By Ted Alcorn, New Mexico In Depth 
New Mexico In Depth

The first cars arrived before dawn. By 9 a.m., vehicles snaked through the food distribution event at the state fairgrounds in Albuquerque. It was a week before Christmas, and thousands of families would come for groceries to get them through the holidays.

The scene is a familiar one in New Mexico, where many people lack adequate food, let alone secure housing,  affordable healthcare, and fair-paying jobs.

But by the numbers, so gradual it’s difficult to detect, changes to state tax policy are softening the bite of poverty. 

Federal data released last fall show that, after accounting for government benefits, over the last decade the share of New Mexicans experiencing poverty declined more than in almost any other state.

That coincides with a period in which state lawmakers significantly altered tax rates to reduce the burden on low-income residents. They enacted and expanded tax credits and rebates that annually return hundreds of millions of dollars to working families. And they instituted other benefits including a constitutional right to early childhood education.

The changes have vaulted the state’s tax structure from one of the most regressive in the country, where lower-income people paid a bigger share of their incomes in taxes than the wealthiest, to among the most progressive, where the poorest residents now pay a lower share of their income in taxes than any other group.

The policy changes have caught the attention of poverty experts around the country, who say they are having a profound impact.

“The state tax system is a powerful tool,” emailed Arloc Sherman, a vice president at the Washington, D.C.-based Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, “and New Mexico in recent years has been a leader in using it to help keep more families above the poverty line.”

Improvements in the state’s poverty ranking don’t help pay the rent or put food on the table for every resident who is still in need. But in an interview, House Speaker Javier Martinez, D-Albuquerque, said that only sharpens his motivation to tackle poverty during this year’s session. “As long as I’m Speaker, this is going to be a top priority for me.”

Kim Obregon was just a few blocks away from the food distribution, in Albuquerque’s international district, but she couldn’t afford to wait in line because she was at work.
She’d spent years as an educator and then during the pandemic, when she found she couldn’t juggle teaching and taking care of her own kids, she started Mustard Seed Flowers. But she’s struggled to get the business off the ground.

She was displaced from a previous location after an electrical fire broke out in an attached unit. A city inspector found the building was hazardously wired and ordered it vacated. When she finally found a new space, she tried to make the most of it by inviting a local artist to decorate the walls with vivid murals of sunflowers and lisianthus. And to appeal to kids walking home from school, she added a candy section. But that December morning, only one customer browsed the offerings.

“I have set a deadline that if I’m not able to really survive and cover all of our financial needs by summertime, I’m going to close up,” Obregon said.

As a working parent earning less than $30,000 a year — about half the median household income statewide — she lives below the poverty line. Historically in New Mexico, that is commonplace. As of a decade ago, the state had the highest poverty rate in the country: 22% of residents earned less than the official poverty line, according to surveys conducted by the U.S. Census between 2013 and 2015.

By the government’s “supplemental” poverty measure, which many experts say is superior because it adjusts for the local cost of living and takes into account government benefits people receive, the state was not much better-off: 17.1% of residents still fell below that threshold, higher than all but four other states.

But in the years since, there’s been a substantial change.

The share of the population earning more than the official poverty line has only declined a few percent, but the share below the “supplemental” poverty threshold has fallen by more than a third, to 10.9%. That amounts to 120,000 fewer New Mexicans experiencing deprivation. And it’s a larger decline in percentage than almost any other state.

The share of New Mexicans with incomes below the official poverty measure has declined modestly since 2013 but the supplemental poverty measure, which accounts for government benefits, has fallen much further: from 17.1% to 10.9%.

​In the legislative session the following year, lawmakers began reordering the tax system to shift the burden from poorer residents to the wealthiest ones. A bill co-sponsored by then-vice chair of the tax committee Rep. Javier Martinez also raised the amount returned to low-income working parents through the Working Families Tax Credit.
​
In an op-ed published that summer, after the bill’s passage, he characterized it as “the first step in a multi-faceted approach to overhaul our outdated tax system.”

In 2021, legislators further increased the value of the Working Families Tax Credit. They also increased the amount of money returned to filers through the Low-Income Comprehensive Tax Rebate, and broadened the group eligible to receive it. Voters passed a constitutional amendment guaranteeing residents early childhood education.

In 2022, legislators exempted Social Security income from taxes, issued across-the-board tax rebate checks, and enacted a new Child Tax Credit, which has since been expanded to $600 a year per child. (It is also “refundable,” meaning even eligible people who earn too little to owe any taxes still get the money.)

And in 2023, they again revised income tax rates and lowered the gross receipts tax, which disproportionately burdens poor New Mexicans.  

Together, these laws amount to a sea-change in how the state collects taxes from its residents. 
In a report published by the non-profit Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy in 2015, New Mexico had the 33th most progressive tax structure in the country. The poorest 20% of filers were taxed more than double the share of their income as filers in the top 1%. 

By 2024, New Mexico had jumped 25 rankings to the 8th most progressive spot. The poorest 20% of filers pay a lower share of their income in taxes than any other group. 
​
“No state has in recent years been more aggressive in using the tax code to boost the prospects of the lowest-income earners,” emailed Jon Whiten, the institute’s deputy director.

According to experts who analyzed the U.S. Census data on the request of New Mexico In Depth, those changes in tax and fiscal policy deserve credit for the decline in the state’s supplemental poverty rate. 

Danielle Wilson, a researcher at the Center on Poverty and Social Policy at Columbia University, said she is “confident” that without even a handful of the policies — the Working Families Tax Credit, the Child Tax Credit, and tax rebates — poverty in New Mexico in 2022 would have been about 25% higher than it was otherwise. And her analysis does not take into account the change in income and gross receipts tax rates. 

“The decline in poverty in New Mexico in recent years is meaningful, and is driven in part by the tax policies that the state chose to implement,” she emailed. 

Some local analysts have been more cautious in drawing conclusions. In a report issued in 2023, the Legislative Finance Committee, which provides the state legislature with non-partisan fiscal analysis, downplayed the importance of a decline in the supplemental poverty measure, in part because it is the product of government programs rather than increases in household income. 
​
“Benefits provide assistance but do not lift families out of systemic poverty,” the report read. It touted education and training programs to increase labor force participation, where New Mexico lags at 57.6% in November 2024 compared to 62.5% nationally. 

Minority floor leader Sen. William Sharer, R-Farmington, went further, arguing that benefits undercut true prosperity if they deprived people of the impetus to work. “Giving people supplemental support actually steals that much-needed stress, that sense of purpose,” he wrote in an email. 

Rep. Christine Chandler, D-Los Alamos, who was among the class of lawmakers first elected in 2019, and co-sponsored several of the pieces of legislation, disagreed. “You can’t be a productive member of society if you’re worried about whether you can feed your child, or whether your child is going to go hungry, or whether you can pay for the child’s medical bills.”

Whether lower-income New Mexicans are feeling these changes is another matter. 

Jeffrey Ledbetter supervises the tax preparation for about 10,000 lower-income families each year, as director of Tax Help New Mexico. “I see the positive effects of the changes that have been made,” he said, but many clients “don’t feel that way.”

That blind-spot isn’t unique to low-income filers. “You, me, most everybody who ever does their taxes has no idea what’s in them,” he said. Eligible low-income filers receive the new and expanded tax credits whether or not they are aware of them, but the impact of any particular credit is often obscured by other taxes the person owes, or other credits they receive. 

Obregon’s income makes her eligible for all of the major tax credits New Mexico has enacted in the last five years. She specifically recalled receiving the federal Child Tax Credit a couple years ago, when it was increased, but drew a blank on the others. “I can’t honestly say whether or not the tax credits have been helpful,” she said. 

Any improvements in state tax policy have paled against the cost of housing, she said.

According to the Federal Housing Finance Agency, in the last five years the price of single-family homes in New Mexico has risen by 56%. 

Obregon says she spends about half her income on a 900-square-foot apartment, where she’s raising seven kids: four boys in one bedroom and three girls in another. “We just keep it pared down to the absolute essentials,” she said. “I’m not really utilizing any of the community programs like Toys for Tots because we may end up with toys that we do not have space to keep.”

Her outlook is also skewed by dysfunction in her neighborhood, she said. In separate incidents in late 2023, someone smashed the window of her delivery vehicle and three of her shop windows, and she had to spend $2,500 in profit from the busy holiday season on replacing them. “There’s so many people on the streets now,” she said. “It’s hard for me to see past that.”

Speaker Martinez said there is work still to be done. A change in the state’s poverty ranking “doesn’t mean that our problems are solved.” But he argued that Democrats’ legislative agenda this year, including a program to start savings accounts for every New Mexican at birth (colloquially known as baby bonds), was poised to help. 

Lawmakers are also pursuing a bill that would double the Child Tax Credit for people with children under six. And Martinez said his colleagues will renew efforts to create a paid family and medical leave program, which narrowly failed last session, if they can find the necessary compromises to win passage. 
​
“We are up against 500 years of policies that never took our communities into account,” he said, “and now that folks like me are in positions to make things happen, we’re not going to waste our opportunity.”

NNMC
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The Ben Lujan Library at Northern New Mexico College's Espanola Campus is making room for new books, and we need your help! 
 
Please browse our selection of used books recently withdrawn from the library's collection in January. Explore our displays featuring an eclectic mix of books covering every topic in the Library of Congress. Feel free to take as many books as you'd like—there's no need to worry, as we will replenish our stock. 
 
Bring your family and friends to share in the experience of the Big Book Giveaway at 921 Paseo de Oñate, Espanola, NM, 87532. Library hours this week are from 9 am to 3 pm, Monday to Thursday, and 9 am to 1 pm on Friday. Starting January 21, Library hours will extend to 9 am to 5 pm Monday to Thursday and 9 am to 1 pm. 

By Karima Alavi
Image Courtesy of Dar al Islam
​
If you’ve visited Abiquiu’s Plaza Blanca, you’re familiar with the sensation of feeling heat rise from dusty paths while breathing in the calming scents of chamisa, junipers, and sagebrush. Under the right conditions, hikers can convince themselves that they’re watching heatwaves dance through the sandy arroyos like spirits rising with the breeze. (They’re really watching how light will bend, mirage-like, as hot air rises to mix with the cooler air above. No less magical than if visitors actually detected a mysterious apparition guiding them across the land.)
 
Whether you’re familiar with the hiking trails of Plaza Blanca, or you hope to enjoy them sometime soon, good news has arrived in the form of a grant received by Dar al Islam from the New Mexico Outdoor Recreation Division. Funds will be used to map and clear the paths, along with further plans to bring improvements to the grounds that will make the experience of hiking even more pleasant as visitors explore the pristine beauty of the area. The long-term goal is to develop even more sustainable hiking trails within the landscape that is known for its sandstone formations. While stunning, much of the area is also fragile. Measures to prevent ecological and natural harm will be listed along with clear guidance on where to hike and how to protect the site. As a result, potential for harm to the natural lands will be minimized.
 
The majestic beauty of Plaza Blanca, situated on two-hundred acres at the Dar al Islam education center and mosque, came to national attention when the artist, Georgia O’Keeffe, felt drawn to paint the sense of wonder she experienced when visiting Abiquiu. As a result of her fascination with the landscape, there has been an ever-increasing desire of tourists and local people to experience the site. Over the past three years, Dar al Islam has maintained records of visits to Plaza Blanca through a system of registering people and giving them a gate-code that enables access. During those three years, more than 10,000 people registered. It is assumed that a truly accurate number would be much higher because most cars that enter the gate leading to the Plaza Blanca trailhead have more than one person in them. In addition, repeat visitors are not included in this count since the code enables them to enter multiple times.
 
The purpose of this grant is to ensure that the fragile ecosystem of Plaza Blanca is protected through a natural landscape preservation plan, while balancing the desire of tourists and locals to enjoy the beauty of the location. To that end, plans are in place for several improvements, beginning with a geological assessment that will also consider the vulnerability of some areas. Existing hiking trails will be mapped out, and potential new ones will be identified and possibly developed, to assure that tourists have a pleasant experience while, at the same time, protecting Plaza Blanca from overuse.
 
Layout of the grounds will be initiated through the use of drones. It is Dar al Islam’s intention to utilize volunteers to map out existing trails and explore opportunities for additional pathways, along which will be installed signs marking flora and fauna at this popular destination that attracts not only national visitors, but international tourists as well.  
 
Several short-term and long-term jobs will be created through this project. It is also hoped that many local Abiquiu businesses including hotels, restaurants, and galleries will benefit from Dar al Islam’s effort to attract more people to this special terrain.  
 
This project was initiated with the October 2024 Trail Mapping Weekend, led by Matthew Schumann. (See his October 23, 2024 Abiquiu News article for more information)
 
Those interested in touring Plaza Blanca are welcome to request an access code that will open the gate to the parking area situated at the trailhead. Click here to register: https://daralislam.org/plaza-blanca.aspx
 
That same website will link you to a slide show of Plaza Blanca images available on the Dar al Islam YouTube channel. Enjoy!

WASHINGTON - Today, Senator Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, announced a $6.95 million investment from the Infrastructure Law he passed for two projects aimed at reducing the risk of severe wildfires by enhancing forest and watershed health, and supporting agricultural production while reducing water losses in New Mexico.

“Across the West, growers are feeling the undeniable strain of less predictable rainfall and extended droughts, while our communities are facing the growing threats of more severe, erratic wildfires,” said Ranking Member Heinrich. “I’m pleased to welcome nearly $7 million in Infrastructure Law funding to invest in water-smart solutions to help producers keep putting healthy food on our tables and supporting rural economies, investing in the proactive work necessary to bolster our watersheds and reduce the risk of catastrophic wildfires – all while boosting New Mexico’s long-term water security.”
​
New Mexico Projects Selected:

• Chama Peak Land Alliance, Cross Boundary Watershed Protection in the San Juan Rio Chama Region: $5,000,000
  • The funding will support a variety of strategies to reduce fire risk in watersheds that supply drinking water to Albuquerque, Santa Fe, numerous Tribes and Pueblos, and many rural and disadvantaged communities. Mitigating the risk of severe wildfire will improve forest health and create greater resilience in the region’s water supply. This project is proposed in partnership with the Albuquerque Bernalillo County Water Utility Authority and numerous stakeholders that have been involved in the development process.
• NM Acequia Association, Supporting Agroecological Capacity in Traditional Agricultural Acequia Communities: $1,950,000
  • The New Mexico Acequia Association, in partnership with the Acequia del Llano, will restore resilient ecologic function supported by traditional farming practices to the middle reach of Santa Cruz River, a tributary to the Rio Grande. This project will restore the riparian ecosystem and reconnect floodplains along 1.6 miles of the Santa Cruz River, install brush weirs and other structures to attenuate floodwaters in surrounding uplands, and update and strengthen acequia infrastructure to improve access and flood resilience. This project will build the capacity of the local land and water managers to mitigate flood energy in the upland watershed, restore recharge in the riparian floodplain, and increase ecological health and habitat in the riparian area, while protecting traditional agricultural practices.

To read more about the selected projects, click here.
To see a map of funding and announced projects in New Mexico through the Infrastructure Law, click here.

By Margaret O’Hara [email protected]
Shared with Permission from the Santa Fe New Mexican

​EL RITO — The library’s back room was anything but quiet.
 
A group of people gathered one recent Thursday around a table in the El Rito Library. On one side of the table, two sewing machines hummed. On the other, sewers dug through boxes of fabric scraps. The weekly quilting circle — which celebrated its 25th year this month — was in full swing.
 
Desiree Maestas sat at the corner of the table, crocheting a creature with leaves on its head.
For her family, the rural library in the remote Rio Arriba County community has served as “a place to grow up.” Her two children, 13-year-old Anelicia Maestas and 17-year-old Andres Maestas, have been active participants in library programs since attending its summer reading program a decade ago. On Jan. 2, both teens joined the quilting circle.
 
“We found a really great community of people who are in El Rito and who support both my children and me,” said Maestas, who also serves as one of the library’s volunteers.
 
Advocates of rural libraries across the state, many that serve as community centers in far-flung areas, are expected to return to the Legislature this year, calling for lawmakers to continue to contribute state funds to the Rural Libraries Endowment.

Though lawmakers have contributed $30.5 million to the fund since its founding in 2019, Shel Neymark, director of the New Mexico Rural Library Initiative, an advocacy group, said the state is only “halfway there” in terms of guaranteeing about $45,000 in consistent annual funding.
During this year’s legislative session — which begins Jan. 21 — Neymark plans to push legislators to contribute another $29.5 million, for a total of $60 million, for 60 rural libraries.
He could face a tough challenge.

Sen. George Muñoz, a Gallup Democrat and chair of the powerful Legislative Finance Committee, said the committee’s initial budget framework doesn’t include additional funds for the endowment.

That proposal provides an outline of what the state’s budget bill might look like, but the final spending plan will be hashed out during the 60-day legislative session.

Nonetheless, Muñoz said the Rural Library Endowment’s current payouts — which Neymark said should total around $20,000 per library next year — are adequate.

“I don’t know what else they want. I mean, they’re such small libraries,” Muñoz said Tuesday.
Neymark, who has been advocating on behalf of rural libraries for more than seven years, remains committed to the cause.

“I’m not young; I’m 73,” he said. “I’ve taken on this big project and kind of increased my workload instead of lessen it, like people my age usually do — but it’s so gratifying.”
Keeping doors open Neymark is more library lover than lobbyist.

In the 1990s, he was one of a group of people who established the Embudo Valley Library and Community Center in Dixon. After the library opened in May 1992, Neymark said, “It was immediately successful. We had no idea what was going to happen. People started using it right away. We started doing programming.”

It enhanced the sense of community in the unincorporated area, which, until the library was established, didn’t have a central meeting place beyond the school, post office and houses of worship.

“Once we had the library — especially when we bought the property right in the middle of town — I just saw things changing. People got to know each other,” Neymark said.
​
But there are challenges that come with establishing libraries in New Mexico’s rural towns. Libraries often rely on funding from the counties or municipalities in which they’re located, but Neymark said such funding isn’t available in unincorporated communities.

As he spoke to other rural library officials in Rio Arriba County, Neymark said a consistent question emerged: “How are we going to keep our doors open next month?”

The idea of a rural library endowment started to percolate.

More than two decades later, in November 2017, The New Mexican honored Neymark as one of its 10 Who Made a Difference for his volunteer work with the Embudo Valley Library and Community Center.

After that, Neymark was determined to increase his impact.

“I have to up my game,” he recalled. “That night, the night of the award ceremony, I said, ‘OK, I’m going to go after this rural library endowment.’ ”

He did, and he was successful. During the 2019 legislative session, a bill establishing the Rural Libraries Endowment garnered near-unanimous support from lawmakers. The state budget bill included a $1 million appropriation to establish the fund.

Hoping for the ‘bare minimum’ In the years since, lawmakers have repeatedly contributed additional dollars to the Rural Libraries Endowment, allocating $2 million in 2020, $10 million in 2022, and $15 million in 2023, state budget documents show. During the 2024 legislative session, legislators set aside another $2.5 million for the endowment.

Neymark said he’d like to see a $1 million endowment per library, a sum that would yield about $45,000 per library each year.

“$45,000 a year is the bare minimum to keep the libraries open, to have a poorly paid executive director for the library,” Neymark said.
​
The first significant payout from the endowment came during the current fiscal year, when each library received $15,363.84, according to the New Mexico State Library.

Camille Ward, a spokesperson for the New Mexico House Democrats, was mum on whether more library funding might be considered this year.

“We cannot comment on specific line items in the Legislative Finance Committee recommendations until they are published on Wednesday, January 15th,” Ward wrote in an email.

She added, “Going forward, the state is in a fortunate position to be able to provide funding for critical programs like these without necessarily relying on long-term trust funds, which may be less flexible and responsive to the needs of our communities.”

Neymark said he doesn’t understand hesitancy to fund the endowment. “If they want to help rural areas, this is such a good way to do it. ... They say a lot of words about wanting to support rural New Mexico, but they haven’t really figured out an efficient way to do that.”

At the El Rito Library, the $45,000 annual payout from a fully funded endowment would be a “lifesaver,” said Lynett Gillette, who has served as the library’s director since 2015.

It would cover nearly half of the library’s annual budget, she said; it would make the difference between hoping to do more community programs and actually doing more programs.

“Libraries have existed for so long because they’re where we store our past and the hopes for our future — in each one of those books,” Gillette said.
​
She added, “I just think there’s not a better thing that the state could invest in — a place that archives the past and has information and entertainment to make our future better.”

Carol Bondy

A reader this week reached out to us.   Her property and the property along their road about 1/4 mile north of the Chevron station have seen the water table rise significantly in the past two months as the river water levels have risen. Water is flooding three out of six families living here.   This is downstream from where the channel work was done.

Water is seeping up from the ground so that the road has been continually wet since November and is worsening significantly. Minerals are leeching from underground and killing all the vegetation.  

We are wondering if the people living north of us are having similar issues. We believe this situation has something to do with the flood mitigation efforts up river. We would like to organize all being effected by this so we can get help before the spring run-off. 

I have lived here 32 years, since I bought my property at age 25. I have never seen anything like this here. I have worked very hard to build a home for my daughter. Watching what is happening to my neighbors is frightening. As for the three of us not flooded yet, we will be by Spring.

Abiquiu News has reached out to various agencies.   We urge the agencies to have a joint town hall meeting.   

This is a story in progress.   Please leave comments if you are continuing to be affected by flooding.​

Despite dry weather the road has remained wet.

For a fifth time, state lawmakers will make the case for a fundamental right to a clean environment
By: Austin Fisher 
​Source NM

A proposal to create a fundamental right to a clean environment on par with other rights found in New Mexico’s constitution will return to the Legislature in the coming days.
 
The sponsors will prefile the legislation this week, Sen. Harold Pope (D-Albuquerque), said during a news conference Tuesday with other sponsors and advocates. Lawmakers have already turned in bills dealing with tribal education, retired public sector workers’ health care and foster care in advance of the session starting Jan. 21.
 
If passed and signed into law, the legislation would create a ballot question asking voters whether to add a Green Amendment to the New Mexico Constitution.
 
Traditional environmental laws often fail to prevent harm because they focus on regulating how much damage pollution does, rather than preventing it altogether, argues Maya van Rossum, founder of the nonprofit Green Amendments for the Generations.
 
Three states have constitutional Green Amendments that protect people’s right to clean water and air, a safe climate and a healthy environment, van Rossum said during the news conference: Pennsylvania, Montana and New Jersey.
 
Similar amendments have been proposed in 19 other states, she said, with an ongoing ballot initiative in one state.
 
If the amendment passes, New Mexico would be the first state in the country to explicitly recognize in its state constitutional Bill of Rights the right of all people, including future generations, to a safe climate, she said.
 
It would also be the first to lift up critical environmental justice protections to that highest constitutional level, she said.
Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s administration has passed strong regulations to protect the environment, said Sen. Antoinette Sedillo López (D-Albuquerque), but she is worried about how the federal government could try to roll back those gains.
 
The Green Amendment is a way to protect New Mexico from the excesses of the incoming Donald Trump administration, she said.
 
It will be the fifth time the Green Amendment has been debated at the Roundhouse. The proposal has been introduced every year since 2021.
 
Previous versions of the bill would have repealed an existing part of the state constitution that recognizes that the Legislature has a duty to protect commonly owned natural resources and ensure the public can use them. This year’s version keeps that in place, van Rossum said.
 
It took 10 years of persistent advocacy and some changes in who had power at the Roundhouse to end the death penalty, Sedillo López said.
 
“We have some changes in the Legislature, and we have a growing number of advocates who continue to provide sustained advocacy,” she said of the efforts around the Green Amendment. “And, we have persistent legislators. We will get this done.”
 
It also took five years of legislative debate to create New Mexico’s community solar program, Rep. Patricia Roybal Caballero (D-Albuquerque) noted.
 
Roybal Caballero said so long as New Mexico lacks necessary guardrails like the Green Amendment, the state’s inhabitants remain at risk of declining children’s health, raging wildfires and flash floods.
 
“Our right to clean air, water, soil and environment should be protected above profits for the elite,” Roybal Caballero said. “Let New Mexicans decide if we prefer drinkable water for ourselves and future generations, or to continue to line the pocketbooks of the elite few.”

​By: Danielle Prokop
Source NM

The start to the 2025 New Mexico legislative session is still several weeks away, but some lawmakers have already introduced proposed changes in state laws.
 
Legislators started putting forward proposals known as prefiles Thursday, the first day they file bills before the opening gavel on Jan. 21. Three state senators filed five bills on the opening day.
 
Proposed bills would develop a state and tribal schools partnership, amend the constitution on retired public worker’s health care funds, and expand eligibility for a state program for youth aging out of foster care.
 
Sen. Benny Shendo (D-Jemez Pueblo) introduced legislation to expand tribal and pueblo governments’ ability to enter into agreements with the state’s education authority for cultural and language schools, and allow schools to access public funding. The schools would develop the curriculum and agree not to charge tuition. Schools would report enrollment, and receive funds like any other public school, and could apply for state grants.
 
There would need to be a public rule-making process for how the process would work, if the law is passed.
 
Sen. Roberto “Bobby” Gonzalez (D-Ranchos de Taos) introduced a state constitutional amendment, which would have to be approved by voters. The bill would require the state to create a trust fund for health care programs for retired public employees, and prohibit spending and investment of that money outside of the needs of the retirees.
 
Sen. Micheal Padilla (D-Albuquerque) introduced three bills on opening day. Two related to public works construction, by requiring projects to offer minimum wage to specific workers and increase financial support for apprenticeships. Padilla’s third bill expands eligibility to youth held in state custody into a state program supporting foster youth who have aged out of state support.
 
The House released 14 prefiled bills on Friday. Some bills would make small changes such as motorcycle licence designs, or removing deductions for tips paid with a credit card.
 
Rep. Kathleen Cates (D-Rio Rancho) introduced a bill to protect libraries from losing funding for refusing to ban books based on the subject or an author’s sexuality, race or gender, countering a rise in book bans across the nation. This law wouldn’t impact the right of individuals to challenge specific materials in a library’s collection.
 
Rep. Joy Garratt (D-Albuquerque) introduced a bill to make a shooting or bomb threat a fourth degree felony, raising it from the current penalty of a misdemeanor. The law also adds a provision putting the person who made the threat on the hook for costs incurred because of a threat – loss of business or lost wages, among others.
 
Rep. Matthew McQueen (D-Galisteo) put forward two state constitutional amendments, requiring voter approval. One to make all legislative sessions 45 days in length, rather than alternating between shorter and longer sessions. The second would remove the governor’s pocket veto power, which means any bill that goes unsigned by a certain deadline after a session dies. The bill would also require the governor to send an explanation for any veto, which has not applied because of the pocket veto.The last day lawmakers can put forward bills before the start of the session is Jan. 17.
 
Prefiles only contain the language of the proposed legislation, and don’t have official numbers yet. No analysis or actions such as committee assignments are made until the lawmakers convene officially.

​By Gabriel Puckett
Casa de la Cruz
​
​“Look at that mountain!”, we said as we came over the hill from the north. “What is this place?”
We had never seen anything like it. The desert landscape so varied and diverse - hills, valleys, and canyons were ebbing and flowing like cresting waves. Light shifting in the setting sun, the colors seemed magnified by the canyon walls and desert rocks.

One mountain stood out and held our singular attention as an anchor in the landscape. It looked like a classic mesa but was unique in its stature and form. It seemed to hold an authority in the landscape. We would later discover that this mountain was Pedernal, the crown jewel of Abiquiu. This was Georgia O’Keefe’s mountain - the one that God told her, “If you paint it enough, you can have it.”

The magic of the landscape stirred something deep inside us, and we began to dream out loud. “What if we owned property out here? What if we had a healing retreat center?”

My wife Leah and I were on a road trip from Denver. It was the middle of Covid, and we lived in the heart of the city. This high desert landscape was a massive reprieve from the experience of pandemic city life. This was a vacation/scouting mission. We were looking for a landing place for the dreams that God had put in our hearts.

Our spirits were being stirred with excitement at the potential. Needless to say, we were smitten. This northern New Mexico gem had captured our attention. We’ve always been dreamers, but this place made us feel like our dreams weren’t big enough. The expanse of the sky and the terrain were beckoning us to look further and challenging us to dream bigger.

We had first learned about Abiquiu because Leah’s brother had a dream a few years back about a monastery in the desert. He later discovered it was a real place. The Benedictine Monastery of Christ in the Desert has since become one of our favorite places to visit.

From that first road trip that sparked so much excitement to now, so much has happened. We purchased our Abiquiu dream home, and it feels like a little slice of heaven. Sitting on the porch and watching lightning storms roll in over the Sangre de Cristos in the distance, seeing the baby quail scurry in a row across the dirt road in early spring with their hurried tiny steps, sitting by the kiva fireplace as we watch the snow come down outside in winter, it almost doesn’t seem real. Something lost in our modern world is found here.

The Celtic saints had a description for places like this. They called them “thin places”, referring to the veil between heaven and earth feeling thin. I believe that the whole earth is a burning bush ablaze with the glory of God. There are some places, though, where that flame is just more obvious. Abiquiu is one of those places.

Check out Casa de la Cruz

I, too, am relinquishing my post at the Washington Post.
​By Zach Hively

We need all the light we can get in these times. Unfortunately, I’m no longer shining one.
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Quite the opposite. I’m turning one more light off: I hereby resign as a contributor to the Washington Post, whose editorial board has yet again neglected to publish my opinions in their once-proud newspaper.

Ignorance of my work is no excuse for the editorial board. Neither, if you ask me, is the allegation that I have yet to submit any work for consideration.

This is a simple case of quid pro quo—or it should be, since mutual back-scratching is fast replacing a free press as the fourth estate in this land that I love.

Follow the bouncing ball: The Washington Post is owned by billionaire American Jeff Bezos, who undoubtedly made most of his fortune from newspaper subscriptions and paper delivery routes. Now that he’s hemorrhaging subscribers and drones are delivering the remaining few physical papers, he must rely on sale of goods from his side hustle to stay afloat.

Now I can’t claim to be the reason that Amazon the website will outlast Amazon the rainforest. But I have dedicated a portion of revenue from at least two copies of my book to the company’s bottom line, plus more than one subscribe-and-save order of dish sponges.

That adds up to, mathematically speaking, a non-zero contribution to keeping the Washington Post afloat longer than some other newspapers I’m still waiting to hear back from. And that doesn’t even tally up the personal information that Amazon has curated for its own gain, which if nothing else ought to inform the algorithm that my writing is ready and waiting for syndication.

But apparently money can’t buy ink these days—an election, maybe, or some well-curried favor, but not one measly weekly column in a paper with dwindling but still international distribution.
I was not even going to criticize my boss’ boss’ boss and his other billionaire buddies! At least not right away! I was going to leave that for the editorial cartoonists. Alas, now even they are getting shut down for leaning too heavily on that word “editorial.” (Picking up the slack from the editorial board, I guess.) This must be why job descriptions in journalism tend to include that catch-all other duties and obeisance as required.

So it is my sad duty to inform you, dear readers, that I have not changed my mind. The Post has forced my hand, and I have my own moral code to consider—a code that demands I place the First Amendment first—a code that believes journalism can and should rise above partisan positions to keep a citizenry as well-informed as its own media literacy will allow—a code that says “quit before you even try”—a code that, above all, means I really should stick by my words, no matter how unfit to print.
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That’s why, if nothing else, I can begrudge the Washington Post its honesty: it keeps doing its damndest to turn out light after light so that democracy can die, as promised, in darkness.