information should keep in mind that the records they keep generally are subject to public inspection.”

The governor’s press secretary Nora Sackett said that the governor takes transparency and open government “very seriously.” If that’s true, then Michelle Lujan Grisham’s administration and all New Mexico state agencies should shed their cloaks of secrecy and immediately stop the destruction of public documents.

This is a clear assault on the people’s ability to keep a watchful eye on their elected government and should be alarming to everyone, especially those who care for our democracy.

And remember, democracy dies in darkness.

Since Republican Governor’s across the nation started to refuse the Biden (and Congressional Democrats’) over-generous unemployment benefits, many in the media have claimed that the efforts of GOP governors to get people back to work by ending that disincentive were merely “playing politics.”

You can see those states which (of course) do not include New Mexico below. Interestingly, I found the following nugget from the usually hyper-partisan Catherine Rampell at the Washington Post. To be fair, she actually quotes from a recent working paper from the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.

They estimated that in “each month in early 2021, about seven out of 28 unemployed individuals receive job offers that they would normally accept, but one of the seven decides to decline the offer due to the availability of the extra $300 per week in [unemployment] payments.”

So,  if New Mexico were to reject the “Biden stimulus” and 1 of these 7 workers were to take a job they wouldn’t have EVERY MONTH, New Mexico would put a pretty good dent in its 3rd-highest-in-the-nation 8.2% unemployment rate.

On this week’s interview, Paul sits down with the Foundation’s own Patrick Brenner. Aside from being the organization’s Vice President of Development, Patrick handles a wide variety of open government and transparency issues for the Foundation. Patrick and Paul discuss the unfolding scandal at New Mexico’s Children Youth, and Families Department (CYFD) which involves the destruction of public records and the firing of whistleblowers at CYFD.

In a nod toward limited government not seen since the early days of Albuquerque Mayor Keller’s Administration when he attempted to stop overly-generous subsidies for TopGolf, Mayor Keller has vetoed legislation passed by Albuquerque’s City Council that would have put a brand new gas tax on Albuquerque ballots in November of 2022.

RGF has long opposed the addition of a gas tax to local tax burdens, it is our hope that this will put an end to the nonsense once and for all. Kudos and thank you to Mayor Keller.

As Covid continues to recede as an issue along with the lockdowns, the main remaining issue is masking children. The excellent tracking site at Burbio shows who is requiring masks for kids and who isn’t. New Mexico remains among the more stringent states.

The New Mexico Legislature allocated additional money this session to give local school districts money to extend their school years. A significant number of districts (thanks to pressure from parents and families) have opted out. Paul and Wally discuss what could be causing this.

Paul briefly mentions a scandal involving CYFD. Here and here are recent articles discussing the issue from RGF’s perspective.

The City of ABQ is set to reinstate its plastic bag ban on August 1.

Finally, based on a report from Bloomberg which says that Western states could be suffering from electricity blackouts THIS summer, Paul is concerned about the reliability of New Mexico’s power grid. Of course, with San Juan Generating Station scheduled to be decommissioned in ONE year, Paul is even more worried about future summers. Paul and Wally discuss and attempt to figure out when we’ll know if the plan to save San Juan via carbon sequestration will move forward.

The Rio Grande Foundation has long been concerned with the “one-size-fits-all” restrictive approach of the federal government when it comes to federal lands. While New Mexico continues to be impacted economically by the Biden Administration’s moratorium on federal leasing permits, federal control has reared its ugly head here in the Albuquerque metro area as well.

The latest issue is something so simple that it should never be an issue, but it involves the permanent cancellation of the La Luz trail race up the Sandias. The event was canceled because commercial activities are expressly prohibited in Wilderness areas. That may seem reasonable, but a trail race with paid participants is hardly the same as putting a McDonald’s in the middle of a Wilderness area.

Of course, radical environmentalists have eagerly stepped up to defend the decision because they simply don’t care about people and their interaction with nature. Rather, to an increasing number of enviros, the only way to truly preserve nature is to put up a big sign saying, “stay out.”

To be sure, Deb Haaland as Secretary of Interior has incredible power here and New Mexico’s “green” Congressional delegation including Martin Heinrich said  they are “working on it,” but it seems this “fun” race (if running up a mountain is your idea of fun) has gone away for good.

On this week’s interview, Paul gets (now) former KOB TV reporter Patrick Hayes on the other side of the microphone for a conversation about the inner workings of New Mexico’s media.

Patrick recently took a reporting job in Phoenix, but before he left the two sat down to discuss how the media works right here in New Mexico, how decisions are made regarding what to cover, and how average New Mexicans with a story to tell or information to provide can get their message out.

While we will definitely miss Patrick and his excellent reporting, you also won’t want to miss this informative interview.

The results of the special election to replace Deb Haaland in Congressional District 1 are in and Melanie Stansbury didn’t just win, she blew Mark Moores out of the water winning 60% to 36%.

Here are a few takeaways from the results:

1. In its current form, CD 1 is now a safe “progressive” seat for Democrats. They can run anyone they want and have as left-leaning views as they want and win comfortably.
2. Albuquerque Mayor Tim Keller who faces re-election this fall must be pleased by the results knowing that crime and the “progressive” response to Albuquerque’s serious crime problems didn’t do much to help Mark Moores.
3. With redistricting coming up later this summer, it would seem that Democrats in the Legislature might consider taking some of CD1’s more left-leaning areas and moving them into CD2 in order to make things more difficult for Yvette Herrell, New Mexico’s lone Republican in Congress.
4. Traditionally the GOP has had an advantage in low-turnout elections with more consistent voters turning out to vote for Republican candidates, but that advantage became a disadvantage in the Moores v. Stansbury race. Moores received 46,977 votes (36% of the total) this year. In 2020 Michelle Garcia Holmes received 134,337 votes (42% of the total). Achieving that kind of turnout in a special election is simply not going to happen, but it doesn’t seem like the GOP ground game was very effective.
5. While the Moores campaign will undoubtedly be criticized for its shortcomings, he is THE ONLY Republican in the Legislature to successfully hold a seat in the City of Albuquerque. He DOES know how to win elections in this City.

What to make of the proposed purchase of PNM by Avangrid? As has been well-documented, the Rio Grande Foundation remains steadfastly opposed to the Energy Transition Act and the headlong effort to make New Mexico’s electricity generation system “zero carbon.”

Sherman McCorkle, a prominent voice in the local business community recently penned an article for the Albuquerque Journal in which he made the case that Avangrid’s purchase of PNM could be a boon for the local and state economies. Of course others, mostly hailing from Maine, have a much dimmer view of Avangrid and its likely impact on New Mexico. A state rep. from Maine is one of many who decried Avangrid’s customer service and cited billing problems as reasons to oppose the merger.

It’s hard to say what Avangrid’s customer service will be like and we certainly hope that problems in Maine will not happen here. Overall, we’re not at all convinced that replacing PNM is (a heavily-regulated utility) with another owner will do much for the local/state economy. PNM is the closest thing the private sector has to being a government utility. The best we can expect is for them to keep the lights on at a reasonable price.

And whether it is Avangrid or PNM, we have serious concerns about ANY utility’s ability to shift to zero-carbon at a reasonable cost to consumers while also keeping electricity reliability high. There are pluses and minuses to the merger, but at this point RGF isn’t jumping into the fray on either side.

The negative impacts of COVID 19 and the shift to online learning have been well-documented, but when presented with additional days of school for the supposed purpose of making up ground lost during the pandemic, many families (and districts) have pushed back against the Legislature’s plans to add school days onto the calendar for the 2021-2022 school year.

According to Channel 13, The K5 Plus program adds up to 25 days to the school calendar for kindergarten through fifth grade, while the Extended Learning Time Program (ELTP) adds up to 10 days for elementary, middle, and high schools.

What gives? It is hard to say, but here are a few thoughts:

1. It would seem that many families don’t think their children will get much out of the additional class time. In a related vein, perhaps parents view a high school diploma as a mere credential and not as a reflection of actual learning.
2. Perhaps families, especially those who have been cooped up in their houses for over a year, would rather have time for a family vacation rather than having their children in school for a week or two extra.
3. As was pointed out recently, APS’ student population is dropping. Perhaps families have lost faith in the system entirely and are just checking out? 

Recently, several media outlets including Bloomberg News noted that the Western United States including New Mexico could face blackouts as soon as THIS summer:

On top of that, we have this recent story from the Albuquerque Journal which explains the fact that “New replacement generation is needed because one of the four solar farms with back-up battery storage that is planned to replace San Juan next year is behind schedule and won’t be operational in time (for next summer when the plant will be abandoned)”

PNM recently offered RFP’s for 700 MW of “renewable” power, 200 of which will need to come online by next year (June of 2022). As the Bloomberg article points out, “States shuttering coal and gas-fired power plants simply aren’t replacing them fast enough to keep pace with the vagaries of an unstable climate, and the region’s existing power infrastructure is woefully vulnerable”

Also in the Bloomberg piece is this chart which is for THIS summer based on risk if surplus electricity is available on the Western grid or if electricity needs must be provided internally. Reminder, this chart is for THIS summer, the last one in which New Mexico will have San Juan Generating Station available. Advice: consider buying a generator.

The following ran in the Albuquerque Journal on May 26, 2021. It was written by Roswell Mayor Dennis Kintigh who has some serious questions and concerns over the way in which Gov. Lujan Grisham has handled the reopening of New Mexico due to COVID. Kintigh specifically wanted the chart below the article to be included:

Another two weeks have passed by and another paint-by-numbers color chart has been released by the assembly of experts in Santa Fe. All but one county in New Mexico has been blessed and anointed with the sought-after turquoise. The one outlier is my own Chaves County where Roswell is the county seat.

Since the beginning of this crisis, and the associated lockdown, I have been mystified by the edicts issued from Santa Fe. A year ago the pandemic was essentially nonexistent in Chaves County, yet at that time the policy was “we are all in this together.” As a result, Roswell schools were closed, restaurants shut down, graduation ceremonies cancelled and even weddings and funerals disrupted.

Somewhere, somehow, the “all in this together” went away, and then each county was judged upon its own performance. OK, that is acceptable, except that we, the unwashed masses, don’t get to see the data used to grade our progress. The criteria to get the adored turquoise designation currently involves three standards.

First, there are to be no more than 10 new cases per day per 100,000 county residents, on average, over a two-week period. That, however, is not the number of new cases reported each day. The number reported on a specific day could include cases diagnosed three days earlier or a week earlier or whenever. We don’t know.

Secondly, the percentage of COVID tests that are positive are to be 7.5% or less. The number of tests conducted has declined significantly since the beginning of the year and the data available shows nothing about positive rates. As of May 18, Chaves County had, per the DOH website, 108,263 tests completed. The number on March 16 was 95,015. In 73 days a total of 13,248 tests had been conducted or only 181 per day in a county of over 65,000 residents.

Finally, the fully vaccinated percentage is to be 40% or better. While I fully support getting the Trump vaccine – my wife and I both have been vaccinated – I know people who choose to not get vaccinated. In Roswell we are still free Americans, so that is OK by me.

At this time Chaves is the only green county; however, three other counties – Torrance, Roosevelt and Curry – all of which are turquoise, have worse numbers than Chaves County in all three categories. Torrance County fails all three of the criteria. Roosevelt and Curry actually fail two of the three. In fact, Santa Fe County, the seat of all wisdom, knowledge and power, is worse than Chaves in cases per 100,000 and positivity on tests.

We have been told repeatedly to “follow the science.” How about just “following the numbers,” or better yet how about if Santa Fe quits pretending it knows what it is talking about.

Dennis Kintigh is a 24-year veteran of the FBI with a bachelor of science in aerospace engineering, a bachelor of science in mechanical engineering and a master of science in computer science.

On this week’s conversation, Paul and Wally discuss the fact that Virgin Galactic achieved its first official space flight in a test over the weekend.

A story from Searchlight NM raises serious concerns on MLG’s open records issues at CYFD.

RGF appears in National Review on Census data. 

NM’s unemployment rate is now 8.2%, tied for 3rd worst in the nation.

According to Grover Norquist, of the top 15 states with lowest unemployment rates, 12 have GOP Governors. The 10 states with the highest unemployment rates are all led by Democrat Governors: California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Louisiana, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, and Pennsylvania.

According to Phil Kerpen: 24 states have announced they are ending unemployment bonuses. The only Republican governors who are keeping the bonuses are Hogan in Maryland, Baker in Mass, and Scott in Vermont. Still zero Democrat governors have opted out.

RGF digs into per-pupil education data from the Census Bureau and requests the information itself.

ABQ City Council puts gas tax hike on the ballot for next November. Paul and Wally discuss the problems with this new tax.

This article first appeared in The Center Square on May 24th, 2021.

As the far-left solidifies its stranglehold on all branches of New Mexico’s state government, more than ever we need an aggressive media and informed constituency to demand accountability in a system proven to produce abuses without. These abuses have never been more readily apparent than in the aftermath of a recent Searchlight New Mexico investigation.

In May 2021, the New Mexico Children, Youth and Families Department fired two high-level employees. Their terminations came after the two employees raised concerns about the agency’s recent shift to the use of encryption and the automated destruction of public records.

The department recently transitioned to the secure text messaging app Signal to discuss a wide range of official business, including the state’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic and the care of children in state custody. Officials asserted that they relied on Signal primarily for “transitory communications”. But what is “transitory” in the context of the Inspection of Public Records Act (IPRA), the state’s public records law?

CYFD Secretary Brian Blalock defines transitory communications as “employee banter, routine check-ins between workers and other insignificant exchanges not subject to public records laws”.

However, the New Mexico Attorney General’s IPRA guide addresses exceptions generally: “Because of the presumption in favor of the right to inspect, public bodies acquiring information should keep in mind that the records they keep generally are subject to public inspection.”

Wait: I’m confused. IPRA itself makes no explicit mention of the term “transitory”. In fact, IPRA only mentions a few and very specific exceptions under select qualified circumstances where a record is not to be disclosed. These exceptions include matters that fall under attorney-client privilege, certain personnel records, health records, and “protected personal identifier information” such as social security numbers and birth dates, as well as a few others.

These are reasonable exemptions to protect certain information of citizens. What does this mean? It means that no government agency will turn over your social security number to a requester. If a record contains a social security number, the number is redacted. This protects the privacy of citizens. 

And protecting the privacy of citizens in this way is a good thing. One of the greatest freedoms we have is the freedom from interference or intrusion, the right “to be let alone,” a formulation cited by Louis Brandeis and Samuel Warren in 1890. Remember: transparency is for the government, privacy is for the citizens.

But CYFD employees are employed by a government agency. Do they have a right to privacy? In the conduct of their job, the law says no.

Obtaining public records from government agencies can be a difficult task. Sometimes the custodians are great people, they do their jobs well, and they make the request process easy. But other agencies put up roadblocks where litigation often becomes an unavoidable outcome

If it was already difficult to obtain certain records, what happens if the agency moves to a platform where text messages are encrypted and automatically deleted? That task is now impossible.

According to the law, these text messages constitute public records, regardless of how “transitory” they are in nature.

The New Mexico Attorney General’s IPRA guide offers insight to contradict the “transitory” qualification: “‘public records’ means all documents, […] regardless of physical form or characteristics, that are used, created, received, maintained or held by or on behalf of any public body and relate to public business, whether or not the records are required by law to be created or maintained”.

With CYFD setting a dangerous precedent, the governor’s office offered similar advice. “Every single text message that you send or receive likely qualifies as a ‘transitory record,’” the official guidance counsels. “We recommend that you delete all text messages which are ‘transitory records’ every ten days. You may delete them more often if you wish.”

This reminds me of George Orwell’s memory holes from his groundbreaking novel 1984:

“When one knew that any document was due for destruction, or even when one saw a scrap of waste paper lying about, it was an automatic action to lift the flap of the nearest memory hole and drop it in, whereupon it would be whirled away on a current of warm air to the enormous furnaces which were hidden somewhere in the recesses of the building.”

Well, it’s 2021 and I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but the obligation to provide these records to requesters has not been absolved. Denying access to records, defaming those who stand up, and delaying a solution to the problem undermines the already troubled credibility of government institutions and their leaders.

Let us conclude with the most important question of all: why would records need to be destroyed if there wasn’t something to hide?

Patrick Brenner is the Vice President of the Rio Grande Foundation, New Mexico’s free-market research institute and think tank. He leads the Foundation’s open government and second amendment efforts.

It was big news over the weekend not just in New Mexico, but around the nation that Virgin Galactic managed to get a test flight to space for the first time.

This is good news for anyone who wants to see paid tourism space flights from Spaceport America (and we at the Rio Grande Foundation are in that group), but we are STILL a very long way from the facility fulfilling its stated purpose. And even THAT doesn’t justify the construction of such a facility on the New Mexico taxpayers’ dime.

The company will next perform a flight that will include two pilots as well as four company employees in the cabin, testing the seats and cabin features that will be used for later commercial flights.

That will be followed by a third test flight with company founder Richard Branson on board. A fourth flight will be a commercial one for the Italian Air Force, carrying several Italian payload specialists doing microgravity research.

If that 4th flight is successful we’ll see when/if manned space tourism flights move forward.

And, in separate but related news, there was our fully-vaccinated Gov. MLG at the launch outdoors wearing a mask in what can only be described as an attempt to undermine faith in the vaccines.

The following appeared at National Review on May 24, 2021.

The U.S. Census Bureau recently released population data showing how the population of America and its 50 states had shifted between 2010 and 2020. As has been the case for decades, Midwestern “Rust Belt” states overall lost representation, while fast-growing states in the Southwest gained seats (Texas added two and Colorado one). For the first time ever, California actually lost a congressional seat.

Yet overlooked by the national media in all of this was what can only be described as the impending creation of a population “donut hole” in the otherwise fast-growing Southwest — that is, my home state of New Mexico.

While Utah and Arizona didn’t add congressional seats as New Mexico’s other neighbors Colorado and Texas did, both states saw double-digit population growth for the decade. New Mexico’s population, on the other hand, grew at just 2.8 percent over that period. That puts the state on par with Vermont and just ahead of Maine, at 2.6 percent.

When neighboring Utah grows at 18.4 percent and Texas grows by 15.9 percent — and your own state’s population barely increases — there must be a problem. Hint: It’s not the weather. A variety of factors have been driving Americans to move from the Northeast to the Southwest, including the search of better weather. But New Mexico’s is unparalleled. It is sunnier than Florida and doesn’t have the oppressive 120-degree summer heat of Phoenix. And it really is a “dry” heat without the muggy humidity of Texas.

As if New Mexico’s minuscule 2.8 percent population growth was not pathetic enough, the details are even more troubling. Over the decade, New Mexico, a state with just over 2 million people, gained 103,506 people over the age of 65. Clearly, the state’s weather, inexpensive housing, and unique cultural offerings are attractive to a certain segment of retirees.

On this week’s interview, Paul sits down with Derek Muller, a law professor at the University of Iowa. Muller was in town to speak to the lawyer’s chapter of the Federalist Society of New Mexico. Muller’s expertise is in election law, an area that has gained incredible attention and controversy in recent years. Was the 2020 election “stolen”? How widespread was fraud? What about states that altered their election laws in the waning days before the election?

Determining how much school districts spend on a per-student basis can be a challenging process. According to newly-released data from the US Census Bureau, New Mexico spends $10,177 per-student. That is a higher number than any of our neighbors with the exception of Colorado.

Of course, spending by district varies and we tend to believe that the US Census Bureau is not capturing the full number. Recently, we asked four of New Mexico’s largest school districts for “the District’s annual budget for the 2019-2020 school year” and “student population for the same year.”

Needless to say, the numbers came back quite a bit higher per-pupil than what the Census Bureau data reflects. Needless to say, education spending data are  somewhat opaque even when you have it from the Census Bureau and there are districts in New Mexico that spend MUCH more than $10,177 per person.

APS data is posted online. 

Their annual budget is: $1,475,755,646 spent over 79,366 students

Here is Las Cruces schools data. The District spent $430,295,149 over 24,648 students

Here is Rio Rancho schools budget. Here is their student population. The District spent $309,216,222 over 17,212 students

Here is the  Santa Fe Schools budget and here is the  student population data.

The District spent $311,136,965 over 12,249 students.

Back in 2017 the Rio Grande Foundation led a successful effort to stop a new 2 cent per gallon tax on gasoline.  You can read the text of the ordinance which voters will have the chance to vote on in November, 2022. Not much has changed with regard to the specifics of this ordinance as opposed to the 2017 version. Here are a few points that need to be considered:

• Gas taxes are “regressive.” A new gas tax will affect a large number of low-income families;
• As the ordinance is written, the tax would be used to “rehabilitate transportation systems.” This could mean directly supporting or allowing existing dollars to be diverted to the controversial Albuquerque Rapid Transit program and the city bus system. Any gas tax paid by motorists should at least be dedicated to improving and expanding Albuquerque’s roads;
• A significant portion of the money generated by the tax will be spent on the creation of a collection and auditing apparatus. Some of the revenue created would have to be spent on additional bureaucracy to collect, audit and set up an appeals process relating to the new tax.

Finally, while it wasn’t as much of an issue back in 2017, with the Biden Administration and State policymakers making a headlong push for electric vehicles, it would seem that taxing drivers of gasoline vehicles is patently unfair. The predominantly wealthy drivers of electric vehicles MUST be included in any real effort to increase roads funding.

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.