1965 Voting Rights Act

Wanted: 18-year-old women to vote

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Long-time Albuquerque-based activist Pamelya Herndon thinks women will achieve pay equity by 2030. According to a national group called Status of Women, if current trends continue, women in New Mexico won’t see equal pay until 2054. Women of color face even greater pay inequities due to systemic racism. Herndon acknowledges the disparity, but despite those obstacles, she remains optimistic that all women will make the same as white men by 2030 regardless of color. “I absolutely do (believe we’ll get there).

nursing compact

Bipartisan push enacts nurse licensing compact

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Gov. Susana Martinez signed a new nurse licensing compact on Thursday, averting what one lawmaker warned would be a health care crisis by ensuring nurses with licenses from more than two dozen other states can continue practicing in New Mexico without getting a separate certificate. A bipartisan group of lawmakers sped the bill through the Legislature in the first days of this year’s month-long session as they faced a deadline late Friday to either approve the new compact or leave dozens — potentially hundreds — of nurses with licenses from other states unable to work in New Mexico, only making worse a shortage of medical professionals around the state. “Some hospitals, as high as 70 percent of their staff are out-of-state nurses. This is critical,” Rep. Deborah Armstrong, a Democrat from Albuquerque and chair of the House Health and Human Services Committee, told representatives before the chamber voted 68-0 to approve the new compact without debate. After the swift vote, the measure headed to the governor, who signed it Thursday afternoon surrounded by Democratic and Republican lawmakers.

nursing compact

Lawmakers race to pass nursing compact, but concerns remain

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The New Mexico Senate, moving to meet a tight deadline, on Wednesday approved a new nurse licensing compact to avoid what one lawmaker described as a health care crisis. But several senators raised concerns as the bill sped through the Legislature that the compact might diminish nurses’ rights by ceding too much power to an out-of-state board about licensing in the profession. The measure would allow nurses licensed in certain other states to practice in New Mexico without getting a separate certificate. It cleared the Senate 39-0 and then received approval from a committee of the House of Representatives. That sets up a vote Thursday by the full, 70-member House of Representatives.

Health

Pearce votes yes as House passes sweeping healthcare bill

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House Republicans passed a sweeping health care bill that could reshape the American healthcare system for the second time in less than a decade. If passed by the Senate, the bill would put hundreds of thousands of New Mexicans at risk of losing their health coverage. The legislation passed today, the American Health Care Act, is the culmination of years of criticism by Republicans of the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare. The bill to replace the ACA passed on a 217-213 vote. Only one of New Mexico’s representatives, Republican Steve Pearce, voted for the legislation.

News

Some reformers scoff as interest rate cap bill advances

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Storefront lenders would be limited to charging interest rates of 175 percent under a bill that cleared a Senate committee Monday, but consumer groups called the measure inadequate. The bill sponsor, Sen. Clemente Sanchez, D-Grants, said his plan would stop interest rates of 300, 500 or even 700 percent that have led to dozens of futile attempts by legislators to regulate an industry that critics say preys on the downtrodden. “It will eliminate the high interest rate loans we have heard about for years,” Sanchez told the Senate Corporations and Transportation Committee, which unanimously advanced his proposal, Senate Bill 388. The committee, which Sanchez chairs, rejected reforms backed by a coalition of consumer advocates. Then it embraced Sanchez’s proposal, supported by many in the storefront lending industry, to cap interest rates for short term-loans and effectively ban payday loans.