The drafters know the rules to follow when it comes to statutory construction, and they also do necessary research and provide analysis. When the second drafter and I were reviewing the text of HB 206, I asked him to include a statement in the bill that the statute would not be used to prosecute girls or women who voluntarily seek an abortion.

The statute was to focus on punishing the perpetrator, not the victim. The drafter told me that such a statement was not necessary, because "prosecutors who apply the statute will understand that." I relied on his advice.

I asked the drafter to make it more explicit at least in the bill title that HB 206 is targeted at prosecuting perpetrators, not victims. In rushing to introduce the bill before the close of the daily session, I failed to double-check his revisions; I just assumed the adjustments were correctly made.

A law precluding secret conversations would put victims of family violence at risk of not being able to prove their allegations, said David Brent Olson. In front of the committee, he played a recording he made of a man who had threatened his life.

Never could he have gotten such damning evidence if he had to reveal that the conversation was being recorded, Olson said.

Sandia National Laboratories spent more than $400 million on goods and services supplied by New Mexico vendors in its last fiscal year and awarded $256 million in contracts to small businesses in the state.

Sharer said gun rights are not about deer hunting or target shooting, but forestalling tyranny.

"The Second Amendment is there so you can protect yourself against whoever wants to be your dictator," he said.

Sharer criticized proposed state legislation that would expand background checks to gun shows and private transactions. "(House Bill) 77 is just plain wrong," he said.

The state ought to get completely out of the way of business owners’ ability to do business.

No one in their right mind suggests one should abuse alcohol, but prohibition never works.

Just as anti-smoking laws interfere with business owners’ rights to run their own affairs, regulating when vendors can sell alcoholic beverages intrudes on their ability to improve their business performance.

NM's reservoir levels in a graphic chart showing the magnitude of our immediate water challenges.goo.gl/dq3zp. #nmleg

— Peter Wirth (@senatorwirth) February 3, 2013

“We talked about cleanup and a number of issues related to my committees,” Heinrich said in a brief phone interview Friday. We went through some budgetary issues and covered a bBroad [sic] spectrum of issues associated with the lab today.

“Most of the visit was presentations by staff at the lab. There was not a lot of back and forth.”

U.S. District Court Judge Robert C. Brack granted two motions filed in December by attorneys for Rick Reese, his wife Terri Reese and their son Ryin Reese. The first had asked for a new trial because of Sixth Amendment violations; and the second had sought conditional release of the jailed family members.

In explaining his decision, Brack wrote, in part, that evidence "intentionally or negligently" suppressed by the government "could have easily altered the outcome of the trial."

The answers are all over the map, ranging from predictable thickets of lawyers to a historic drought of farmers and ranchers.

The largest, single category is “retired,” according to my breakdown of the “Occupations List” prepared by the Legislative Council Service.

State law requires school board recall petition forms to “cite grounds of malfeasance or misfeasance in office or violation of the oath of office.” In the petitions, Stuart and Hestand accuse Castellini and Holland of behavior that violated the district’s Code of Ethics and that they exhibited lack of professionalism toward board members and school staff and engaged in “micro-managing the district.”

In his ruling, Paternoster wrote that his decision was not about testing the evidence presented before him but was to “examine the evidence to determine if it is sufficient under the declared standards to permit the recall petition process to move forward.”