Morning Word: Lawmakers Reach Tentative Deal

It's Thursday, June 4, 2015

After weeks of meeting behind closed doors, it looks like lawmakers will be heading back to the Roundhouse in Santa Fe after leaders say they’ve reached a tentative deal on capital outlay funding and a tax cut package.

The governor says she expects to call a special session as early as Monday. Read it at NMPolitics.net  Political analysts hope the capital outlay money will help create jobs around the state. Not everyone is convinced it will do the trick. Blogger Joe Monahan has been analyzing the legislature and special sessions for decades. He writes:

Read more here. Monahan also has the inside scoop from Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign fundraiser at former ambassador Ed Romero’s home yesterday. Read it here.  Speaking of money in politics, New Mexico In Depth’s data reporter Sandra Fish, who’s looked at campaign finance, lobbying and the influence of PAC and union money on legislative issues, is looking for help from citizen reporters. Read how you can help her track the money here.  The US Attorney for New Mexico wants a bank to put a freeze on former Rio Arriba County Sheriff Tommy Rodella’s account to ensure that there is enough money to pay a six-figure fine imposed at sentencing.

Read it at the New Mexican. 

While Rodella is locked up in federal prison for 10 years, inmates in New Mexico state prisons are on lockdown. Correction officials are sweeping through cells this month looking for contraband. AP reporter Russell Contreras has the details.  It looks like the US Air Force is on track to meet some of the deadlines it’s facing cleaning up the jet fuel leak at Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque. Contractors have already finished drilling several wells that will be used to pump the fuel out of the ground before it reaches the city’s underground water aquifers. Read it at KOB. A Taos County man is suing Facebook for invasion of privacy.

 Read it here.  Speaking of an invasion of privacy, Congress has approved the US Freedom Act. The legislation will end the National Security Agency's bulk collection program that has allowed the government to collect records of millions of Americans while suspecting them of no wrongdoing. Read more at the Los Alamos Daily Post.  In reality, the marginal adjustments to the act, according to some analysts, barely touches the vast powers of the National Security Agency. Read it at the Albuquerque Journal.  Lots of voter data may have been compromised in a fraudulent check-cashing ring allegedly spearheaded by a document technician in the Doña Ana County clerk’s office.

Read it at the Las Cruces Sun-News.  Utility executives at PNM have filed the paperwork required by the Public Regulation Commission to extend the deadline to finalize a coal agreement and San Juan Generating Station ownership restructuring. Read it at the Santa Fe New Mexican.  Homeowners with solar panels on their rooftops are skeptical about El Paso Electric’s own proposed rate increase. Read it at the Las Cruces Sun-News.  Public records requests for federal documents continue to be backlogged despite President Obama’s transparency pledge. Read it here.  It also looks like a few former records custodians are now struggling to have their own document requests processed in Albuquerque.

Ryan Boetel has the story. 

Santa Fe Reporter