Editorials

By Paul Gessing

Under the plan imposed by Gov. Lujan Grisham and her handpicked Environmental Improvement Board, 43% of all vehicles sold in New Mexico were supposed to be electric by 2026. Fortunately for New Mexico car buyers, back in May the US Congress (including New Mexico Democrat Rep. Gabe Vasquez) voted to eliminate California's exemption from federal clean air rules (and thus the ability of other states) to force unwilling buyers  to purchase electric vehicles.

A new report from the pro-EV trade group Alliance for Automotive Innovation indicates that as of the first quarter of 2025, adoption of EVs had begun to decline even before Congress acted. Perhaps the mere election of Donald Trump shifted consumer behavior back toward gas-powered vehicles, but the reason for this decline is unclear.

By Chief Justice David K. Thomson

I am pleased to announce the New Mexico Supreme Court's fifth annual "Rule of Law" program. The goal of the program is to educate middle school, high school, and college students on the judiciary's role in our democracy and how the rule of law secures a just and civil society. This year we will hold oral argument at the Henderson Fine Arts Center at San Juan College in Farmington on August 28, at 1:00 p.m.

Normally, I write an op-ed in advance of the program to discuss the importance of understanding how our judicial system advances the rule of law and how the rule of law then advances a civil and engaged democracy.

By Ruben Q. Leyva

They called him Mexican. Then they called him Navajo. But we call him kin.

This is Part II of a continuing exploration. If you haven’t read Part I, "Who Was Apache Frank?"—the story of a man misnamed, misread, and misremembered in the military and missionary archives—you’ll find that it lays the groundwork for this piece. Part II carries the story further, deeper into the protocol of relation, kinship, and endurance. We pick up the thread not to tie it off, but to follow where it leads.

Let’s begin with two boys: Francisco and Merejildo Grijalva. In 1849, during a raid near Banamichi, Sonora, both were taken—alongside three Grijalva women and two Opata Indian boys. That moment, violent and unresolved, didn’t just fracture a family. It opened a split in how history would remember them.

Published with permission from New Mexico Business Coalition.

Also on https://newmexicosun.com/stories/674094564-opinion-is-albuquerque-being-trumped-or-seeing-the-results-of-what-keller-created 

On July 24, 2025, President Trump signed Executive Order (EO) 14321 titled, "Ending Crime and Disorder on America's Streets." Press statements from the White House say the EO aims to address endemic vagrancy, disorderly behavior, sudden confrontations, and violent attacks that have made U.S. cities unsafe. 

 At the Crossroads of Captivity, Kinship, and Survival

By Ruben Q. Leyva

This story begins with a single line in a military report, one that forces us to look deeper at the overlapping names, identities, and classifications of the Apache people. My approach centers on kinship and oral history alongside church and military records because these perspectives, often dismissed in historical narratives, are the strongest threads connecting past and present.

In July 1864, amid the final years of the American Civil War, Lieutenant Colonel Julius C. Shaw of the First New Mexico Cavalry led an expedition from Fort Wingate to the Gila and San Carlos Rivers. In his report—published in the War of the Rebellion official records—Shaw describes a field consultation with two Apaches in the upper reaches of the San Carlos River: Soldado, a chief, and a man he refers to as “Mexican Francisco,” who served as an interpreter. Francisco and Soldado, meaning “soldier” in Spanish, were returning from Zuni, where they were trading.

It was as inspirational as a scene from "Rocky" when rural New Mexico counties garnered the support of the National Association of Counties, in Philadelphia, to oppose the National Interest Electric Transmission Corridors, during their annual meeting. Representatives from eight New Mexico Counties, directly affected by the planned 5-to-15-mile-wide corridor through their counties, teamed up, planned, presented, and fought to assure that 1,841,000 acres will not be taken by the federal government.

The plan for 10 National Interest Electric Transmission Corridors was announced on May 8, 2024, with a high-level explanation of the basis for those "corridors." Describing a "must have" scenario for all of these 10 corridors to assure electrical distribution across the entire nation and into areas that did not have adequate power available. Immediately, counties in the affected areas began to question the plans and the vast quantities of land that could be lost to agriculture and other uses.

By Paul Gessing

Since the days of Bill Richardson’s Administration, the Rio Grande Foundation has opposed New Mexico’s generous film subsidies. Back in Richardson’s day the primary subsidy was a 25% “refundable” tax credit meaning that anyone filming in New Mexico received up to 25% of what they spent to film in the Land of Enchantment (courtesy of New Mexico’s taxpayers).

Gov. Susana Martinez attempted to rein in the subsidy program. Along with the Legislature she placed a $50 million annual spending cap on film subsidies. When Lujan Grisham took office, she paid out any accumulated debts incurred by the State, an estimated $300 million, and convinced the Legislature to expand the State’s subsidies to cover as much as 40 percent of filming.

By Ruben Leyva

This story continues where Part I left off — with the descendants of Norberta Ishnoh'n Leyva (pronounced Lay-vuh), the Warm Springs-Chihene matriarch whose steps spanned the Ojo Caliente (Cañada Alamosa), San Carlos, the Gallo Mountains, and beyond. Her grandson Procopio "Pomposo" Leyva, son of José Albino, known in local memory as El Indio del Gallo, was not alone in carrying her legacy. His uncles Frank and Jim, too, had names, songs, and ceremonies that defied erasure. This second part unravels the tangled identities assigned to them — Warm Springs Apache, Navajo, Mojave, Apache Frank, Lava — and traces how language, federal policy, and kinship all converged at places like Zuni Salt Lake and Carlisle. These are the names they were given, and the ones they reclaimed.

Jim Miller, known as Ishkayznn or "Chiricahua Jim," was not merely a U.S. Army scout in the twilight years of the Apache Wars—he was a ceremonial anchor among the Warm Springs-Chihene, a counter-voice to Geronimo's medicine songs, and a living memory of kinship that defied the rigid categories imposed by government rolls and policies. His sobriquet, "Jim," was possibly inherited from the well-known Navajo Indian Agent Jim H. Miller, a man whose presence loomed over the Southwest until he died in 1872. This legacy—and its layered echo—shaped how Jim Miller was perceived and remembered.