Another busy week in store for the session, and today also marks the second to last Monday of the 2021 Legislative Session. Lawmakers will definitely have their hands full in these last days, with plenty of high profile measures still to decide.
Today we talk the status of House Joint Resolution 1, which is an annual effort to allow the state to take more money from the permanent land grant fund and put that money (about $170 million a year) toward early childhood programs. This measure has often been a political hot potato, but it passed out of Senate Rules on a 7-4 vote. Next, it will move to Senate Finance.
The big news in the Roundhouse yesterday had nothing to do with specific legislation, but an announcement from the Department of Education that schools
YOUR NM GOV: With the legislative session heading into the final lap, it is important that you know what is going on at the Roundhouse. Your New Mexico Government is where you can find daily updates on all the news coming out of Santa Fe. Look for No More Normal on Apple Podcasts or Spotify to get those daily updates. This week, we ll hear from Gwyneth Doland for New Mexico PBS about all the redistricting drama.
NEXT WEEK: This time last year was our last time doing our normal routines. In N.M., March 15 is about the one-year anniversary of the quarantine. So let s look at the year in review. So many questions have developed in the last year. We talk with you to see if anyone has an answer.
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One of the big stories to come out of the Roundhouse yesterday actually involves Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham. State Auditor Brian Colon announced that he was moving ahead with a special audit of the Governor s discretionary fund, after local reporting discovered more than $13,000 in groceries, liquor purchases and dry cleaning over a six-month period in 2020. A group of Republican lawmakers also requested the audit in a letter to Auditor Colon. The Governor s office has said the purchases were appropriate but may have been excessive at times.
In the House, we saw movement on HB 111 which would offer new protections to tenants in the middle of an emergency like the ongoing pandemic.
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A definite potpourri of legislative topics for you today, starting with an update on proposals to deal with the learning loss caused by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. We also talk about some movement regarding predatory lending practices in New Mexico, which spurred several hours of debate yesterday in the Roundhouse. Our partners at the Santa Fe Reporter have done a lot of great reporting on the issues that are wrapped up in that debate, and we encourage you to read up on that background when you can. We also referenced a report by the Albuquerque Journal s Dan McKay about the complicated topic of reforming medical malpractice laws in our state, and some pushback from industry folks around plans to reform liquor licensing practices. As always, let us know what you are seeing and hearing in this most unusual session, and join us again for another update tomorrow morning!