Report from Santa Fe; Paula Tackett and Michelle Lujan Grisham

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. . . . . did not have the same heat, those terms did not have the same heat that they have today. One of the arguments that was raised against that is that there was no replacement language to take into account the sort of modern day language that would be appropriate for mental health issues at this point. On this particular issue, one time they had included Indians, too, didn't they? That I do not remember. I think they had had, and that also people looked around and frequently they would say, well, the higher authority understands this, and so they can clean up the language we still, and this is surprisingly because this review of how much language in there is inappropriate. I've always been amazed at the section of the Constitution that prohibits the public officials from taking free gifts or rides from the railroads.

Well, but in the time when that Constitution was drafted, the railroad was extremely powerful in 1910, and that was a very serious provision to avoid the influence by the railroads of the elected officials. Yeah, and that's still in the Constitution. That's still there. It's still there. Once in a while, we get a new governor in and someone says, why don't we take a ride? On the Cooperson toll tag. If you don't know, no, no, no, we can't do that. You've got to pay, you've got to pay your tickets. That's right. That's right. Constitutional amendment three. Number three is a cleanup in the judicial article, and that language, the way it's set out now basically sets the districts. Now, there's a conflicting provision in the judicial article, and basically we have a lot more districts than the Constitution spells out. So that would be a cleanup provision that would basically just repeal that restriction. That makes sure that we're not aviating the Constitution as such, we're trying to track

with it. Number four. Number four basically repeals a remnant of the anti-Asian sentiment that was prevalent around the early decades of the 20th century. And basically what the language prohibits is aliens not eligible for citizenship, and that only applied to Asians. We have taken care of that in a section in a statute that was passed in 1975. But we are one of two states that still has this language in the Constitution, and this is considered. I think there are people who would say this was cleanup language to get that remnant out of our Constitution. When we look at these constitutional amendments, and especially trying to make them track, is the state, and I'll say the council and the legislature concerned about making sure that there are no conflict, and I think they often say with higher authorities, you know, there would be language in maybe the federal Constitution as such, where we wouldn't be tracking.

What we try to do when there are changes at the federal level is we try to come back in and do peace mill amendments to clean that up. That's just how state constitution making happens. You don't want to be so broad as to say higher authorities because what do you mean by that? It's not exactly clear. So we're probably safer having the folks be able to vote on what those changes are. All right. Next amendment. Constitutional amendment number five is another of those veterans' amendments. And what we have in law now is that a veteran who is permanently or totally disabled gets an exemption if they have had a home modification grant from the federal government. What this amendment does is remove the requirement for the home modification grant from the federal government and simply authorizes, sort of, clarifies that if they're 100% disabled, totally and permanently, then they are eligible for the exemption. In general, if someone says I vote for this or not, and in a generality, they say, when

will it take effect? General constitutional amendments take effect immediately upon passage, well, once they're certified passed by the Secretary of State. But they take effect immediately unless within the text of the amendment, it sets out another date. So that's not one rule for everything. It can be different. I'm going to take a look at number six. Well, six is the anti-donation, one of the anti-donation clause amendments. And that one is the amendment that allows, you know what the anti-donation clause basically has been a constraint on public spending for private purposes. The anti-donation clause would be amended to allow state and local governments to donate buildings, land, or provide infrastructure for affordable housing projects. So this is a way, I hate to use the term loophole because it's when people have asked about it.

But it is a way of getting around the anti-denotion. It would allow this to be used specifically for the purposes, they're drawn out in the Constitution exactly what it can be used for and whatnot. Yes, there are several other exemptions, better in scholarships, which is another amendment that we'll get to. There's an amendment for that purpose, indigents. There are several other exceptions that have been put in the Constitution for the anti-donation clause. Do you know already? Get around the anti-donation clause. So this is not setting a precedent. No, we have other exemptions in the anti-donation clause. Amendment 7? Amendment 7 would create in the Constitution a legal holiday for Cesar Chavez, as you know, he had done the work for, you know, he tried to improve the lives and working conditions for millions of agricultural workers and has considered a great Hispanic civil rights leader, and I think the feeling is that he is entitled to a holiday. I think one of the concerns that has been raised is that he would be the only one that is created in the Constitution, the rest of all, Martin Luther King, the President's days

are all created in statute. They can do it by statute, administrative orders as such, usually by statute, if you're creating a legal holiday. By statute. What's the difference between statute and the Constitution? Well, the Constitution has to be voted on by the people. A constitutional provision does not have to be signed by the executive. It is simply, it is basically when the legislature is acting in its role as a constitutional convention, and they adopt by a majority of those elected amendments, which are then submitted to the people, and they then vote on it. A statute is a legal document that is drafted and passed by the legislature and must be signed pursuant to the Constitution by the governor. Governors have rights to veto laws that are passed. And this one is pretty set. The only change I see in it would be, I think it was such so, that it would be on a three day week and type that.

Next Friday in March is what I remember. Right. Next amendment. Next amendment is eight, and that is the last of the veterans' amendments, and that is one that is trying to broaden the use of scholarships for Vietnam veterans. The way it reads now, they have to have been residents of the state at the time that they entered service. This would basically allow them to qualify if they had been residents of the state for at least ten years. For at least ten years, ten year period. And that's pretty cut and dry down. It's pretty straight, straightforward. Number nine. This is interesting. And we've seen this one before. Number nine is amends the section of the Constitution on the State Highway Commission, and wants to change their name to the State Transportation Commission. This one is interesting to me, because whenever they do this, I immediately think of the people in the paper business as such, we can sell lots of paper because they'll change

the name, and they've got to throw the old paper away, but it has been on the ballot before. It was on the ballot in 1994, and the citizen re-voted it down. Right. Now, one of the arguments for it is that it's a more inclusive title. It looks forward to when we recognize that transportation is more than just highways. However, the folks have voted it down before. And I think the counter-argument, obviously, is that it's a waste of taxpayer money to make those changes, because it's not really impacting the work of the commission. Briefly now, we know that the council does not endorse any of the amendments, but I think you do endorse. We don't oppose or endorse. We don't. We don't either. But you do try to make it a fact that people need to go and vote either yes or no on these amendments. It really isn't great for a state to have the majority of just those who are voting, sometimes that's less than 50 percent, so you do endorse people getting out on the fifth and voting

on these amendments. Well, democracy is a very precious gift, and personally, I think voting is very important. That's the far as the endorsement will go. I'm Ernie Mills, who want to thank Paul Attackett, who is the director of the Legislative Council Service for being with us today. Our guest now is Michelle Luhan-Krism, and she is the head of the New Mexico Agency on Aging. Thanks for taking the time with us today. Oh, Ernie, I'm delighted to be here. Thank you. I have a couple of questions. No voters are going into the polls on November 5th. We had Paul Attackett go down the list of constitutional amendments, but she's with the Legislative Council, and they can be specific about what's in it, but they don't endorse the amendments. Now, I think people get a little confused because they often think within the bond issues that everything is very specific when it's on the voting machine.

That's not the case. Correct. But we have a number of bond issues that are statewide. They're not local. Correct. And I think we have at least one big one that affects your agency. Can you talk a little about it? What bond issue is that we don't object to endorsing it? Oh, absolutely not. This is bond issue A. It's $10.2 million for senior citizens projects statewide, so you hit that nail right on the head. These will affect all communities, and we absolutely can endorse this. This was a legislative appropriation supported by the governor in response to a growing need to maintain and improve the senior citizen's infrastructure statewide. Now, when people, you know, they may say you shouldn't endorse this, you have no compunction about endorsing it, do you? You know, I really don't for a couple of reasons. The first is the demographics suggest without any other support that we've got to maintain and build a system for serving older persons and their families.

And if we don't have transportation and handicap vehicles, the cost of the taxpayers over the long haul will be much greater further. We've built incredible centers and incredible programs to let them deteriorate and fall apart, seems to me to be unconscionable and a waste of prior public investment. This is the right thing to do, and I'm really excited because it's a large bond and it indicates catching up because we haven't seen any investments in several years. The Mexico has usually been very good about education on bond issues. They also, on taking care of the elderly, they've been very careful about it. I recently have a call, I got a, I love the elderly and our viewing and listening audience. And someone called and said, can you have them take a look at the buses that they provide for the senior citizens and sometimes that comes from the city and what had happened in their case.

One of the buses broke down and they just left the elderly sitting there while they spent a couple of hours bringing out another bus. But they often can't help themselves. And I think the worst thing that can happen to the elderly is when they get afraid. When they're doing this fear, there's no reason that they should be afraid. Absolutely not, but you raise a practical point that I don't want to lose sight of. And that is of this $10 million plus, more than 6 million is for vehicles. Vehicles wear out and we want people to be safely transported. And that means replacing old vehicles and that also means taking into consideration that folks are in wheelchairs or have walkers or have other special needs. If we don't address that by having the right kind of vehicle fleet to support this population, then what we've done instead is made people prisoners of their homes and the expense to serve them in that regard is much higher to the taxpayer.

And it would be the wrong thing to do. You know, when we look at various groups and what I've tried to do this time is be specific. We know, for example, in education, this program is actually handled out of Eastern Mexico University. They're interested in the bond issue B. And we talked to the acting agenda in general in the National Guard. They have an issue and they're concerned also about, it's the maintenance on many, they get an okay to go ahead with something 20 years later, it needs a fix. But this happens with so many agencies that within these bond issues and we really have to devote the attention to those that are willing to go out and fight for what's in the bond issue for them. A couple of technical questions. Is your appropriation within the bond issue? Is that something that's prioritized or if it passes, do you automatically get it?

If it passes, the entire 10.2 million comes over to the agency. However, you're right on about having it prioritized, in fact, what people asked us to go to the legislature for was in the realm of about $40 million. And we paired that down to 10, actually, I don't want to confuse the viewers, but we paired it down to 12. Two million was funded somewhere else. Ten million, which is critical now, has to be passed by the voters. And that is paired down to co-compliance, vehicles, kitchen equipment, adult daycare buildings, and other significant remodel that will allow us to do a better job serving seniors in their communities. So we know where every nickel is going and that has been scrutinized by the legislature, by the governor and in fact by seniors in their communities themselves. You mentioned the areas that it's going to be used from.

The first was co-. Code compliance. Right. Now, this, how complicated is that? Give us the background on it. Well, for example, if you have a 20-year-old building and we want to put in a kitchen, we've got, and we go in and start to put the stove in, we're going to find out that they've got a cloth wrapped wiring and that that is against all new codes and it's a fire hazard and it's an unsafe environment. We'll have buildings because of their wear and tear and this happened with a roof fall in during lunch when we were serving seniors. Now we were really lucky that nobody was hurt, but in a place where we continue to do flat roofs, so we did, we try not to do that anymore. And they have water damage over 20, 30 years. They become a problem and when someone looks at the roof, they say, up, this is a code compliance issue and if we don't fix it, A, people are unsafe and B, the local zoning authorities will shut down the building.

You're preaching to the client on a 20-year, 20-year house with a flat roof and just taken care of the leaks in the system. You, at least from my viewers, received an awful lot of, I guess, ploddits, you'd go in, because you did a lot of checking yourself on conditions like in nursing homes things that bring us up to data and that because that again is something that's so critical. You know, the nursing home dilemma for the agency on aging continues to be a top priority and what I'd like to say is that we're doing all of us a much better job caring for people. But I don't think that that's the case. I think that people are still at risk in a variety of nursing home institutions and assisted living facilities around the state. I try to indicate to people we've got 15 to 20,000 residents today in nursing homes and assisted living in board and cares.

It's growing at an alarming rate and they have no visitors, they're short staff. We don't have medical personnel or clinical personnel providing services. And Ernie, we continue to get complaints that are so egregious, it's often difficult to talk about sexual assaults, sexual abuse, physical abuse, financial exploitation, undignified support and we still have people in the Mexico that quite frankly die of bedsores. And if you're in a facility and you die because you were left alone laying in bed for months on end, I've got real trouble with that kind of perspective and so we're still vigilant and we're going to be proposing new standards for staffing and new safety standards for nursing facilities and assisted living in the upcoming legislative session. The elderly often, you know, they get concerned about everybody. You know, the elderly of the first, when we look at the ARP people, the American Association of Retired Persons and they often, I obviously they should stay focused just on those in

their age group. But they're the first to be concerned about youngsters that it's amazing that they don't get the same focus that lobbyists will, that are paid lobbyists and say, no, this is my job and I'm not going to get involved in anything else. We elderly will spread it around their time and their efforts so they can take care of a number of issues. And I think frankly that we hear an awful lot of, I say, promises that aren't going to be kept about what the Congress and our legislators been pretty good about the elderly. They have been, they've been really good in the Mexico. The problem really here is, is that I think we, I have to tell you, as we evaluate and analyze the census data, I give two conflicting positions. One is that we're the ninth fastest growing aging state in terms of people 60 years of age and older and another way we analyze that data looks like we're the fifth fastest.

So I'm going to have to get a handle on it, but the truth is, it doesn't matter. If we're growing at that alarming rate, which means in 20 years or less, we're going to double our senior population. That means that you'll have more older people than school-aged children. You can do a whole lot of investing in this population and arguably it's not going to be enough. And so we're going to have to be innovative and clever and dedicated and committed because in the Mexico ought to be a wonderful place for older persons, disabled adults and their families to be viable residents. And I, I see that as the job of the agency on aging. Think about the aging in terms of being a citizen, a senior citizen. Think about in terms of, we're all aging at different places in our life and different places in our careers and different places with our families. But this is about making the Mexico a place, a viable place to live and stay for as long as you wish to remain here.

As I often say to the politicians, I went, again, I respect them and it's time to stop for a minute now. And for you, I know you're a good salesperson. For you to stop and talk directly to our audience about the bond issue that affects the agency on aging, what's in it, and you can make the plea right out in front. Here on, this is a great opportunity. This $10 million will go incredibly far to maintain a service structure, volunteerism, services to children. As you said, many of these seniors are teachers aged in the school system, providing grandparent respite. They are at the fire stations and police stations receiving emergency calls and providing administrative support. We provide health care and long-term care. We're all complaining about our insurance rates and that older drivers are part of that dilemma in terms of high rates in the Mexico.

Let's have a quasi-public transportation system. We built an infrastructure, we have a public responsibility to maintain it and to move it forward to meet the growing demands in the Mexico. I really urge passage of this. I think it's critical and I think it's good stewardship in the Mexico. We know that we have the constitutional amendments and I think the bond issues in the same way that they pass on the basis of a percentage of those who vote. Correct. And not necessarily those eligible to vote. So first I would say you should get out and vote however you feel about the bond issues and then as Michelle says, make sure you vote for our bond issue and the letter again they should be looking at. Bond issue A and thank you for supporting these important projects. I'm Ernie Mills and we want to thank our guest today, Michelle, Lohan Krisham who is the

head of the state agency and aging. I want to thank you for being with us on report from Santa Fe. Report from Santa Fe is made possible in part by grants from New Mexico Tech on the frontier of science and engineering education. For bachelor's, master's and PhD degrees, New Mexico Tech is the college you've been looking for, 1-800-428-T-E-C-H.