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No same-day registration and voting on Election Day in NM this year
Same-day voter registration won’t be available on Nov. 2, Election Day proper. Early voting has begun and voters can register at the same time they show up to vote early until Oct. 30, but same-day voter registration will not be an option on Election Day, KUNM reports. The Secretary of State’s Office is not asking […]
NM’s long fight for fair access to safety-net programs
Michelangelo Morse found himself sitting in the middle of his living room floor in Española, N.M., surrounded by a circle of records, like doctor’s discharge orders, Social Security information — all the papers. A traumatic brain injury in 2012 left him with issues in cognition and executive function. He’d learned how to walk again over […]
New Mexico still discriminates in SNAP, Medicaid applications, advocates argue in court filing
A single mother who only speaks Vietnamese went to a state office to get medical insurance for her 10-year-old son, but no one working there could understand her, so they told her to hire a private interpreter and come back. A domestic violence survivor who speaks Cantonese and some Mandarin, whose only income is SNAP […]
NM researcher: Variation in forms contributes to undercount of police killings
At least one-quarter of the people killed by police in New Mexico over the last four decades do not appear in official statistics, according to a study that made national headlines last week. Professor Jagdish Khubchandani at New Mexico State University helped with the international research on how police killings are reported. He said one […]
NM governor supports local TV and film workers who may be striking soon
Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham on Tuesday, Oct. 5, issued a statement of support for the local branch of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, whose members are prepared to walk off set as they fight for better working conditions behind the scenes of movies and TV shows produced in the state. “The women and […]
Rural NM lawmakers weigh calling on the US military to help build out broadband
Access to fast, reliable internet has long been a problem for rural parts of New Mexico but became an especially dire equity issue when the pandemic forced many students and workers to stay home and communicate online. As many as 20% of homes in the state do not have access to broadband internet, according to […]
Study: Official statistics under-report police killings in New Mexico
More than one-quarter of the people killed by police in the state were not included in official counts over the last four decades, according to a study released on Thursday, Sept. 30. Published in the Lancet peer-reviewed medical journal, the study found that 26.4% of people killed by police in New Mexico between 1980 and […]
State-level police reforms around the country may point the way for local lawmakers
Forty states have laws and requirements around how police use tear gas and other chemical agents and projectiles known as less-lethal munitions. New Mexico is not one of them, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures database of policing legislation. Protesters against police violence and racist policing are familiar with those weapons if they […]
Lessons from Chicago organizers on gunshot-detection tech being used in ABQ
Albuquerque officials have been touting ShotSpotter as a solution to gun violence and other kinds of crime in the city, but organizers opposing the technology’s use by Chicago police say it is just part of a broader system of police surveillance and irresponsible spending of public money. ShotSpotter is an acoustic gunshot detection technology that […]
Experts ask for more time to recommend changes to state’s family violence law
Officials in charge of compensating survivors of violent crime are asking for more time to come up with changes to state law governing domestic violence. In 2020, lawmakers passed Senate Memorial 50, which asked the New Mexico Crime Victims Reparation Commission to create a task force to review and update the Family Violence Protection Act. […]
Prosecutors clear hurdle in suit against New Mexico Civil Guard
A New Mexico state court ruled that a lawsuit accusing a right-wing militia of impersonating police during a protest last summer can move forward. And attorneys handling a related criminal case against a former Albuquerque city council candidate who shot a protester that day expect to go to trial next month. On June 15, 2020, […]
Prison Rat
LaDonna Evans was serving a nine-year sentence for a drug conviction at the Northwestern New Mexico Correctional Facility when moving day came. State prison officials took the 42-year-old Tucumcari resident and a handful of others from what was the women’s prison to a new, remote location several miles north on the very eastern edge of […]