Editorials

By Justice David K. Thomson
New Mexico Supreme Court

This year is the sixtieth anniversary of the federal Civil Rights Act of 1964. President John F. Kennedy proposed this legislation in 1963, but he was assassinated before its enactment. The legislation became a priority of his successor, President Lyndon Johnson, who signed it into law one year later. In 1969, Governor David Cargo signed House Bill 142 and thereby enacted the New Mexico Human Rights Act. This state law protecting individuals from discrimination is the subject of our Court's fourth annual "Rule of Law" program.

Parents, students have opportunity to help choose high school graduation requirements
By Mandi Torrez

With the governor's signing of a new law updating the state's high school curriculum, New Mexico families now have a prime opportunity to shape your local high school course requirements in a way that will reflect your community's values while ensuring that your graduates are college and career ready.  

While high school students still must complete 24 credits to graduate, two of those credits will now be determined locally in each district.

Think New Mexico, a nonpartisan, results-oriented think tank, has researched courses that would be engaging and provide students with relevant, lifelong skills, as we detailed in our report, "A Roadmap for Rethinking Public Education in New Mexico." We encourage parents and students to reach out to your school board members and urge them to select two local course requirements that will provide a well-rounded school experience. We hope that you might advocate for some of the following options:

By Paul Gessing

Recently, Land Commissioner Stephanie Garcia Richard, after pushing the Legislature for a 25% tax hike on New Mexico oil and gas producers made the decision to pull those "highly valuable" tracts of land and not lease them. That decision has raised concerns that her actions may violate her fiduciary responsibility to maximize revenues from the lands under her control.

Garcia Richard told the Albuquerque Journal, "It's worth it to temporarily forgo the dollars (from leasing immediately) to make billions more in the future by leasing out the land (at a higher rate)."

By Howard Hutchinson

Legislative Efforts on Clean Fuels Standards

Legislation is now making the rounds of state legislatures setting up the means to create a carbon credit market process to support reducing or removing greenhouse gas emissions associated with transportation fuels. The process creates credits for fuels that reduce the quantity of greenhouse gas emissions per unit of fuel energy. The measurement is expressed in grams of carbon dioxide equivalent per megajoule of fuel lifecycle. 3.6 megajoules equals 1 kilowatt hour. This calculation is used to establish the carbon intensity for each transportation fuel that then would generate a standard.

If that is not confusing enough imagine creating a computer model to track every fuel's lifecycle to include indirect land use change, all stages of fuel and feedstock production and distribution, feedstock generation or extraction through the distribution, delivery, and use of the finished fuel by the consumer, including consideration of storage, transportation, and combustion.

By: Rep. Jared Hembree (R-Roswell)

New Mexico is fortunate to have millions of acres of state trust lands that generate billions of dollars to benefit our schools, universities, hospitals, and other public institutions. The State Land Office currently manages 9 million acres of surface real estate and 13 million mineral acres of trust land which generated $2 billion in Fiscal Year 2022. The most significant revenue source has been through leases for oil and natural gas development. The State Land Commissioner --- who directs the State Land Office -- has a fiduciary responsibility to manage the trust lands in a manner that maximizes the financial return for the many beneficiaries that are guaranteed to receive a specific portion of the revenues.

By Rebecca Dow

In 2023, the Legislature passed HB 130, a bipartisan bill signed by Gov. Lujan Grisham to extend classroom time for New Mexico students. The idea of enforcing 5-day school weeks was considered during discussions yet rejected. During this year's budget debates (HB 2), an amendment prohibiting the Government from allocating funds to mandate 5-day school weeks was introduced and approved on a bipartisan basis in the House, then the Senate.

Despite these efforts, Gov. Lujan Grisham quickly acted to disregard the Legislature and enforce the 5-day school week. Due to overwhelming opposition including from the unions which form her political base, Lujan Grisham made some small compromises: 
• Early college high schools will be exempt from the minimum 180 instructional day requirement.
• There is also some flexibility for apprenticeship, a work study program, a dual-credit program, employment, community service, or similar activities.
• But, for your average rural district a host of new requirements relating to educational performance metrics are designed to ultimately force them to adopt 5-day weeks.

By Paul J. Gessing

March 11, 2024, is the fourth anniversary of Gov. Lujan Grisham's first public health emergency dealing with what was then the start of the COVID 19 pandemic. Although restrictions varied widely throughout the next three years, the public health emergency did not end until March 31, 2023.

Under New Mexico's public health emergency laws governors have wide discretion to make policies unchecked by the Legislature or any other elected body. Objectively, it is hard to see any significant achievements thanks to the Gov.'s restrictive COVID policies.

Op-Ed
By: Rep. Jim Townsend (R-Artesia)

When is a Four-day school week appropriate? The answer is simple. When it meets the educational needs of the students, when it is supported by parents and educators and the community! Why does it have to be so difficult, especially when it works?

I have said on the House Floor that New Mexico has a hard time dealing with prosperity. When we have an industry providing over 100,000 great jobs, creating billions of dollars of revenue, what does the Legislature do? It attacks, taxes, regulates and imposes anti-industry legislation, hardly beneficial to families and certainly detrimental to New Mexico.

In the Education World, we try the same silliness.