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Monday, March 22, 2021 | Vo l u m e 1 2 5 | I s s u e 2 6
The Independent Student Voice of UNM since 1895
Lottery Scholarship funding measure headed to gov’s desk
UNM admin, ASUNM laud increased funding despite scholarship’s troubling equity disparities By Madeline Pukite @madelinepukite House Bill 2, the New Mexico state appropriations bill, has been approved by both chambers of the Legislature and is headed to the governor’s desk for her approval. The proposed budget legislation would allocate $59.6 million dollars toward the Lottery Scholarship for state high school graduates who choose to pursue New Mexico higher education. The Lottery Scholarship is a “merit-based” New Mexico scholarship program that helps pay for New Mexico high school graduates’ tuition at a state college or university. A majority of the scholarship’s funding comes
from lottery ticket sales. If approved, the scholarship would cover 90% of tuition for those who are eligible to receive it, a marked increase compared to last year’s funding, which only covered 60%. Despite these benefits, meritbased scholarships have been scrutinized for years for siphoning limited resources away from low-income students to the most privileged, according to a 2005 NPR story. “The Lottery Scholarship — the state’s largest financial aid program — is not need-based even though New Mexico has one of the highest poverty rates in the nation,” New Mexico Voices for Children (NM Voices), a children’s advocacy group, said in a
2018 infographic on the topic. Additionally, a substantial minority of all scholarships funded by the New Mexico Lottery, which sells scratch offs and draw games among other products, are awarded to students from wealthier families who don’t receive federal financial aid. “One in three Lottery Scholarship dollars go to first-time scholarship recipients with family income above $90,000,” according to New Mexico Higher Education Department data from 2012. Almost half (43%) of Lottery Scholarship recipients came from households that made over $75,000 a year and received no federal student aid, according to
see
Scholarship page 2
Photo by Aidan Bartos on Unsplash.
Courtesy Photo
GPSA presidential election looms amid grad union litigation By Liam DeBonis @LiamDebonis Just weeks after the ASUNM election, the Graduate and Professional Student Association (GPSA) will hold their own election for a new president. Beginning March 29, students will be able to cast their vote for one of the two candidates vying for the seat. Aaron Cowan, an organization, information and learning sciences Ph.D student, and David C. Saavedra, a public administration master student, have announced their candidacies for GPSA president. Saavedra currently serves as the chief of staff for the executive branch of GPSA, while Cowan currently chairs the Legislative Steering Committee. The GPSA is the student body government charged with representing graduate and professional students at the University of New Mexico. Its executive branch contains a multitude of committees including the Lobby Committee, which petitions the University and the New Mexico Legislature to advance the interests of graduate and professional students on campus. According to his statement
Liam DeBonis / Daily Lobo / @LiamDeBonis
The candidates for the 2021 GPSA presidential election. Photos courtesy of GPSA.
on the GPSA general election webpage, Saavedra’s platform is built upon supporting graduate and professional students by “serving as a mode of communication between students and UNM administration.” Cowan, meanwhile, expressed his support for unionization and “fight(ing) for opportunity for all students, including the undocumented, while holding UNM
Inside this Lobo HECKES: Romero, Regalado take ASUNM election in decisive win (pg. 2) ROMERO, REGALADO: LETTER: New ASUNM president and vice president address student body (pg. 4)
administration accountable.” The election comes at a critical point in student-administration relations as the United Grad Workers of UNM, a union organized by graduate student workers, have been embroiled in a fight to be recognized as legitimate by the state’s Public Employees Labor Relations Board. At the same time, the University has actively sought
to delegitimize the union, going so far as to file a motion in December to block the union’s right to organize. Another key role of the new GPSA president is to serve as chair of the 2022 Student Fee Review Board (SFRB), a committee of undergraduate and graduate students in charge of recommending student fee funding allocations.
An influential organization with the power of a multi-million dollar purse, the SFRB is widely understood as one of the most practically relevant facets of student government. Last year, the board recommended the approximately $72,000 in funding necessary for the establishment of the Asian Pacific American Culture Center (APACC). Notably, the SFRB also declined to reduce student fees amid calls for relief from students struggling in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. The GPSA president is also tasked with interviewing and recommending potential applicants to the governor of New Mexico for the student regent position on the UNM Board of Regents. The student regent, alongside other members of the Board, works closely with executive leadership to manage the University as a whole. Students can log in to my.unm. edu to vote for either candidate between March 29 and April 2. Election results will be announced on April 5. Liam DeBonis is the photo editor at the Daily Lobo. He can be contacted at photoeditor@dailylobo.com or on Twitter @LiamDebonis
BODKIN: REVIEW: ‘It’s a Sin’ approaches HIV/AIDS crisis with compassion, humanity and love (pg. 4) HOBART: Haaland takes reins at Interior Department (pg. 5) WARD: NM renters suffer in pandemic housing market (pg. 6) BIADORA: Cannabis legalization hits another pothole in NM Legislature (pg. 7)
PO PAGE 2 / MONDAY, MARCH 22, 2021
Scholarship
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a 2015 analysis conducted by the state Legislature. UNM administration and ASUNM leadership lobbied heavily this past spring to increase state funding for the Lottery Scholarship. Outgoing ASUNM President Mia Amin wrote a letter to the editor that ran in the Feb. 14 edition of the Albuquerque Journal that “urged” the state to increase funding for the scholarship, citing reasons such as helping students stay in school and perceived benefits to the local economy. “We need to take notice of the excellence our state has to offer and groom New Mexicans to be educated and productive members of our local economy,” Amin wrote. ASUNM President-elect and liberal arts major Greg Romero campaigned on the notion that he would be an advocate for the scholarship’s continued funding by the Legislature. Romero said he stood by his
prior position even after being shown the scholarship recipients’ adjusted gross income data. “I would like lower-income students to be prioritized first, but I would really like for everyone to have that access to education,” Romero said in an interview with the Daily Lobo. “The lottery is extremely helpful to thousands of New Mexico students and the reason that many can go to college. If I didn’t advocate for it, that would be a disservice to current and future Lobos.” Rep. Jason Harper, R-Rio Rancho, who voted in favor of the proposed budget increase, is a strong advocate of keeping the scholarship merit-based to continue to support middle class college-bound students who might otherwise become ineligible. “If you make it need based, you’ll have middle-class kids who want to stay here — and go to school here — going somewhere else,” Harper said. On the other hand, NM Voices
called for the scholarship to become entirely need-based, citing that “only 31% of New Mexico’s state financial aid is need-based, (while) the U.S. average is 76%.” The Lottery Scholarship’s credit enrollment requirement, combined with the minimum GPA condition, works to edge out students who have to work fulltime while also taking classes to make ends meet. “Low-income working students tend to work longer hours than their high-income counterparts,” according to Inside Higher Ed. “Students who work 15 hours or more per week are more likely to have a C average or lower, while those who work less than 15 hours are more likely to have a B average or higher.” “The lottery-based scholarships that are being provided are not addressing where the real need is,” James Jimenez, the executive director of NM Voices, said. “For a child of color born in New Mexico, there’s a higher chance
that child will live in poverty than a white child ... I think we need to do a much better job of directing aid toward families of color, (and) more specifically, low to moderate income families.” John Benavidez, a professor at the Anderson School of Management at the University of New Mexico, said that in the case of the Lottery Scholarship, the issue isn’t just that it’s benefiting the most privileged of students, but that the majority of the funding comes from some of the lowest income neighborhoods in New Mexico. “(Something) like 82% of lottery sales come from 20% of the players, and then most of that 20% are compulsive gamblers where they’re coming from lower income brackets,” Benavidez told the Lobo. “They’re the ones that are actually sending students to college.” According to the New Mexico Lottery Authority, 23% of lottery consumers come from households with income of less than $25,000 a year and 27% make less
than or equal to $50,000 a year. Only 15% of lottery consumers are from households making $100,000 or more annually. Jimenez, when asked if the way the scholarship is set up plays into institutionalized discrimination, said: “I would say that I heard a speaker once say there is no such thing as a race-neutral policy; you’re either moving towards equity or away from it. The way the lottery scholarship is currently structured is not an anti-racist policy.”
ake ad Lissa Knudsen contributed to this article. Lissa is the news editor at the Daily Lobo. She can be contacted at news@dailylobo. com or on Twitter @lissaknudsen
Madeline Pukite is a beat reporter at the Daily Lobo. She can be contacted at news@dailylobo.com or on Twitter @madelinepukite
Romero, Regalado take ASUNM election in decisive win Electees vow to address UNM administration accountability, college affordability and campus safety By Hevyn Heckes @H_Sqaured90 On Wednesday, Greg Romero and Ryan Regalado were elected ASUNM president and vice president for the upcoming 2021-22 school year.
The election marked another abysmally low voter turnout for the University of New Mexico, with only 874 voters (5.2%) out of a total of 16,662 eligible undergraduates participating in the election. Romero received 341 votes, beating his closest opponent by more than seven percentage
Shelby Kleinhans / Daily Lobo / @realShelbyK
Greg Romero and Ryan Regalado learn the results of the ASUNM election after a game of Topgolf in Albuquerque.
points — an impressive margin, given the four-way race. Regalado garnered almost the same number at 329, taking 37% of the vote. Romero and Regalado prevailed despite having to contend with unanticipated challenges, obstacles and adjustments, including learning and living in an environment inundated by a pandemic. Issues at the forefront of Romero’s agenda include improved communications with UNM administration, college affordability and campus safety. “The unfortunate truth is that, as much power as the ASUNM president has had within the student body, it hasn't seemed to matter much in terms of the budget, leadership team and our student fee requests,” Romero said. Romero and Regalado awaited the election results at the recently opened Topgolf entertainment venue. Romero said he and his running mate felt “really, really good” and “relieved” upon hearing the news that voters had
chosen the two to hold ASUNM’s highest executive offices. “We’re super excited,” Romero said. “That was the biggest thing we talked about over the campaign — (that we) have all these ideas and … to lose would have been so devastating, because we couldn’t do any of them.” Regalado added, “We can start all of (our initiatives) right away.” Romero and Regalado’s opposing candidates had positive things to say about the pair. “I think out of our three opponents for this race, Greg and Ryan, are, I feel, the most competent,” vice presidential candidate Ian Baker said, adding that he hopes “they actively try to help the students.” Noah Dowling-Lujan and Baker ran an anti-establishment slate, and they vowed to keep pushing back against the status quo. “We’re going to maintain our opposition to the kind of corrupt practices that happen at
ASUNM,” Dowling-Lujan said. Presidential candidate Ricardo Hill’s running mate, Lauren Candland, praised Romero and Regalado's victory. Candland said she was “honored to lose against … extremely qualified candidates” and was happy that they would be “taking the reigns of ASUNM.” Prior to the announcement of the results, presidential candidate Jacob Olaguir thought he and fellow candidate Hill would “split the diversity vote" but that Romero and Regalado would ultimately “come out on top.” Neither Hill nor Olaguir’s running mate, Alina Le, could be reached for comment. Romero and Regalado will assume their offices on May 15, 2021 — the last day of the spring semester. Hevyn Heckes is a freelance reporter at the Daily Lobo. She can be contacted at news@dailylobo. com or on Twitter @H_Squared90
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NEW MEXICO DAILY LOBO
MONDAY, MARCH 22, 2021 / PAGE 3
LETTER
New ASUNM president and vice president address student body Lobos,
Thank you so much for selecting us to serve as your next president and vice president of ASUNM! We cannot wait to get started and hope that you can be a big part in our plans for next year. We are elected by you, to serve you, so with that comes a responsibility that we are both ready for. We look forward to open dialogue and the exchanging of ideas that will better the University of New Mexico for every single student. For those of you that don’t know us or weren’t able to hear our campaign initiatives, we ran on the ideas of college affordability, UNM admin accountability, a changed and open ASUNM and improved campus safety. With 10 combined semesters of experience and numerous successful past initiatives, we are confident that the plans we set and promises we made will see their way through. It’s no secret, there are going to be obstacles to overcome right from the start. The transition back to in-person classes
and events will certainly be one of them. We will do our best to keep you informed and safe through this transition by working with our administration, Student Health and Counseling and various other departments across campus, constantly keeping students' interest at the forefront. Please do not hesitate to reach out to us with any concerns or ideas. We plan to have an open and welcoming office and that starts now! Please feel free to email Greg at romero3800@unm.edu or Ryan at ryan8regalado@unm.edu. Additionally, there will be many opportunities to get involved within ASUNM in the coming months, so be on the lookout! To start, Senate applications are due Monday, March 22 by 5 p.m. Again, thank you for your support up to this point and we look forward to your continued support as we begin our terms. Thank you, Alex McCausland / Daily Lobo / @alexkmccausland
Greg Romero and Ryan Regalado
ASUNM President-elect Greg Romero (left) and Vice President-elect Ryan Regalado.
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LOBO OPINION
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The Independent Student Voice of UNM since 1895
Monday, March 22, 2021
Opinion Editor / opinion@dailylobo.com
REVIEW
‘It’s a Sin’ approaches HIV/ AIDS crisis with compassion, humanity and love By Sarah Bodkin @gabrielbiadora Captivating, charming and tragic are the best words to describe the U.K. mini-series “It’s a Sin,” created by Russell T. Davies, which spotlights the lives of several gay men as they live through stigmas, homophobia and the spread of HIV in the 1980s. I heard about the show through social media various times, and though there are many shows that I mean to watch but never get around to doing so, something compelled me to start watching it during a particularly busy and trying time in my life. I was not disappointed. As I started watching the first episode, I knew I was on a journey that I wanted the entire UNM community to take with me, because I want to see an increased conversation among my student peers surrounding stigmas that the LGBTQ+ community and people with HIV face. The show follows Ritchie Tozer, played by Olly Alexander, who
recently began his college life in London. There, he finds a group of lifelong friends and begins to explore his sexuality. I found it easy to imagine how I might fit myself into Tozer’s friend group, due to the way they would come together at the end of the day and ask one another about the days they had before and behind them. In an isolating pandemic, I found solace in these moments, even if they were fictional. During the explorations of his sexuality, Tozer and his friends start hearing about a mystery illness that only impacts the gay population, which was a misconception about HIV/AIDS during the beginning of its spread. As someone who was inspired from an early age by the history and music of Freddie Mercury, I recalled his untimely death due to complications related to AIDS and was heartbroken to see these characters, whose personality traits I saw in my own friends, learning about the death sentence that diagnosis was (at the time). I fell in love with Tozer’s passion for life and his close friendship
with Jill Baxter, played by Lydia West. Baxter constantly wants to ensure that Tozer is living a happy and safe life and is deeply concerned when discussions about HIV begins to rise, as exploring one’s sexuality at this time created a real threat of danger. Baxter’s character is based on the Davies’ best friend, Jill Nalder, who had her own experiences with loss during the AIDS crisis. "We didn't even know he'd died of AIDS, it was just rumours,” Nalder told the BBC, talking about a college peer. “That happened a lot in the beginning. Boys would go home and sort of disappear. I lost three of my best friends in 18 months." The depicted tension between the characters and their families was crystal clear: there was a massive amount of shame around being gay, and this shame was installed in their own personality as they were raised with it. The show captures just how difficult it is to be pressured to be someone you’re not around the people you’re supposed to be closest to. I found the effect that the se-
ries had on fans to be particularly impactful because it seemed to increase awareness about HIV and started an essential conversation that is not discussed enough. According to Time Magazine, “It’s a Sin” “may already be having a real impact off-screen in Britain. The first week of February marked National HIV Testing week in the U.K., and sexual health charities estimate that the final number of tests taken will easily be three times the number of tests that
By Victor Martinez / Daily Lobo / @sirbluescreen
DAILY LOBO CORRECTION POLICY
Courtesy Photo
Courtesy of HBO via IMDB.
were done in previous years.” As someone who doesn't typically watch entire series, I am rarely this passionate about any show. The history is crucial, and was approached with massive amounts of love. I would definitely recommend “It’s a Sin.” Sarah Bodkin is a freelance reporter at the Daily Lobo. She can be contacted at culture@dailylobo. com or on Twitter @sarahbodkin4
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The New Mexico Daily Lobo is an independent student newspaper published on Monday and Thursday except school holidays during the fall and spring semesters and weekly during the summer session. Subscription rate is $75 per academic year. E-mail accounting@dailylobo.com for more information on subscriptions. The New Mexico Daily Lobo is published by the Board of UNM Student Publications. The editorial opinions expressed in the New Mexico Daily Lobo are those of the respective writers and do not necessarily reflect the views of the students, faculty, staff and regents of the University of New Mexico. Inquiries concerning editorial content should be made to the editor-in-chief. All content appearing in the New Mexico Daily Lobo and the Web site dailylobo.com may not be reproduced without the consent of the editor-in-chief. A single copy of the New Mexico Daily Lobo is free from newsstands. Unauthorized removal of multiple copies is considered theft and may be prosecuted. Letter submission policy: The opinions expressed are those of the authors alone. Letters and guest columns must be concisely written, signed by the author and include address and telephone. No names will be withheld.
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MONDAY, MARCH 22, 2021 / PAGE 5
Haaland takes reins at Interior Department Laguna Pueblo member confirmed as first Native American Cabinet member By Rebecca Hobart @DailyLobo WASHINGTON — On Monday, March 15, Debra Anne Haaland, an enrolled member of the Laguna Pueblo and a junior congresswoman from New Mexico, was confirmed as Secretary of the Interior, making her the first Native American to serve in the Cabinet of a United States president. In her new role, Haaland will oversee 480 million acres of public lands and many federal agencies, including the Bureaus of Land Management and Reclamation as well as the National Park Service, according to the Department of the Interior. Monday’s full Senate vote to confirm Haaland was near partyline, 51-40, with GOP support from Sens. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina and Susan Collins, R-Maine, backing the progressive, historic nominee. At her confirmation hearing, Haaland said, “The (Interior) Department has a role in harnessing the clean energy potential of our public lands and to create jobs and new economic opportunities,” asserting her commitment to restoration and environmental conservation. “I look forward to working with her to protect our public lands and ensure the responsible use of all our natural resources in a bipartisan manner,” Senator Joe
Manchin, D-West Virginia, said, highlighting Haaland’s priority of “addressing the diverse needs of our country.” During her confirmation hearing, Haaland drew criticism from GOP committee members for her past opposition to fracking, as well as her continued support for the Green New Deal. “I know how important oil and gas revenues are to critical services, but we must also recognize that the energy industry is innovating and our climate challenge must be addressed,” Haaland said. She later reiterated that if confirmed, “it is President Biden’s agenda, not my own agenda, that I would be moving forward.” Biden has detailed an ambitious public lands agenda in the “Executive Order on Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad.” In Section 208, Biden vowed to work closely with the Secretary of the Interior to advance climateconscious initiatives starting with the moratorium on oil and gas leasing on public lands or in offshore waters. “In New Mexico, the nation’s third-largest oil producer, and also home to 23 tribal nations, where more than a third of the land is owned by the federal government, the Interior played a major role in the state’s recent fracking boom,” Nick Estes, an assistant professor of American studies at the University of New Mexico, said.
A grassroots community organizer and business-woman by trade, Haaland chaired the New Mexico Democratic Party from 2015-17 and is currently the U.S. Representative for New Mexico’s 1st Congressional District. Since the founding of the United States in 1776, no Native American woman had ever been elected to Congress until 2018, when Haaland and Sharice Davids, DKansas, were elected. Haaland’s new role as Cabinet Secretary comes just a few years after she pitched camp by the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) and cooked green chile and tortillas for the fight against the several-billion-dollar pipeline. While leading the Democratic Party of New Mexico, she also championed the effort to divest from national bank Wells Fargo due to their funding of the controversial DAPL. Local environmental activists are hoping Haaland’s continued support for protecting public lands will be an indication of what’s to come in her role as Interior Secretary. “During her tenure in Congress, Secretary Haaland was a central figure in efforts to protect the Greater Chaco Region from encroaching oil and gas development and helped shepherd a federal public lands package that created 13 new wilderness areas in New Mexico,” Mark Allison, executive director for New Mexico Wild, said. With Haaland as Secretary of the
Courtesy Photo
Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland. Photo courtesy of the United States Department of the Interior.
Interior, there are expectations that she will bring insights and perspectives from communities that have been historically marginalized. “The needs of our society are answered when those who have the power to make decisions have the ability to see what you see,”
Haaland said. “Your struggles must be theirs — so too your sorrows and your joys.” Rebecca Hobart is a freelance reporter at the Daily Lobo. She can be contacted at news@dailylobo.com or on Twitter @DailyLobo
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NEW MEXICO DAILY LOBO
NM renters suffer in pandemic housing market By Daniel Ward
@wordsofward34 The price of rent in New Mexico has been steadily increasing for decades due to high demand and fewer and fewer vacancies. Now, low income residents are struggling to keep up with more expensive rental rates and the ongoing pandemic is only making matters worse. As of January 2021, the average cost of rent in Albuquerque
was $982 for approximately 812 sq. ft., according to the rental market trends from RentCafe. That’s a 7% increase from the previous year, but prices can rise even higher with the addition of extra bedrooms or a desirable neighborhood. Thunderbird Property Management broker Melissa Benevegna said people from out of state saw how New Mexico’s infection rates weren’t as severe as some of the other COVID-19 hotspots in the country. As a result, they jumped on the opportunity to move to New
Daniel Ward / Daily Lobo / @wordsofward34
A still from a Daily Lobo video story about Albuquerque rent prices by Daniel Ward.
Mexico even though rental rates were lower in other areas. Once landlords caught on to the trend, the price of rent spiked across the state. “We seem to be at this interesting juxtaposition where we have Amazon coming to town, we have Netflix announcing they’re going to build an additional 300 acres, we have lots of construction happening but none of it available yet,” Benevegna said. “Because COVID kind of put New Mexico on the map, we have a lot of people coming in from places we don’t normally see them coming in from.” Lorraine Nobes is a renter who’s been living in Rio Rancho since 2014 but, with her son and daughter now in high school, she said the house they live in is starting to feel cramped. Unfortunately, the landlords keep raising the rent at the end of every lease and it’s been difficult to find anything else in the area. “We were looking for something bigger because my children have grown in the seven years that we’ve been here,” Nobes said. “This is a very small house and we were looking for a different option but that’s not really available around here, within a reasonable price range.” Nobes is currently paying $1,350 a month — she tried negotiating the rent after she lost some of her income but said the landlord wouldn’t go any lower. “I had been previously paying $1,250 last year and when I moved in, it was only $1,100,” Nobes said.
“So it may just be common inflation, and they keep saying it's the comparable sales in the area, but there's really no other option. If I got the same size house, it would be $1,600 anywhere else in the (Rio Rancho) area.” The high demand for affordable housing has created what managers call a seller’s market. Because of the demand to find housing, landlords can easily raise the price knowing that someone with a higher income will take it. This makes it difficult for local tenants to relocate at the end of their lease, because even if they don’t like their current residence, all the other available rentals are too expensive for a minimum-wage budget. “When there’s a low inventory with a lot of demand, prices go up,” Benevegna said. “Unless we get more houses on the market, or we build more houses to balance that back out, prices are going to be high.” With so many people struggling to stay on their feet after losing their jobs, the state Supreme Court temporarily paused evictions for New Mexicans who could prove they were unable to pay rent due to a COVID-related issue. The court order means nothing, though, if tenants don’t fully understand the state judicial system. “The problem is that the laws are not really well understood by the general public so there’s a lot of abuses by landlords unfortunately,” Julian Trujillo, a volunteer
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and organizer with the Renters Coalition of Albuquerque, said. “The Supreme Court order requires a lot of work from the tenant that is not explicitly stated.” Trujillo said tenants still have to communicate with their landlord through documented conversations about their issues or concerns about paying their rent. He added that the federal CDC eviction moratorium requires you to submit paperwork to your landlord proving that you have been affected by the pandemic. Benevegna said Thunderbird Management tries to cooperate with all of their tenants, but if a renter doesn’t respond to any warnings, the company has to issue a court date and let the judge decide whether their lease should be terminated. If the tenant doesn’t participate in a hearing before a judge and provide sufficient evidence that they are unable to pay rent, they could still risk being evicted. Benevegna said they do everything they can to keep all of their tenants housed, such as offering payment plans and directing struggling renters to resource programs that offer relief funds or loans to those who need help getting back on their feet.
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NEW MEXICO DAILY LOBO
MONDAY, MARCH 22, 2021 / PAGE 7
Cannabis legalization hits another pothole in NM Legislature
Governor to call special session in effort to get cannabis over the line By Gabriel Biadora @gabrielbiadora New Mexico will have to wait for its turn in the proverbial smoke session after the Cannabis Regulation Act (House Bill 12) failed to be heard on the Senate floor before the 2021 legislative session ended at noon on March 20. In response to yet another failure to join the growing number of states allowing recreational marijuana use, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham is set to call a special session for “roughly March 31” to specifically address legalization efforts, according to an official press release sent out two hours after the session ended. “I believe legalization will be one of the largest job-creation programs in state history, driving entrepreneurial opportunities statewide for decades to come,” Lujan Grisham said. “I look forward to continuing to work with lawmakers to get the job done and done right.” Though it was expected to be heard in the waning hours of the 60-day session, HB 12 never reached the Senate floor following a harrowing journey through the Legislature. The long and winding road leads to a closed door A revised draft of HB 12 was presented to Senate Majority Leader Peter Wirth, D-Santa Fe, less than 24 hours prior to the session’s end. One legislative source said the proposal included splitting the bill into two separate bills: one
addressing legalization and the other addressing expungement and other social justice remedies to decades-old “War on Drugs” criminalization policies. Wirth told the Albuquerque Journal he felt the new proposal still wasn’t ready and said that, had he called the bill up to be heard, he was concerned that senators would likely be engaged in extensive debate, thus ensuring that a number of other bills wouldn’t have been passed by the noon deadline. Lujan Grisham agreed. “Rushing through amendments in the final hours of a session, when there’s a mountain of other very important work to be done, is not the right way to do something of this magnitude,” Lujan Grisham said. Early Thursday morning, HB 12 (sponsored by Rep. Javier Martínez, D-Albuquerque, Rep. Andrea Romero, D-Santa Fe, and Rep. Deborah Armstrong, D-Albuquerque) passed the Senate Judiciary Committee on a 5-4 vote to head to the Senate floor for a final vote. Although some advocates expected it to pass on party lines and move its way to Lujan Grisham for a final, historic signature, all the momentum legalization had accumulated in recent years was again stymied at the final hour. Splintered efforts doom cohesive legislation HB 12 pulled through to become the top dog amongst several competing bills in the feverish, exhausting and ultimately unfinished race to legalize adult use of
Photo by Matteo Paganelli on Unsplash.
marijuana in New Mexico. Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Joseph Cervantes, D-Las Cruces, joined three Republicans — Cliff Pirtle, R-Roswell, Gregory Baca, R-Belen, and Mark Moores, R-Albuquerque — to vote against the passage out of committee and was openly against the state fully legalizing marijuana throughout the session. Cervantes said HB 12 wasn’t ready, highlighting discrepancies between the language of the bill and the intention behind the policy. Cervantes pointed out that the Cannabis Regulation Act’s language stated that a legal consumer would be able to buy at least two ounces of flower, but the intent of the policy was actually to the contrary in that a consumer could only buy, at most, two ounces at a time. Same old pot song and dance The progress of similar legalization efforts were stunted in the Senate Judiciary Committee in years prior, and parallel concerns were broached once again in 2021. Possible limits on how many plants that a licensee may produce remained a popular talking point, drawing more comparisons between the Cannabis Regulation Act and Pirtle’s Senate Bill 288, which didn’t include a plant count limit. An amendment made to HB 12 on Thursday would allow a plant production limit to be placed on licensees to proportionately reflect the median plant count of growers nationally. The limits on plant count were of particular interest as legislators tried to balance con-
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cerns of market equilibrium with potential shortages of supply in the medical cannabis industry. Another point of contention was a proposed low-income patient subsidy fund for medical marijuana consumers. The version of HB 12 that made it out of the Senate Judiciary Committee included language that proposed using money collected from taxes on marijuana to “support qualified patients” by issuing subsidies to low-income applicants in order to offset the costs of their medical cannabis. Due to the current nature of the bill, however, it remains uncertain as to what provisions will be removed or amended and what additions may be included in the special session. ‘Water and oil:’ Republicans balk at expungement Beyond plant count and state subsidies for cannabis purchases, the two legislative chambers had an ideological chasm between social equity provisions and legalization. The final House bill included various social equity provisions meant to roll back the damages of cannabis criminalization on communities of color, with provisions that called for the expungement of arrest records for trafficking cannabis, among others. Advocates and sponsors of the House Cannabis Regulation Act argued that social justice and legalization go hand-in-hand — that one could not exist without the other while trying to undo decades of damage wrought by the War on Drugs. In contrast, GOP senators like Baca said
the two issues were like “water and oil” and must be separated and respectively managed. One Senate source, who asked to remain anonymous, speculated that separating the social justice and legalization aspects of HB 12 might result in both bills being passed, given that the predicted vote margin in the Senate is expected to be close. Their logic was that some Republicans might be willing to vote for legalization while opposing expungement, and some Democrats might be willing to vote for the social justice components while opposing legalization, creating a situation wherein both bills could receive the necessary votes for passage. Though the bill’s death may come as a disappointment to cannabis advocates and the 73% of New Mexicans who favor legalization, some advocates like Jason Barker — who has worked closely with New Mexico’s medical cannabis program — said the Cannabis Regulation Act should never have passed in its heavily amended form given its compromises. “It was a good bill in the House chamber, but the Senate committees amended the bill favoring special interests, hurting (micro businesses), patients and consumers,” Barker said in a message to the Daily Lobo. Lissa Knudsen contributed reporting to this article. Gabriel Biadora is a beat reporter at the Daily Lobo. He can be contacted at news@dailylobo.com or on Twitter @gabrielbiadora
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