Away from the action in Santa Fe
I like living in Las Cruces better than I liked living in Santa Fe. But each year at this time, I miss being so far away from the action as another legislative session gets cranked up.
Here are some random thoughts on the 2012 session, which starts Tuesday:
I have to stifle a snicker each time I hear a legislator fret about a child being "scarred for life" if required to repeat third grade to bring their reading skills up to snuff. If a kid makes it all the way through adolescence and the worst thing that has happened in their life was a second crack at third grade, they should count their blessings.
Gov. Susana Martinez wants to change existing law, which gives parents the final say when educators believe a child is not prepared to move on to the next grade. I can't think of a less-qualified arbiter. If it were up to the parents, every kid would be star of the school play, quarterback of the football team and head of the honor roll.
Social promotion — or sending kids on to the next grade, ready or not — sends a terrible message to students at an impressionable age, that advancement in life is not based on achievement, but rather the mere turning of the calendar. Any child who absorbs this message is due for a very rude awakening. And at the point, the scaring could be real.
• While both the governor and the Legislative Finance Committee have proposed budgets calling for increased spending this year, LFC Chairman Sen. John Arthur Smith, D-Deming, warns that extended revenue projections may not be as rosy.
"With the revenue projections for (fiscal year 2013) in flux, and an unexciting outlook for (fiscal year 2014) it's best to keep new commitments in check," Smith said in the January 2012 LFC newsletter. Once a new program is started, it's much more difficult to cut, Smith said — pointing to the days of the Richardson administration as proof.
That could be bad news for the governor's education initiatives. Democrats have said they would rather put the money into existing programs with proven track records.
• State Rep. Dianne Hamilton of Silver City has said she will try again this year to get a photo ID bill passed (see page 1A), but I suspect recent efforts by Republican-led legislatures in other states to implement photo ID will only increase the resistance here.
I've always supported photo ID in concept, but only if the state is willing to spend the money to ensure that every eligible voter is provided a card at no expense to the voter. That means finding ways to accommodate those with no means of transportation as well as elderly voters who were not born in a hospital and may lack official documentation of their birth.
The last time the state got into the voter ID business, it was an absolute mess. As part of the election reform bill of 2005, the state attempted to send green, plastic voter cards to every registered voter in the state. I still remember seeing boxes and boxes of returned or undeliverable cards stacked up against the wall in the Secretary of State's Office, and wondering how much taxpayer money had gone down that rathole.
Trying to do voter ID on the cheap, as is happening throughout the country, will always lead to voter suppression.
• For-profit hospitals in the state, such as MountainView Regional Medical Center, have come under greater scrutiny from LFC analysts.
The state loses $300 million a year in tax credits to the health care industry, according to an LFC audit. By comparison, tax credits for economic development, including the film industry, amount to less than $100 million a year.
For-profit hospitals are exempt from gross receipts taxes, costing the state some $13 million a year in lost revenue. The intent was to level the playing field with nonprofit hospitals, "but New Mexico's size and rural nature means competition is already limited," the audit said.
Walter Rubel has been a newsman for more than 25 years and is managing editor of the Sun-News. He can be reached at wrubel@lcsun-news.com.
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