Category: Commentaries

Walt Rubel Commentary: Looking for a return to normalcy

9/27/2022

Every two years those running for office tell us this will be the most important election of our lives, and I always roll my eyes and mumble, maybe for you.

This year’s election, which starts with early voting on Oct. 11, is pretty darned important, and not for who will win control of the House, Senate and other elected positions. This year’s election is important simply for the sake of elections themselves.

Walt Rubel Commentary: End of glory days was inevitable

9/21/2022

The comedy show was several years ago, and I don’t remember the comedian’s name. But I do remember the joke.

She was a Las Cruces native who had moved to Las Angeles to start her career and was back in town for the show, The joke was, “Nobody in LA cares about anything as much as you guys care about that stupid football game.” Except she didn’t say “stupid.” It was the late-night show.

Walt Rubel Commentary: 14th Amendment misused in Griffin’s ouster

9/13/2022

The 14th Amendment, passed in 1868, was one of three changes made to the Constitution during the Reconstruction Era designed to ensure that southern states didn’t slip back into their old ways.

The most controversial section these days is probably the provision granting citizenship to anyone born in the country. But, it was a more obscure section that was highlighted in a New Mexico courtroom earlier this month.

Walt Rubel Commentary: Court, governor at odds on bail reform

9/6/2022

The state Supreme Court has come out against proposed reform to the bail system, setting up a potential clash with Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham if she is re-elected in November.

During a public safety press conference in January, prior to this year’s legislative session, Lujan Grisham called for changes to make it more likely that those accused of serious crimes would be held in jail prior to their trials.

Walt Rubel Commentary: Colleges in a self-enriching cycle

8/30/2022

My parents started a college fund for me when I was still in my mother’s womb.

When I was a little kid, anytime I got money in a birthday or Christmas card, some would go into the college fund. When I graduated from high school, I still didn’t know what I wanted to be. But I had no doubt as to how I would spend the next four years.

Walt Rubel Commentary: Governor has been doing a lot of celebrating

8/23/2022

The abandoned seed barn off West Amador Avenue has stood for decades as a giant monument to lost industry.

The city has had big plans in the past to breathe new life into the old structure. In 2015 it was going to be part of Gin Plaza, described in the ill-fated Amador Próximo project as an “homage to the neighborhood’s agricultural and industrial history and an invitation to millennials who crave an eclectic vibe in which to explore, live, work and recreate.”

Walt Rubel Commentary: Schools a main cause for last-place ranking

8/16/2022

New Mexico has fallen back into last place in the annual ranking of childhood wellbeing, and there is one clear reason why, education.

The KIDS COUNT data book produced by the Annie E. Casey Foundation ranks states in four categories, Economic Wellbeing; Education; Health; and Family and Community. While the first category, which deals with poverty, has understandably received the most attention, it is in Education that we are farthest behind.

Walt Rubel Commentary: Letting good gerrymandering go to waste

8/9/2022

Democrats in the state Legislature went to a lot of trouble to gerrymander the Second Congressional District, and now their colleagues in Washington, D.C. are squandering it.

After rejecting all of the proposed maps of an independent redistricting commission, Democrats passed a map offered by Sen. Joseph Cervantes of Las Cruces that breaks up the Republican stronghold in Southeast New Mexico that had always dominated past elections in the Second Congressional District. Republicans have won all but two elections since the state expanded to three districts in 1983.

Walt Rubel Commentary: I’m part of our state’s growing problem

7/26/2022

“Will you still need me; will you still feed me; when I’m 64?”

I was 8 years old when the Beatles released that song in 1967, and it seemed quite probable to me then that I would need help feeding myself by the time I hit 64. If I hit 64.

Walt Rubel Commentary: New ethics board scores first victory

7/19/2022

State Rep. Rebecca Dow of Truth or Consequences, who finished second in a five-person race for governor in the Republican primary election last month, has agreed to pay a $500 civil penalty to settle a bitter dispute with the State Ethics Commission, according to the Albuquerque Journal.

The dispute stems from a complaint filed by Dow’s Democratic opponent in the 2020 election, and highlights the challenges faced by both our unpaid legislators and our relatively new ethics commission to police a system where conflicts of interest are built into the process.

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