Editorials

By Paul J. Gessing

According to the latest budget analyses from the Legislature, New Mexico policymakers have nearly $900 million in "new" money available as the session begins in Santa Fe. This comes on top of massive surpluses in recent years which the Legislature has largely spent or used to bolster the State's already prodigious sovereign wealth funds which now total $58 billion.

In many states across the nation policymakers of both parties would be fighting to see who can come up with the best tax cut or rebate plan. Sadly, this November, New Mexico's voters again chose to elect the most left-wing people on the ballot.

The Untapped Power of the Voters Voice
By Jodi Hendricks, New Mexico Family Action Movement
January 10, 2025

For many New Mexicans, the annual Legislative Session can feel distant and disconnected. Local government processes can seem vague and inaccessible, leaving you feeling powerless and unsure of how to engage with decisions that impact your daily life. This doesn't have to be the case. With the next 60-day session starting on January 21st, you have more power than you might think to follow the progress of bills and even influence which ones get passed.

By Ruben Leyva

On February 6, 1691, Fray Marcos de Loyola, living in Chinapa near present-day Arizpe, Sonora, wrote a letter appealing for help from the Governor of Nuevo Mexico, Diego de Vargas. Fray Loyola expressed concerns about hostile Native Americans troubling the settlement. There is evidence of non-Apachean hunter-gatherers in the Southwest who were allied with the Apache. Loyola was knowledgeable about the political structures of the Native tribes existing on both sides of the contemporary U.S.-Mexican border, from east of El Paso to southeastern Arizona.

My journey is similar to many other New Mexicans, in that it took a lot of hard work, hope, resilience, community, and prayer to keep pushing forward to work towards something better for me and my family. Dreams were the hope that helped drive the determination to keep pushing forward, but survival was always at the forefront of every decision and job I undertook. Financial struggle, living paycheck-to-paycheck to make ends meet — a typical New Mexico story. Add limited resources, knowledge and opportunity, and you have an equation for failure or extreme disappointment. Unless you have a strong mental base, family/community network, extreme work ethic, and people that are willing to pour into you, it is really hard to change the outcomes of generational poverty.

The recent Hulu docuseries “Vow of Silence: The Assassination of Annie Mae (Pictou Aquash)," which chronicles the work of a Canadian-born Mi’kmaq activist in the Indian Movement of the 1970s, reminded me of my Apache research. Anna (Annie) Mae, who was killed at the age of 30, said, “I’m not going to stop fighting for my country until I die, and then my kids will take over.” My family had a similar saying, “We would rather die here than live where we do not belong.”

I do not wish to ignite or revive the violence associated with the Movement, nor do I seek to establish a new school of thought or ‘ism.’ Instead, I aim to introduce the reader to the resilience of Indigenous Peoples. Annie Mae’s dedication parallels my people’s fight for tribal recognition by the United States. It is essential to understand that the struggle for sovereignty is not a pursuit of dependency but rather a battle against erasure—deeply rooted in identity, self-determination, and honoring historical agreements. 

By Supreme Court Justice C. Shannon Bacon and District Judge Erin B. O'Connell, chair of the New Mexico Commission on Access to Justice

Three out of four low-income households in New Mexico struggle with legal issues impacting basic needs like housing, financial stability, access to social and medical benefits. New Mexico's civil legal service providers handle thousands of cases every year, but a lack of capacity caused them to turn away more than half of the people seeking help last year.

New Mexico Abortion Landscape 2024: Dangerous Trend- Out of State Traffic and Chemical Abortions Expanding Throughout the State

(Online version): https://www.abortionfreenm.com/news/new-mexico-abortion-landscape-2024-dangerous-trend-out-of-state-and-chemical-abortions-expanding-throughout-the-state

By Bud Shaver,​

By Paul Gessing

A few weeks after the recent election New Mexico Gov. Lujan Grisham went on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" and said, "New Mexico's went from 50th to 17th on child poverty (in the nation)." This is simply untrue.

The Gov. is conflating the US Census Bureau's traditional poverty measure in which we remain 50th and its supplemental measure which includes several federal and state government programs where New Mexico performs better. To be completely clear, these are very different measures. Conflating them is simply not accurate. The Gov. should stop.

A recent news story by Dan Boyd of the Albuquerque Journal noted "The supplemental measure factors in government benefits, like New Mexico's state-subsidized lunches for public school students. It also includes tax credits and cost-of-living calculations."