DAILY LOBO new mexico
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The Independent Student Voice of UNM since 1895
tuesday January 21, 2014
Lottery funds at “Joint” Resolution [10] risk this semester by Chloe Henson
assistant-news@dailylobo.com @ChloeHenson5
The upcoming state legislative session may determine how much some UNM students pay for school this semester. According to an email sent out by the UNM Financial Aid Office, the New Mexico Higher Education Department believes “current available funds for the Legislative Lottery Scholarship may be insufficient to cover the spring 2014 semester.” Brian Malone, director of the Student Financial Aid Office, said legislators at the state level will have to decide to cover the finances during the upcoming legislative session in order for students receiving the Lottery Scholarship to have their full tuition paid this semester. “UNM’s administration and the people we spoke with in the legislature have indicated it’s a priority to get the money from the state,” he said. “There is a confidence that will happen. It’s not a guarantee, though, because it’s a legislative process.” In an email sent to the Daily Lobo, Christopher Sanchez, a spokesperson for the New Mexico Higher Education Department, said legislators need to work for both a shortterm and long-term solution to the problem of the Lottery’s insufficient funds. “We remain hopeful that students will continue to receive support from the Legislative Lottery Scholarship,” he said. “For this to happen, however, our legislators must take swift action to find a solution that is financially responsible and sustainable for years to come.” Sanchez said his department has shown legislators different scenarios for the scholarship in order to help them reach a decision. “To inform legislators in their discussions, the Higher Education Department has provided them with 32 different solvency scenarios that are based on ideas from students, parents and lawmakers,” he said. “We encourage students to contact their respective legislators to urge them to act swiftly and decisively during the 30-day session.” Malone said UNM will pay for the Lottery instead of requiring students to pay the difference for now because the university expects the government to provide the money in short order. “UNM can front the money right now, and the idea is that when the money comes in, then everything would balance
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out,” he said. If legislators decide not to provide funding for the scholarship, students will be asked to pay back a portion of their scholarships to UNM, Malone said. He said there is money in the fund, but only enough to cover a fraction of each student’s tuition. “At this point we have not been given a specific number,” he said. “But the idea is that there is probably at least 50 to 60 percent of the fund available. In other words, it could be 40 to 50 percent of it.” Isaac Romero, president of the Associated Students of the University of New Mexico, said during the past semester he has met with students to discuss the Lottery’s insolvency. He said he has been aware of the possibility of insufficient funds for the scholarship since he ran for president last year. “Quite honestly, this is something that I ran my campaign on when I was running for president,” he said. “We were all aware of the looming danger of losing the Lottery Scholarship, or just the reduction of funds. We felt it a priority to pursue it.” A short-term goal is to keep standards and funding the same for students currently on the scholarship, Romero said. “So current students who are on the Lottery Scholarship, how do we keep it so that they keep what they’ve always known?” he said. “2.5 GPA, 12 credit hours, 100 percent tuition — those are the basics of what the Lottery is now. We wanted to make sure students who are currently on the Lottery Scholarship, and who have demonstrated that they can continue to be successful, maintain that.” Malone said it would be beneficial for the Lottery Scholarship to be paid for in full this semester rather than get cut halfway through the year. “From what I’ve heard, there’s a lot of support for keeping it whole for this semester instead of cutting it in the middle of the year,” he said. “That benefits all of us, and we all want that.” Romero said he is confident that funding will be approved for the scholarship. “I think it has support from every branch of government, and I think that’s more than enough support,” he said. “I have full confidence that students this semester won’t have to worry about their scholarships.”
see Lottery PAGE 10
Aaron Sweet/ @AaronCSweet / Daily Lobo State senator Jerry Ortiz y Pino talks about his proposal, Senate Joint Resolution 10, to amend the state constitution to legalize the sale, consumption and growing of marijuana in New Mexico.
by Jyllian Roach
culture@dailylobo.com @Jyllian_R A bid to make marijuana legal will begin as the New Mexico Legislature opens this week. State Joint Resolution 10 would amend the state constitution to make the sale, consumption and growth of pot legal, said Sen. Jerry Ortiz y Pino, who sponsored the proposal. “It has been clear to me for at least 10 years that the war on drugs is an utter failure,” he said. “It’s worse than ineffective — it’s been hurting people. A lot of lives and a lot of families have been torn up unnecessarily.” Legalizing marijuana would not be as simple as passing this proposal, he said. It would be a three-step process. First, this proposal would have to pass the House and Senate with an absolute majority. If the bill passes with 22 or more votes in the Senate and 36 or more votes in the House, the constitutional amendment would be on the ballot for the 2014 election in November. Next, the proposal would go to New Mexico voters. If voters clear the amendment, the laws, restrictions, and taxes would be decided during the 2015 state legislature session. That means that marijuana would not be legal for two more years. But Ortiz y Pino said that, for New Mexico, that can be a good thing. “Colorado and Washington will have had two years of experience we could use to guide our own decision making,” he said. “The thought
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is, if they’re making mistakes, we can avoid them and if they’re having good success with something we can copy it. So I think the timing is right.” In an interview with KRQE, Governor Susana Martinez said she opposes the bill and thinks that the decision should be made by the legislators, not voters. “I don’t believe it should pass through the constitution. It should go through the legislative process instead and the legislators decide whether or not that should … become law or not,” Martinez said. Ortiz y Pino said this should be something for voters to decide because it is the people of New Mexico who are, even now, smoking marijuana. “Public attitudes have shifted so radically on this that I think there’s a really good chance it would pass,” he said. Organizations both locally and nationally have given support to the amendment, including the conservative Rio Grande Foundation, which supports criminal reform measures as a way to make New Mexico safer and financially stable. The nonprofit’s president Paul Gessing said legalizing marijuana could be important to the state in terms of crime and expendatures. Incarcerating nonviolent offenders does little to make the state safer, but it costs taxpayers millions of dollars to police and adjudicate these crimes, he said. “New Mexico is misallocating resources to deal with keeping people who are not harming anyone else in jail, and there are other
people out roaming the streets who are dangerous,” he said. According to a report published by the Cato Institute, New Mexico spent $674 million on prohibiting the use of marijuana in 2007. The report, entitled “The Budgetary Impact of Ending Drug Prohibition” also states that New Mexico would be able to earn about $20 million through taxation on marijuana. Martinez’s office said that this is just a ploy to improve the voter turnout of more liberal-minded voters. “It’s disappointing that a politician is so driven by partisan politics that he would seek to amend the state’s constitution to legalize drugs for the stated purpose of trying to increase liberal turnout in an election,” said Enrique Knell, a spokesperson for Martinez, in an email to KRQE. However, Ortiz y Pino said that improved voter turnout is exactly what Martinez is afraid of. “I don’t know if (Martinez) is against marijuana itself, but if this thing is on the ballot, it makes the voter turnout go up — 25-40,000 more people would vote who otherwise wouldn’t,” he said. “Almost all of those are people who don’t care who the governor is, who don’t care who the House of Representatives is, who would come out just for this issue and they would tend to be people, I would think, who would vote for Democrats — or whoever is running against her.” More people will come out because people are already smoking marijuana even though it’s illegal, Ortiz y Pino said.
see Marijuana PAGE 5
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