Columns appear here a week after they're published in print.
© 2024 NEW MEXICO NEWS SERVICES 4/15/24
A better way to run a railroad
By Sherry Robinson
All She Wrote
There’s nothing like a road trip to make you appreciate another mode of transportation – trains. They keep motorists company along many a New Mexico highway. Before we left the federal Department of Transportation unveiled a new railroad rule, so I was paying more attention to trains.
On April 2 DOT’s Federal Railroad Administration began requiring trains to have at least two crew members. The feds cited “troubling trends that point toward a need for heightened caution and awareness in railroad safety.”
The number of human-caused accidents has edged up from less than one accident per million train miles in 2013 to 1.34 in 2022, a 41% increase.
Aside from numbers, we’re still troubled by East Palestine, Ohio, where a Norfolk-Southern train carrying toxic chemicals derailed and burned in 2023. Every New Mexico community with railroad tracks – and that’s a great many – wondered if they might be next.
“Common sense tells us that large freight trains, some of which can be over three miles long, should have at least two crew members on board,” said U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.
“A second crewmember performs important safety functions that could be lost when reducing crew size to a single person,” explained the Railroad Administration.
Traveling U.S. 60-84 between Fort Sumner and Clovis, we marveled at the length of trains paralleling the road. Sitting in my living room, I had wondered what a two- or three-mile long train would look like, but on the road, we often couldn’t see the end. I had to admit that the thought of just one engineer overseeing the endless metallic snake made me uneasy.
In New Mexico, five freight railroads carry 5.8 million carloads a year across 1,835 miles, according to the Association of American Railroads. We have accidents regularly, like the derailment in March that dumped tons of corn in Socorro.
More serious incidents included a 2021 train wreck near Laguna Pueblo where smoke forced residents to evacuate. The same year sabotage caused a train to leave the rails near Vado, injuring the engineer and conductor. In 2019 high winds blew a train off a high trestle near Tucumcari. In 2015 a fatigued conductor failed to properly set a switch, leading to a collision of two freight trains near Roswell; an engineer died, and the conductor was seriously injured.
Freight railroads and Amtrak opposed the new rule. The Association of American Railroads insisted that there is no evidence that rail safety is tied to crew size. Collective bargaining has historically managed crew size, the group said, and carriers would rather invest in employee training and new technology.
During the 1980s I covered railroads when they were losing money, and there was some doubt about the industry’s viability. Through deregulation, mergers, increased business and reduced employment, railroads survived. Crews shrank from five or more to one or two. So when the hand of regulation tightened again, they hollered.
However, the Railroad Administration’s action had been building for some time. Rail unions in 2022 demanded two-person crews and were so adamant that Congress had to force an agreement between unions and rail operators. States were moving their own legislation. In Congress, Ohio Sens. Sherrod Brown, a Democrat, and J.D. Vance, a Republican, who agree on little else, co-sponsored rail safety legislation.
Feds received more than 13,500 written comments from railroad workers and their families and the public along with public testimony.
Arguments kept returning to East Palestine. The wreck and its toxic spill were caused by an overheated bearing, and the train had two workers. But environmentalists, unions and Ohio legislators questioned the wisdom of letting railroads determine their own safety measures, according to The Hill.
Railroads want to operate safely, but they must improve their numbers and earn back the public trust.
©2024 New Mexico News Services 4-8-24
New Mexico Elections Earn Top Rating
By Peter St. Cyr
For Pete’s Sake
State election administrators have earned kudos for their continuous efforts to improve voting procedures and secure free and fair elections.
Usually at the bottom of most rankings, New Mexico officials topped all states on the prestigious Election Performance Index (EPI), a project of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Election Data and Science Lab, described as “a non-partisan, objective measure of U.S. election administration.”
With a score of 88% in the 2022 mid-term election cycle, New Mexico jumped eight places ahead of its 2018 ranking and topped Michigan, Colorado, Vermont and Nebraska. Arkansas, Mississippi and Wyoming bottomed the list.
The most recent EPI is based on 18 indicators, including the percentage of mail ballots that are rejected, whether the state requires risk-limiting tabulation audits, and the turnout rate.
New Mexico’s peak ranking is a clear indication how far the state has moved ahead from the days-long vote-count debacle following the Democrats’ 2008 Super Tuesday election and the indictments of two former New Mexico secretaries of state: Rebecca Vigil Giron, for alleged misuse of federal funds (charges were later dropped), and Dianna Duran, who pled guilty to embezzlement, fraud and campaign violations.
Data from two years ago show the state had an 80.35% voter registration rate and a turnout rate of 46.54%, almost a full percentage point below the national average. Still, voters will cheer that the average reported wait in line to vote is less than four minutes. New Mexico also got high marks for its voter registration and online lookup tools.
The peak ranking should give residents confidence headed into June’s primary and this fall’s general election, which has been described as the most consequential election of the century.
Free and fair elections, administered with fairness and confidence, are the bedrock of our democracy, and current Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse, a Democrat, at the helm of state elections since first being elected in 2016, should take a bow for her commitment to these improvements.
“Alongside my incredible staff and the tireless work of our 33 county clerks and their staffs, I’m proud to have helped modernize New Mexico’s elections by finding a critical balance between voter access and election security,” Toulouse said in a news release.
Toulouse also gave state lawmakers credit for enacting new election laws.
The EPI compares states’ performances; it’s also a way to chart national trends that have made steady gains over the past decade. New Mexico jumped from a total score of less than 70% in 2010 to close to 90% presently.
While we recognize this gain, we suggest election administrators not rest on their laurels but continue their hard work, especially getting out the vote and boosting turnout.
After all, free and fair elections are the means through which the will of the people is translated into governance.
We can’t imagine an alternative where governance isn’t derived from the people’s consent but from the whims of self-proclaimed autocrats or the selfish interests of a few. Such a society would be bereft of the freedoms and protections we often take for granted.
Elections empower citizens to shape our collective future. Each vote cast is more profound than just choosing a candidate; it’s about asserting our right to govern ourselves. The simple act of voting is more than a civic duty – it’s the heartbeat of a functioning democracy.
Vote integrity hinges on our freedom to participate in the electoral process without fear, intimidation or manipulation.
It’s a human right that should be defended at all costs.
For more information on voting in New Mexico, visit the state’s online portal at NMVote.com.
Contact the writer at Peter505@me.com.
© 2024 NEW MEXICO NEWS SERVICES 4-15-24
A medical cost you didn’t know about
By Merilee Dannemann
Triple Spaced Again
Most of us have never heard of independent medical examinations. We might need to know a little more about them.
An independent medical examination (IME) is an exam performed when there is litigation related to a sick or injured person’s medical condition that requires more than the opinion of the treating physician. A doctor is hired – or, if necessary, a few doctors with different specialties – to give an unbiased opinion.
New Mexico workers' compensation has an unusual system for IMEs. If the parties can’t agree to an IME physician and the judge has to select one, the judge may only pick from a list of doctors approved annually by a committee. The committee members are selected by the Workers' Compensation Advisory Council. Ironically, selecting these committee members is the only actual power the Advisory Council has; everything else it does is advisory only. The IME Committee, however, has real power, for just this one thing.
The Advisory Council has been mostly following the Open Meetings Act, in part because I helped set it up years ago when I worked there. But until now, the IME Committee has been closed. That is about to change.
Here’s the origin of this odd process. Prior to the 1990 workers' compensation reform, any doctor could do IMEs, but some doctors were regarded as biased and were deeply distrusted by either the insurance community or plaintiff attorneys. The committee was established as part of the reform, to screen out the biased doctors. Physicians who wanted to be eligible for IMEs ordered by a judge had to apply to the committee.
After a few years most doctors stopped applying, and for a while there were not enough to meet the demand. I think there has been considerable increase in IME activity, and that would be useful information for public policy, but it’s not being tracked in any publicly available statistics.
New Mexico workers' compensation has a medical fee schedule, which is supposed to limit what doctors charge, but IME charges are not regulated.
The list of IME approved providers is public, accessible on the website of the Workers' Compensation Administration. But the committee meetings have always been secret. After wondering why for several years, I realized there was no good reason, so I asked the Workers' Compensation Administration about it and asked the Foundation for Open Government for a little help. We now have assurance that the meetings will be open.
You might be asking why this is of any importance. Here’s why.
First, the IME committee does the public’s business. Indirectly, it has the power to shape the outcomes of lawsuits that affect seriously injured workers. And it affects an insurance system that we all pay for. So it should be transparent.
Second, medical malpractice and personal injury litigation also use IMEs. Those systems are far less regulated than workers' compensation and we are all paying for them, partly through government and partly through our own insurance.
Finally, medical-related litigation will be a factor when New Mexico eventually passes a paid family and medical leave law. There is no getting around that. Issues will arise that lead to litigation and add costs.
Right now among policy makers there is a quiet but furious dispute going on about the next round of legislation on paid family and medical leave. Some issues in that system will be comparable to issues in workers' compensation. New Mexico did an imperfect but thorough job addressing those issues in our reform 33 years ago, and it should serve as a model. The bill drafters for this new system should study it.
Contact Merilee Dannemann through www.triplespacedagain.com.
© 2024 NEW MEXICO NEWS SERVICES 4/15/24
Politics Two Ways
By Linda G. Harris
Two New Mexico political groups are using opposite tactics to reach a common goal—elect Democrats. While the West Side Democrats in Albuquerque focuses on personal activism, Blue CD2 New Mexico uses data and remote messaging techniques to reach new voters. Both groups say their specific methods are helping win elections.
The West Side group is led by Dorothy Wilkinson. She spent 28 years teaching in Gallup before retiring to Albuquerque, where she had planned to take it easy. “But 2016 happened,” she said. Her return to activism was a natural extension of her involvement in collective bargaining in Gallup.
The West Side includes the chunk of Bernalillo County west of the Rio Grande and is one of Albuquerque’s fastest growing areas with a 2020 population of 132,500. The West Side falls under Congressional District 1, but due to recent redistricting, a rectangle-sized portion of the area is now in CD 2.
Wilkinson said the group regained its momentum after the pandemic, thanks to volunteers who made phone calls inviting people to meetings. Traditional methods like phone banking and door-to-door canvassing in the run-up to the 2022 midterms paid off. In what Wilkinson called “people working for people,” volunteers logged thousands of hours by Election Day.
“While our goal is to get Democrats elected, we also want to create a space where like-minded Democrats can work together,” she said, citing how their efforts in 2023 helped win a West Side seat on the school board. “We worked with the (Albuquerque) Teachers Federation to keep Moms for Liberty out of the district,” she said, referring to a group known for book bans. In the final tally, their candidate Ronaldo Tome-Warito defeated the long-time incumbent by 200 votes.
In 2021 Rochelle Williams, founder and co-chair of Blue CD2, was back in her Tularosa hometown after retiring from a business career in Albuquerque. However, she soon grew frustrated with the Republican hold in area politics. After reading ViAnn Beadle’s analysis of voter registration and turnout in the district, she thought, why can’t we use these numbers to turn the district blue? “It was my aha moment,” she said. She and Beadle, chair of Indivisible Las Cruces, invited people to a Zoom meeting to gauge interest in taking on the challenge. By the third meeting, the group voted to organize. From then on, she said, “We were running flat out, hair on fire.”
District 2 is huge, taking up nearly half the state, from Zuni Pueblo on the north to the Mexican border on the south. With a couple of exceptions, Republicans have consistently held the district’s congressional seat.
Williams said because they used data to drive their decisions, the group tended to attract volunteers with backgrounds in research and data collection. Blue CD2’s decision to operate remotely followed the successful practices of national organizations such as Field Team 6 and Sisters United Alliance.
Using specific data and in-depth marketing research, Blue CD2’s messaging team created snappy content (including a blue donkey in aviator glasses) for postcards, billboards, social media, and ads. In 2022, their 300-member post card team wrote 20,000 postcards to young, mostly Hispanic, low-turnout voters reminding them to vote. Their efforts helped bring in 6,783 new voters. “Gabe (Vasquez) won by 1,346 votes,” she said. Congressman Vasquez is up for re-election in 2024.
Number crunching also extends to fund-raising. Now a registered federal PAC, the group has sponsored successful Zoom fundraisers like the popular “Virtual House Party” and Zoom meetings featuring “celebrity” panelists, such as political columnist Simon Rosenberg and Reed Galen of the Lincoln Project. By November 2024, Williams said they want to bring in 12,000 new voters—and they intend to raise $250,000 to do it.