LAS CRUCES – When state legislators return to Santa Fe for the next legislative consultation in January, Senator Joseph Cervantes, Democrat of Las Cruces, said the key priority would once again be how to fund the state government.
The COVID-19 pandemic had serious economic consequences for New Mexico after the fall in oil costs left the state with a severe budget deficit. Unemployment increased while business and travel were limited through public aptitude ordinances, expanding pressure on the state and the federal government and sinking the state number one and higher education systems in crisis.
“The budget we’re dealing with is absolutely different from the one we thought we’d have to manage just six months ago,” Cervantes said in a recent interview. “Part of that is attributable to COVID, no doubt, but much is due to oil and fuel prices. New Mexico works like this historically . . . It’s a party mentality or famine that we have to get out of. “
Cervantes holds a bachelor’s degree in architecture and law and a law firm in Las Cruces. He was appointed to the New Mexico House of Representatives in 2001 in his first term as Commissioner of Doa Ana County, and served in the House until his election to the state Senate in 2012, he was also a Democratic candidate for governor in 2018.
He chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee and sits on the Senate Conservation Committee.
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All Races: A Guide to Doa Ana County Voters
Some lawmakers, in addition to Democrats and Republicans, see the legalization of recreational hashish as a possible source of state revenue, however, it was on the Cervantes Judiciary Committee that a record of legalization supported through Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham was paralyzed amid strong criticism from the senator.
“The bill went well beyond legalizing marijuana,” Cervantes said. “What he did was create an induscheck out, a cartel if you will, that would know who would take advantage of the induscheck out activity. I don’t think that New Media Mexicans understand the stacks of millions of dollars that other people want to earn if the industrial check is legalized. Since then I have not seen any law to address those concerns. “
In the short term, Cervantes said that when lawmakers return to Santa Fe in January, “we will have to reth think about the whole budget,” adding tax policy reform and a more critical spending assessment.
“New Mexico has a number of demanding situations with our education, with our physical care, with our economy, with the return to paintings of more people,” he said. “I don’t think making marijuana more available will solve any of those problems. problems. “
His Republican rival is Anthony’s John Thomas Roberts, a candidate for the first time who, according to the Crusade’s financial reports filed in September, raised or spent cash on his crusade.
In an interview, Roberts said he joined the United States Army at age 19, where he was a helicopter pilot. His foreign deployments included more than one passage in Afghanistan, as well as in Bosnia and Egypt.
After a brief era of paintings in the aeronautical industry, Roberts joined the Military National Guard in New Mexico and, among his missions this year, has moved the COVID-19 verification kits to the state.
Roberts expressed fear that because New Mexico still has a part-time legislature, lawmakers pay only one expense allowance, fewer citizens can participate.
“I see many retirees, wealthy freelancers, other people or others who can leave their business for a few months at a time, as lawyers,” he said.
Through his wife’s pediatric practice and his own trips to Santa Fe in day care, serving in the Legislature seemed within his reach, and Roberts said he was willing to serve, help reinvent answers to the New Mexico school formula, and advocate for greater investment in the aerospace industry and the hiring and retention of health care providers.
With regard to recreational cannabis, Roberts shared some of Cervantes’ skepticism, but open to the option of proposing a law that would alleviate demand for illegal and unregulated supplies.
“People say marijuana is an access drug,” Roberts said, “but it’s not so much that marijuana is a gateway to drug use, but a gateway to the way of life if you have to get it illegally. “
Roberts warned that an independent investigation of New Mexico’s K-12 formula through outdoor experts in the state could provide new perspectives for policy makers.
“Not only do we want a representation that listens to us, but we want a representation that needs to be supported,” Roberts said.
The election takes place on 3 November and early voting begins on 6 October.
The applicants presented their positions on a number of general problems for the League of Women Voters of the Greater Las Cruces. Candidates’ responses can be accessed http://onyourballot. vote411. org/race-detail. do?id=21614874, through Monday afternoon, Roberts had not yet responded to the survey.
You can contact Algernon D’Ammassa at 575-541-5451, adammassa@lcsun-news. com or @AlgernonWrites on Twitter.
See a map of NM Senate District 31 here: