Recent Columns

 © 2026 NEW MEXICO NEWS SERVICES  7/13/26

Tax proposal may be more campaign fodder 

By Sherry Robinson

All She Wrote

     We’re having a public discussion I never thought I’d hear in New Mexico. After many years of tight budgets and hard decisions before the Legislature, we’re now talking about how to share the state’s $825 million oil and gas windfall from the Iran war with taxpayers.

     The governor recently suggested a $250 rebate, and the Republicans countered with a proposal to eliminate personal income taxes.

     By tossing out a number, the governor got the ball rolling in June. “President Trump’s reckless war in Iran” and the spike in oil prices, she said, was “padding the state’s bank accounts” and “draining New Mexicans’ wallets at the pump.” She noted the increase was especially brutal in rural areas, where people must drive longer distances for work and services.

     The two candidates for governor didn’t jump on board. Republican Gregg Hull said he’d rather see a gradual elimination of the personal income tax. Democrat Deb Haaland offered campaign boilerplate about “lowering costs for New Mexicans” through investments in affordable housing, several tax breaks and healthcare reform.

     Days later, state Republican leaders pushed the governor to “call an immediate special session for the Legislature to repeal the state personal income tax effective on July 1, 2026.” It would “dramatically increase the household incomes of many low-and moderate-income families who are struggling in paying their bills as higher gasoline prices continue at the pump,” wrote House Minority Leader Gail Armstrong of Magdalena and Reps. Rebecca Dow of Elephant Butte and Alan Martinez of Rio Rancho. And it would stimulate “economic growth and higher living standards.”

     Such a repeal would cost the state – and return to taxpayers – about $2.2 billion, according to the Legislative Finance Committee, or about 16% of the general fund budget. That’s a lot. It would be a massive change in public finance.

     Republicans made the same proposal in the last legislative session but offered no data and no studies and didn’t call for any. This time they offered a few numbers. The Legislature would “still have more than $12 billion in recurring General Fund revenues to finance the current $11.2 billion in recurring General Fund spending.” That covers ongoing necessities like education, Medicaid and law enforcement. In addition, the state has more than $11 billion in newly created trust funds and a future $2 billion payment from a recent oil and gas lease sale. Is all that enough to backfill the loss of $2.2 billion year after year after year?

     The key phrase is this one: “With record levels of state revenues expected to continue over the next several years…”

     Even the Republicans see a short-term limit to this windfall. And yet any economist or Roundhouse watcher can tell you the economy goes up and the economy goes down, and it takes state revenues with it. Now add to that the expenses piling up from natural disaster recovery and the so-called big beautiful bill. No wonder a governor’s spokesman told Source NM the Republicans’ proposal would have “recurring and significant budget implications that demand comprehensive analysis and rigorous debate” and that’s not going to happen in a special session.

     Armstrong and Dow have been in the Legislature long enough to know this, so they, like Haaland, are just broadcasting political chatter. 

The three Republicans wrote that they agree with the suggestion by Sen. George Muñoz, a Gallup Democrat who chairs the Senate Finance Committee, that “the Legislature should repeal the state personal income tax to provide New Mexico's taxpayers with significant long-term tax relief, not just a one-time rebate.”

     On the same day as the Republicans’ letter, Muñoz clarified his position in an op ed: “Reducing – or ultimately eliminating – the personal income tax for working families would provide permanent relief that grows with every paycheck.” He’s previously indicated he doesn’t have much use for rebates.

Muñoz, who is also a businessman, has a keen understanding of the income and outgo of state finance. And he’s well aware of impacts from the Trump administration’s changes to Medicaid and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program eligibility for both families and state government. He made it clear that taking care of New Mexicans shouldn’t be sacrificed for a reduction in income taxes. 

     “As policymakers, we cannot eliminate every financial hardship. But we can make sure state government is making life easier instead of harder,” Muñoz wrote.

     “Fiscal responsibility and compassion are not competing values.” 

     In this discussion Muñoz and Gregg Hull are the adults in the room.

© 2026 NEW MEXICO NEWS SERVICES  6/2926

Wind turbines will power the future

By Sherry Robinson

All She Wrote

     As rancher Jim Berlier told it, he was in the Roundhouse representing his soil and water conservation district when he met wind-farm developers who were seeking the state’s permission to build. Talk to ranchers, he told them: We always say yes, and we don’t have to be re-elected every two years.

     Two years ago, I was part of a tour group on Berlier’s historic San Pablo Ranch in Torrance County, home to cattle, people and 53 wind turbines. A woman asked him how he slept with the constant whooshing sound outside.

     “I sleep like a baby,” he said.

     Wind farms, which lease land from the state and private land owners, have been a blessing to the state’s ranchers. Now that Pattern Energy Group’s massive SunZia Wind Project began commercial operations in June, many more ranchers will sleep well. 

     The $11 billion SunZia is the nation’s biggest wind project by far with 916 turbines spinning in Lincoln, Torrance and San Miguel counties. They generate 3,650 megawatts of electricity, enough for millions of homes, that will reach Arizona and California over 550 miles of new transmission lines. 

     The project’s epicenter was Corona, which has boomed since Pattern arrived. A few miles away at Clines Corners, the tourist stop’s RV park has been packed with workers. Pattern said the project created more than 2,000 jobs at its peak and more than 100 permanent jobs in operations. The economic impact on New Mexico and Arizona will be $20 billion, including $1.3 billion in payments to local governments and private landowners.

     Let’s take a moment to celebrate New Mexico’s huge win – and it’s not just in wind turbines, it’s transmission too. I’ve written for years that if New Mexico expected to grow and prosper, we needed more electric transmission. Pattern Energy accomplished the near impossible by building both.

     Which is why it took 18 years – three for construction and 15 for red tape. Pattern persevered. Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., who worked hard to ease roadblocks, recently called for regulatory reform, saying that if we want more projects like this “we need a permitting system that gets to yes — or no — faster while maintaining strong environmental standards and meaningful community engagement.” 

     A shout-out here to former reporter Kevin Robinson-Avila (no relation) who for years carefully chronicled Pattern’s ups and downs for the Albuquerque Journal. 

     By 2009, he wrote, the transmission line was embroiled in disputes over potential environmental impacts along with U. S. Defense Department concerns about its effect on operations at White Sands Missile Range. The developers moved a segment north to avoid White Sands but still faced an environmental storm over its crossing on the Rio Grande. Pattern negotiated mitigation measures to protect birds and other wildlife, financed wildlife conservation studies, and bought land to create avian safe havens in New Mexico and Arizona.

     What I see is a company that chose to negotiate in good faith rather than fight at every obstacle. Pattern has also been a good corporate neighbor that’s invested generously in the communities where it operates. 

     Pattern has a big footprint in the state. Its Western Spirit project -- four wind farms in Guadalupe, Lincoln and Torrance counties plus an associated transmission line – has operated since 2022. Two older projects are in Curry County. 

     New Mexico now has 31 utility-scale wind farms producing more than 8,000 MW, according to the marketing intelligence firm Cleanview. This includes Avangrid Renewables’ Torrance County operation that serves PNM and supplies Facebook’s data center in Los Lunas. That means you can dial down the scary stories you’ve heard about data centers and their voracious energy needs that will somehow cost all of us. There is plenty of wind and plenty of power.

     Here’s what else you can dial down – the president’s assertion that wind is “unreliable” and his belief that coal is somehow coming back. Even though his administration is phasing out tax credits and federal permits have slowed, experts say it won’t change anything. Wind turbines outcompete coal, and they’ve proliferated across the landscape, accounting for 63% of the growth in electricity production since 2019. In New Mexico wind now accounts for 45% of New Mexico’s power, while solar and natural gas are neck and neck at 19%, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. The coal train has left the station. 

     My husband and I recently had the experience of driving south at night toward Winslow, Arizona, and wondering about the necklace of red blinking lights across the horizon. An airport? Powerlines? Military installation? No, it was AES Corp.’s Chevalon Butte Wind Farm, two years old and replacing coal for Arizona Public Service.

     Welcome to the future.

© 2026 NEW MEXICO NEWS SERVICES  6/22/26

New Mexico: ‘A brilliant destiny awaits her’

By Sherry Robinson

All She Wrote

     As we observe the nation’s 250th anniversary, historians focus on the East Coast, but New Mexico has proud moments too. Return with me to 1851, when New Mexico became a territory of the United States. 

     Five years after the United States claimed New Mexico as a prize of the Mexican-American War, Congress declared New Mexico a territory and President Millard Fillmore appointed James Silas Calhoun as governor.

Calhoun was a cut above the usual federal appointee; a former judge, legislator, merchant and banker from Georgia, he was highly ethical and conscientious. (I wrote his biography in 2021.) He was already serving as New Mexico’s first Indian agent. And he spoke Spanish.

     New Mexicans had no experience with democracy. They had been under the thumb of Spain and Mexico for more than two centuries and in 1846 became wards of a corrupt U.S. military occupation.

      Political debates were hotly divided. One faction demanded that Americans run everything, even though they represented a sliver of the population. And to avoid taxes they wanted to keep New Mexico dependent on the federal government. Calhoun’s faction argued for statehood and had the support of New Mexicans. 

     In his inaugural speech on March 3, 1851, he said: “An era in the history of New Mexico commences this day… The fate of New Mexico, under Providence, is in the hands of her own sons, and if wise and patriotic counsels prevail, a brilliant destiny awaits her.”

     With Calhoun’s inauguration, New Mexicans became citizens – with rights – of a United States Territory. He understood that he must guide the creation of a just and stable government in this remote outpost and see that New Mexicans were closely involved in the process. His experience as a judge and legislator prepared him well for the job.

     New Mexicans weren’t entirely unprepared. Prominent families had long sent their sons to the States to be educated, and among the American newcomers were a handful of lawyers.

     On May 19 New Mexicans elected their legislators. The men chosen could be considered the fathers of New Mexico Territory, and most of them were Hispanic. 

     This high level of political participation was unusual for a conquered people, according to historian Phillip Gonzáles. The American political process gave New Mexicans a seat at the table and rewarded them as they submitted to the power of the United States. 

     Now, imagine 39 legislators settling into small chambers in the ancient, dilapidated Palace of the Governors on the Santa Fe Plaza. Their job was to create a government from scratch.

     New Mexico then had about 57,000 people, not counting tribes, and seven in eight were illiterate. Only churches provided any education. Indian hostilities were rampant. And official Washington barely knew the territory existed.

     Addressing lawmakers, Calhoun covered issues that are surprisingly contemporary, beginning with elections. He asked them to define the qualifications for voting and holding office so that “strangers temporarily residing in your midst” couldn’t interfere in elections and suggested requiring voters to register before elections to prevent fraud. Regarding taxation, it “should be borne alike, having a just regard to the means of each individual… Not one cent beyond the just wants of the government should be collected, and the most rigid economy should be practiced.” 

     On education, this father of two daughters said it was important to educate New Mexico’s girls as well as her boys. Agricultural laws should govern irrigation, sale of animals, and marks and brands. Improper use of weights and measures should be penalized. As for the poor, he said, “Let us, at the very commencement of our career in self-government, take special care of the weak and the innocent, and secure to them the means of an honest and virtuous independence…” 

     Issues of their day included defining relations between masters and peons, demanding that the military restore church property it had seized, exploring the territory, and persuading people to give up their Mexican citizenship and join the “political community of New Mexico.”

     For 40 days the first territorial legislature tackled Calhoun’s priorities and their own. By adjournment new legislators had accomplished a great deal. They declared and established the people’s rights, decided who could vote, provided for punishment of crimes, regulated trade and interaction with the tribes, attempted to levy taxes, established the territorial treasury, standardized master-servant contracts, and regulated water and acequias. They passed mining and agricultural laws, and created judicial districts.

     In just three months, Calhoun and the Legislature made a remarkable start on creating a territorial government that brought order and predictability. They reassured skeptical New Mexicans and welcomed their participation in the American democratic process.

© 2026 NEW MEXICO NEWS SERVICES  6/15/26

Thanks to UNM’s Garnett Stokes for eight years of stability 

By Sherry Robinson

All She Wrote

     In 2006 I got an email from a savvy member of the business community. “Write an article about the UNM mess,” he wrote. “It is an ongoing story. After all, it’s our flagship research university.”

     UNM had just gotten rid of Luis Caldera, a shouter, table pounder and top-down commander foisted on us by former Gov. Bill Richardson. I wrote: “Little in his professional background prepared him for university administration. He was personally aloof. He didn’t get New Mexico.” 

     Two more presidents followed. One provoked a vote of no confidence from the faculty over cronyism in a top-heavy administration. The other was forced out over vague insinuations of an abrasive management style.

     Then there was the athletics department. A special audit documented nearly $700,000 in missing revenues, perks for insiders, mixing of public and private money, and years of overspent budgets.

     By January 2018 UNM had cycled through seven university presidents in 20 years. In March regents hired Garnett Stokes as the institution’s first female president. This time they solicited input from stakeholders, and Stokes rode in with broad support. She hired such a capable new leadership team that after five years the faculty senate president said he had never experienced such stability.

     UNM stopped being a mess for people like me to write about, although our institutions in Silver City, Las Cruces and Las Vegas have taken up the slack.

      Now, sadly, Stokes is retiring after eight years in a notoriously difficult job. She led UNM through strained budgets, a pandemic, two campus murders, labor unrest and a new federal administration that’s not friendly to higher education.

     Working in UNM’s public affairs office for four years, I marveled at the place every day. A university is like a small town with all the same issues – crime, traffic, housing, infrastructure, healthcare – only you have a population of students. You and your learned employees are challenged to keep that population safe as you prepare them for the future. Now, add to that a burgeoning medical complex, student athletics, scientific research, and student protests.

     A lot can go wrong. 

     Garnett Stokes signaled from the get go that she wasn’t your usual academic executive by visiting all 33 counties and listening to people’s concerns. In a letter to alumni, she wrote about “the importance of building relationships with the citizens whom the institution serves.” She promised “a transition plan based on active listening, campus collaboration and a mutual expectation of excellence.”

     When she arrived in 2018 enrollment had dropped for five years in a row, the Legislature had cut $27 million in two years, the state was investigating financial mismanagement in athletics, and faculty morale was at an all-time low, according to the Albuquerque Journal.

     Months later Stokes backed a decision by the new athletic director to cut three programs, including the popular men’s soccer, because of millions in red ink. I was covering the Legislature at the time. Students and parents were furious, and so were some powerful legislators. Stokes stuck to her guns. The department has been in the black ever since. 

     Two years in, COVID forced a rapid transition to online classes as UNM’s health system was trying to vaccinate thousands and contend with overwhelming numbers of very sick patients.

     Garnett Stokes has won some and lost some. One lost battle was against organized labor. After years of stagnant salaries, the faculty, adjunct instructors and graduate teaching assistants unionized. The latter (I used to call them the only legal slaves) hadn’t seen a raise in in years. 

     But she prevailed in bringing UNM proper and its health sciences campus under the same umbrella. Now UNM plans to double the size of the medical school by 2030, and it recently opened a new critical care tower to relieve overcrowding at the hospital.

     Keep all this in mind while we think about complaints from the business community that regents didn’t seriously consider former ebay and Hewlett-Packard CEO Meg Whitman as Stokes’ successor. 

     I spent years covering New Mexico business for three newspapers, besides my time at UNM. A university and a company are much different operations for all the reasons you just read. Academics would look at a business executive, however worthy, as an outsider – not one of us. Let’s be honest. If you turn this situation around, and an accomplished academic wanted to head a major company, she or he would hear the same thing. 

     We’re thrilled to have Whitman among us and hope she stays engaged in public issues, but the regents did the right thing in sticking to their process and selecting Steve Goldstein, who brings his own academic chops plus experience in healthcare institution management.

     We welcome him and wish him years of success.