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Climate Progress

Tobacco Front-Group Chairman And Climate Science Denier Named President Of New Mexico State University

By Brad Johnson, Guest Blogger on May 14, 2013 at 6:23 pm

by Brad Johnson, campaign manager for Forecast the Facts

Garrey Carruthers, NMSU President

By a 3-2 vote on Monday, May 6, the New Mexico State University Board of Regents selected Garrey Carruthers, who questions the science of climate change, to be the next president of the land-grant institution in drought-plagued Las Cruces, despite widespread concern from faculty, students, alumni, and local legislators.

After news reports that Carruthers chaired a tobacco-industry front group in the 1990s and is a global warming skeptic, four New Mexico state representatives sent a letter to Board of Regents chair Mike Cheney questioning the wisdom of his candidacy. Last weekend, over 300 New Mexico residents signed a Forecast the Facts petition to the Board of Regents, saying: “Don’t select Garrey Carruthers, who rejects the science of climate change, to be the next president of New Mexico State University.” The petition was delivered to the board by an NMSU student.

Board of Regents Chair Mike Cheney, a local businessman and one of the three supporters of Carruthers, told reporters that he did not speak with the legislators concerned with Carruthers’ ties to Phillip Morris and his questioning of climate science:

On Monday, Cheney said he had not talked to Carruthers about his involvement in TASSC and still hoped to speak to several of the legislators about their concerns about Carruthers’ work on behalf of Philip Morris.

“When we began the search process, we realized immediately that our next president must clearly understand the environment,” Cheney said without a sense of irony.

In a comment on the Forecast the Facts petition, Dr. Stephen S. Mulkey, the president of Unity College in Unity, ME, urged against the selection of Carruthers:

Read more

Climate Progress

New Mexico State University’s Next President May Be A Climate Science Denier

By Brad Johnson, Guest Blogger on May 5, 2013 at 10:37 am

by Brad Johnson, campaign manager for Forecast the Facts

Former Republican governor Garrey Carruthers pushes his candidacy for the New Mexico State University presidency.

On Monday at 4 pm, the New Mexico State University Board of Regents is prepared to hold a public vote to choose the next president of New Mexico State University (NMSU), the major land-grant institution in Las Cruces, NM. One of the top candidates is Garrey Carruthers, a former Republican governor. Carruthers is also a climate-science denier who ran a tobacco-industry front group for years.

From 1993 to 1998, Carruthers was the chairman of The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition (TASSC), a tobacco industry-funded lobby group that claims that the health risks of smoking and the threat of global warming are “junk science.”

Questioned last week by NMSU scientist Dr. Gary Roemer at an on-campus meeting on his candidacy to become university president, Carruthers asserted that there is not a scientific consensus on climate change. He continued: “I don’t know. I’m an economist. I don’t do global warming. It’s a scientific judgment that I can’t make.”

Dr. Roemer responded:

I think it’s pretty appalling that a presidential candidate for this university does not have a vision for dealing with the most serious environmental crisis that humanity and our Earth have ever faced.

In a telephone interview, Dr. Roemer confirmed that he finds fossil-fueled climate change to be a fundamental crisis.

Although Carruthers rejects the science of climate change, he has disavowed TASSC’s position on smoking. “I’m four-square against second-hand smoke,” Carruthers said in a recent interview with the Albuquerque Journal. “I don’t think people should smoke, and second-hand smoke is detrimental to other people’s health.”

State Reps. Phillip Archuleta, Nate Cote, Bill McCamley, and Jeff Steinborn have written to the Board of Regents opposing the selection of a climate-change denier as New Mexico faces global-warming-fueled drought.

In response, the climate-science accountability group Forecast the Facts has launched a petition effort to mobilize against the selection of Carruthers. The signatures will be delivered at the open vote on Monday.

LGBT

Santa Fe City Council Approves Marriage Equality Resolution

By Zack Ford on Apr 25, 2013 at 9:07 am

In March, lawmakers in Santa Fe, New Mexico, including Mayor David Coss (D), urged the City Council to adopt a resolution clarifying that marriage for same-sex couples is legal. Indeed, nothing in the state’s law suggests otherwise. Wednesday night, the Council voted 5-3 to approve that resolution, which urges the attorney general and county clerks to recognize marriage equality.

Though the resolution received enthusiastic cheers from the crowd in attendance, it likely changes nothing for now. The city council has no authority over county clerks, and the Santa Fe County Clerk, Geraldine Salazar, has said she will not offer same-sex marriage licenses until the state acts. Nevertheless, momentum could be all that New Mexico needs. Because the law doesn’t prohibit it, any county clerk could arguably begin issuing same-sex marriage licenses at any time, as happened in 2004 when 64 same-sex couples married.

Watch a video of the vote and the crowd’s celebration when it passed:

Politics

New Mexico GOP Official Calls 19-Year-Old ‘A Radical Bitch’

By Aviva Shen on Apr 24, 2013 at 4:00 pm

Steve Kush, executive director of the Bernalillo County Republican Party in New Mexico, took to Twitter on Tuesday to verbally abuse a 19-year-old Working America volunteer who testified in favor of raising the minimum wage. Bernalillo County, the largest county in New Mexico, was considering a proposal to increase the county minimum wage from $7.50 to $8.50.

Rather than listen to the 19-year-old woman’s testimony, Kush mocked her on social media, calling her a “radical bitch”:

As other advocates spoke on Tuesday, Kush was on Facebook, deploying a variety of sexist and offensive insults. He joked that Chelsey Evans, director of the New Mexico branch, “was hot enough to almost make me register democrat.”

Bob Cornelius, the former executive director of the Bernalillo County GOP, replied that Evans was using the boots to “walk Central,” a local street known for prostitution. Cornelius later deleted the comment and apologized. According to Evans, Kush has not yet offered an apology.

ProgressNow New Mexico called for Kush’s resignation, pointing out that a state run by a prominent Republican woman, Gov. Susana Martinez, should not be tolerating “misogynistic statements towards working women time and again.”

Also during the meeting, Kush called the Democrats the “Gestapo” multiple times. Despite the slew of hateful comments made by Kush over social media, the county passed the proposal to raise the minimum wage from $7.50 to $8.50 by 3-2 on Tuesday night.

Gov. Martinez recently vetoed a similar measure to raise the entire state’s minimum wage. Evans pointed out at the time that New Mexico has the highest percentage of low-income working families and is ranked first in income inequality in the entire country.

Update

Kush has been suspended indefinitely for his comments. He admitted late Wednesday to New Mexico Watchdog, “I absolutely crossed the line. It was dumb; it was stupid.”

LGBT

New Mexico Same-Sex Couples Sue For Right To Marry

By Zack Ford on Mar 21, 2013 at 4:43 pm

Kim Kiel, Rose Griego, Miriam Rand, and Ona Lara Porter

Two same-sex couples have filed suit in New Mexico state court demanding that the Albuquerque county clerk issue them marriage licenses. As some Santa Fe lawmakers pointed out earlier this week, nothing in New Mexico law prohibits same-sex marriage.

Both couple have compelling stories about combining their families, including children from past relationships, as well as taking care of each other in times of need. From the complaint, here is some background about Kim Kiel and Rose Griego:

Before they spent the thousands of dollars necessary to duplicate only some of the rights married couples automatically enjoy, Rose was hospitalized. Even though Kim had taken her to the emergency room, the hospital refused to provide Kim with any information about Rose’s condition or treatment. It was only after Rose’s family arrived that Kim was able to learn Rose’s prognosis.

Kim has two children from a previous relationship, who are now in college. Her children refer to Rose as their step-mother. Her children recognize the couple’s love for and commitment to one another, but Kim and Rose want everyone else to recognize the same. Kim and Rose want to get married, but are unable to do so in New Mexico.

And here is some background about Miriam Rand and Ona Lara Porter:

When they first started dating, Miriam had one daughter from a previous relationship and Ona had two, all of whom are now adults. From the time they combined households, Miriam and Ona loved each other’s children as if they were their own. Their youngest daughter who was just three when they combined families went so far as to go to court to change her surname to Porter-Rand in order to reflect the importance of both of the mothers in her life.

Miriam and Ona’s middle daughter, Cherif, who is now 41, is debilitated by multiple sclerosis. Miriam and Ona are caring for Cherif, and Ona has adopted Cherif’s fourteen-year-old daughter, who herself has cerebral palsy, because Cherif is no longer able to care for her daughter as a result of her disability. Miriam plans to initiate a second parent adoption to ensure that if something were to happen to Ona, their granddaughter would be protected. Although Miriam, Ona, and their granddaughter are a family to all that know them, as individuals, Miriam and Ona do not have automatic legal authority to make important decisions for one another or their child, and they have had to pay significant legal bills to protect their relationship and prove it to others, unlike different-sex couples who can simply marry.

The suit is not the only effort to figure out if same-sex couples can marry. At the request of Doña Ana County Clerk Lynn Ellins, state Rep. Bill McCamley (D) is formally requesting that Attorney General Gary King (D) provide guidance about whether clerks can proceed with offering marriage licenses. Ellins said that “Doña Ana County stands ready to stand on the right side of history, given a green light by the Office of the Attorney General.” For now, the question remains unresolved.

LGBT

Sante Fe Lawmakers Welcome Same-Sex Marriage

By Zack Ford on Mar 19, 2013 at 5:15 pm

Santa Fe Mayor David Coss

New Mexico is an odd state when it comes to the current legal circumstances for same-sex marriage. It has neither a constitutional amendment nor a state law limiting marriage to opposite-sex couples. In 2004, a county clerk simply started offering marriage licenses to same-sex couples, and before that was stopped, 64 couples obtained marriage certificates. Since then, county clerks have simply agreed not to offer more same-sex marriages until the state legislature acts, but the legality of those 64 marriages and the status of marriage equality throughout the state remains in limbo to this day.

That may soon change, as Santa Fe Mayor David Coss (D) and City Councilor Patti Bushee are calling on the City Council to adopt a resolution clarifying that same-sex marriage legal. Coss noted that his daughter is gay and he looks forward to the day he can walk her down the aisle. City attorney Geno Zamora determined that since nothing prohibits same-sex couples from obtaining marriages, then same-sex marriage must be legal. Oddly, the Santa Fe County Clerk, Geraldine Salazar, was not included in this new push, and she has said she still will not offer licenses until the state acts. Thus, even if the Santa Fe City Council acts, it may not change anything in the short term.

Still, this renewed visibility may be enough to awaken the sleeping giant. Any county clerk in the state could decide at any moment to begin offering same-sex marriage licenses again, and hypothetically, nothing under the law could prevent them from doing. State Attorney General Gary King (D) offered guidance in 2011 that same-sex marriages from other states should be recognized in New Mexico. It makes sense that marriages performed in New Mexico would also be recognized in New Mexico.

Health

New Mexico Will Provide Returning Veterans With Free Mental Health Care For A Year

By Sy Mukherjee on Mar 15, 2013 at 1:50 pm

Faced with a Veterans’ Affairs Department (VA) overwhelmed by medical claims and more and more American soldiers returning from the war in Afghanistan, the state of New Mexico has decided to provide recently-discharged veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars with a critical resource: one year of free mental health services.

As per New Mexico Department of Veterans’ Services Secretary Timothy Hale, “This is the first collaborative effort between private and state agencies in the country to provide statewide pro-bono mental health counseling for Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans. This means nearly 500 veterans in the state can receive the immediate help they need now rather than waiting for any veterans’ benefits paperwork to be filled out and processed – which can take awhile to be completed.”

That’s crucial for the soldiers returning home from recent conflicts, considering that the VA has a backlog of over 900,000 unprocessed medical claims — and that’s just from current veterans. As the war in Afghanistan winds down, that problem will be exacerbated further, particularly for mental health care claims. By the VA’s own estimates, at least 15 percent of Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans suffer from Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome (PTSD) — and that number could potentially be much higher considering the sky-high rates of suicide and homelessness among Iraq and Afghanistan veterans.

The program is being sponsored by a combination of state and federal Access To Recovery (ATR) programs, as well as local providers and nonprofits. On the webpage for the new program, New Mexico ATR specifically cites VA backlogs and waiting periods associated with claims-processing as a major reason that New Mexican veterans might want to consider the program, along with “previous failures accessing and navigating the system,” transportation barriers, and “the stigma related with mental health care.”

While the collaborative public-private partnership will relieve a major burden for New Mexican veterans by enhancing access to care and shielding them from the high costs of mental health treatment, such efforts aren’t necessarily fiscally feasible in other states. New Mexico’s ATR program — which is funded substantially through the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) — is one of the best in the nation, and therefore receives enhanced federal funding. So while New Mexico may be shielded from the effects of looming federal budget cuts to departments such as the SAMHSA and the VA, veterans in other states might not be so lucky.

Health

States With The Highest Teen Pregnancy Rates Lack Adequate Sex Ed Requirements

By Rebecca Leber and Adam Peck on Mar 1, 2013 at 5:00 pm

Teen pregnancies have fallen to record lows. But according to a new report from Guttmacher Institute that breaks out data by each state, the decline is uneven across the country. New Mexico had the highest teen pregnancy rate in the nation in 2008 (the latest available data), followed by Mississippi, Texas, Nevada, Arkansas, and Arizona:

These states have something in common: They have poor sexual education in schools, and consequently tend to have lower rate of contraception use among teens.

New Mexico, the state that tops the list, has sex and HIV education in public schools. However, the sexual health information is not required to be medically accurate, according to the Guttmacher Institute. Wonkblog’s Sarah Kliff points out that contraceptive use is lower for New Mexico high school students too, at 60.5 percent compared to 75 percent nationally. Other states with higher teen pregnancy — Arizona, Texas, and Arkansas — do not require sex ed at all, and if it is taught, schools are required to stress abstinence:

The decline in teen pregnancy is “almost exclusively” a result of more contraceptive use, according to Guttmacher. Birth control use is up to 47 percent of sexually active teens, while teens’ use of both condoms and hormonal contraception rose from 16 percent to 23 percent in recent years.

But nationally, one in four teens have received abstinence-only education, with no instruction on birth control. Far more states still emphasize abstinence-only sex education over contraception, when they do teach teens about their own bodies at all.

Politics

New Mexico’s Republican Governor Pledges To Approve Gun Regulations

By Annie-Rose Strasser on Feb 11, 2013 at 8:35 pm

Gov. Susana Martinez (R-NM)

New Mexico’s Republican Governor, Susana Martinez, said on Monday night that she would be willing to sign proposed legislation aimed at closing the so-called “gun show loophole.”

“I think I could support it if it stays the way it is, that has, number one, keeping the guns out of the hands who people who don’t have any business having guns,” she told a local New Mexico blog.

Currently, private sales of firearms do not require a background check. This allows criminals to easily obtain a gun undetected through avenues like Craigslist, pawn shops, or even gun shows. Eighty percent of guns used in crimes are likely privately purchased.

A bill that would close the existing background check loophole in New Mexico has already passed through committee. The state’s full House of Representatives is expected to take up the measure on Wednesday.

LGBT

New Mexico House Committee Advances Marriage Equality Referendum

By Zack Ford on Feb 1, 2013 at 9:55 am

The New Mexico House Consumer and Public Affairs Committee voted 3-2 on Thursday to advance a proposed constitutional amendment that would allow same-sex couples to marry. If it successfully passes both the House and Senate, it would be placed on the 2014 general election ballot.

The situation for legal recognition of same-sex couples in New Mexico is nebulous. The state does not have any law that explicitly bans same-sex marriage, nor any that allows it. In 2004, former Attorney General Patricia Madrid issued an advisory suggesting state law should be interpreted to limit marriage to a man and a woman, but in 2011, Attorney General Gary King issued an opposing position arguing that New Mexico should recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states. An attempt to advance an amendment banning same-sex marriage failed last year.

As in New Jersey, a referendum is not the ideal solution for New Mexico, particularly when there are other legal avenues available to legalize same-sex marriage. Ballot initiatives on LGBT issues are incredibly costly to the movement and have a measurable negative impact on the mental health of the entire LGBT community.

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