Here’s how New Mexico’s Inspection of Public Records Act works: Anyone can ask to inspect a public record. If it exists—and it’s not impossible to unearth—the public agency holding the record must make it available for inspection.

Corruption filled the headlines recently when the New Mexico Finance Authority came under scrutiny for allegedly faking its 2011 audit by failing to report $40 million in losses.

Almost since her appointment, Public Education Secretary-Designate Hanna Skandera—an administrator who played a key role in Florida’s education reform initiatives—has faced opposition from New Mexico Democrats.

The Department of Health recently dismissed all five of its Medical Cannabis Program temporary workers—positions that, last fall, Health Secretary Catherine Torres promised to make permanent.

Last week, Gov. Susana Martinez scored points with transparency advocates when her office, after being told by a district judge to remove public employee names and salaries from the state’s Sunshine Portal, posted them on a different web page. It’s an example of her follow-through on a key campaign promise: to make state government open and accessible to the public.

At the New Mexico State Fair, just a few hundred feet west of the Downs at Albuquerque racetrack and casino, sits a row of crumbling stables. On a June afternoon, the walkways are littered with dead pigeons—casualties of BB guns wielded by the horses’ caretakers’ young children, many of whom live onsite. In the bathrooms the caretakers share, layers upon layers of mildew rot the walls of the shower stalls to a color resembling human excrement.

This November, voters will weigh in on five amendments to the state Constitution, all of which would reshape state government.

By a variety of measures—graduation rates, reading proficiency, standardized test scores—Santa Fe Public Schools are failing. But Joel Boyd, the district’s new superintendent, has a plan to turn that around.

Of the 16 states that allow medical marijuana, New Mexico is one of only three that haven’t experienced federal government crackdowns, according to Washington, DC-based National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. Medical marijuana advocates cite the state Medical Cannabis Program’s stringent rules.

On an unseasonably cool mid-July morning, Max Lovato is sampling a pocket-sized meatball next to a mobile grocery truck parked on the west bank of the Rio Grande. The evening before, several of the truck’s volunteers handed out approximately 100 flyers advertising free samples in San Felipe Pueblo, where he lives. The beef Lovato is eating is grass-fed, which is leaner and lower in calories than traditional beef.