New Mexico in Focus; 1218; Voter Targeting and Turnout, Amendment 1, Carlsbad 3 Changing Community

Funding for New Mexico and Focus provided by the McHughn Charitable Foundation and viewers like you. This week on the Mexico and Focus, voter turnout is always key in an election and we break down what's driving voter behavior this year. It's important for us to have local leadership that we'll serve as a buffer to all what's happening from the national level. In the gubernatorial candidate sprint towards the finish line in one of the state's top races of the midterm elections. The Mexico and Focus starts now. Welcome to the Mexico and Focus. I'm Gene Grant. Later this hour we travel back to Carl's Bad where we've been looking at some of the side effects of the areas current oil and gas boom. Now this week it's the shortage of affordable available hotel rooms. We'll also explore why that shortage is actually providing new opportunities for the city. Now the line opinion panel is rare and ago this week as well. We'll break down the last minute election craziness in the race for governor plus local

reaction to the deadly shooting at a Pittsburgh synagogue. But up first this year's elections may be decided not by the candidates per se, but which voters and how many of them actually make it to the polls. Our correspondent, Gwyneth Dolan, looks at voter targeting and turn out this week with two local experts. My guests today are Lori Wiyaki, executive director of the Native American Voters the Lines. Thank you for being here. Thank you. And Lana Atkinson, a UN and political science professor and director of the Center for the Study of Voting, Elections and Democracy. Thank you for being here. Lana, I want to ask you the midterm election is just around the corner. It is crunch time now for campaigns for the parties and civic groups to get out the vote. So it's going to come down in part now to voter enthusiasm. Who are the candidates and the parties, the folks who are most invested in turn out? Who are they counting on? Who are these reliable voters?

So the reliable voters are the party regulars and those that participate in sort of every election that comes up. Only about 30% of voters are likely to be in that category and then the rest are voters that have to be mobilized. So if the most partisan, the most loyal are the ones who they're counting on, these folks in the middle who were not counting on, do they have a special amount of power? Well, certainly the people who are vote closer to election day, who haven't decided, those voters are the ones who usually go with the winner and are waiting back to see what happens and sort of see if they get information from people to make a decision. So that's why folks are knocking on doors still making those last minute calls just trying to reach them up until the absolute last minute that polls close. That's right.

Lori, what are some of the races that are driving folks to get excited in Indian country? What has got them particularly interested in this election? So I think for us we're really tuned into a lot of what's happening at the national level. There's a lot of, because of our historical relationship with the federal government, there's a lot of things that the Trump administration is doing, like reorganizing the department of interior or EPA or the Indian health care. And all of these changes that they're making are really having an effect on our local communities. And so what we're finding is that a lot of native community people are now making that I guess transition or understanding, then it's important for us to have local leadership that will serve as a buffer to all what's happening from the national level. Because what we're finding is with the whole reorganization of the department of interior, there's been no tribal consultation.

There's been no respect to our tribal communities. And so we need folks like the land commissioners. So those are some of the races we're interested in is the Sochi, a total small versus a little race. That's a second congressional district, basically the southern half of the state. Yes, yes. So we're interested in that race as well as the land commissioner race. Because we think that those are places where they can have an active role in at least having that basic level of respect for our communities and deciding, you know, will there be oil and gas leasing and chococanian or whatever those sorts of things. Yeah, that's a really good example. The folks who are really passionate about things like drilling near Chaco are going to go because they already know who they really want to support for land commissioner and in some of those races. What about the folks who are not that tuned in yet? You know, recent polls show us that about equal numbers of Democrats and Republicans, about

80 percent think this election is very important. What those numbers are far lower for people under 30, for independence, and for Hispanic and Native voters, what are some of the reasons that younger people independence and Hispanic and Native voters might be less enthusiastic than other people? Why are some people just not going to do it? Well, I think I don't think it's about less enthusiastic as just not as informed about the power of their vote. So for us, you know, what we have an opinion about those two particular races, we're also doing just what you were talking about, we're out on the doors, we're talking to as many voters as possible, reminding them about some of our recent history, whether that's, you know, the issue at Mount Taylor and traditional cultural properties, and, you know, what role did each candidate have in that? So we're out there, like, aggressively trying to talk to folks about these issues.

And I think through that, people then begin to see the correlation between, you know, what's happening at the local level and how that, or what's happening at the national level and how that impacts the local vote. You remind me, you know, not everybody is as passionate about politics as we are. And I guess, yes, of course, there are a lot of people who sort of are vaguely paying attention, but you get there and you say, hey, remember, this is who this person is, this is who this person is, you know, and, and these are the issues that you do care about, you've just been paying attention to other things. Lana, about that race in particular, early voting numbers show a big bump in turnout in Southern New Mexico and Donia and a county in particular. Republican, Yvette Harrell is in a tight race with Sochil Torres for Steve Pierce's seat. For months now, we've been hearing about a blue wave in Congress. All these prognosticators have been predicting this big blue wave. Is this what we're seeing down there, this wave of people getting out and voting early

for the Democrat candidate down there? Certainly in Donia and a county, which is a Democratic county in the Southern District. We would think that those would be more likely to be Democratic voters. And I'm sure Torres Small has really focused her campaign in trying to get those voters out early. And that's a consequence of that. We also have Republicans who are doing a similar thing in the South. They have Pence coming in on Friday to a Roswell area. And if we put those Southern counties, Lee County, Eddie County, those counties right there on the Southern border, you know, those may be equal, you know, the number of voters in Donia and the county. So there's another mobilization campaign going on. And it's the competition that really drives voter mobilization. And I think that's really important. Elections themselves only mobilize, you know, this core group of people who are always going to show up, but it's the candidates and the competition that really sells people to go vote.

If they know their vote can make a difference because it's a close contest, that's a real mobilizing agent. So go ahead and add a point on that. You know, a lot of the pollsters do their polling. And it should be known that in Indian country, the data is really poor. So we don't have a lot of native people that are being called asked, you know, who are you voting for? Are you planning to vote all these sorts of questions? Which then means I think by and large, we're not included in that. Those numbers to say like who's ahead or who's behind. Which is really why we think that the native vote can actually have a significant impact on some of these races. And so, you know, we're out there, like I said, knocking on doors and talking to as many folks as possible. Because we think that that native vote never is included. It's like one of these institutionalized or it's a form of disenfranchisement, right? And so when you're constantly being told that you're not only that your vote doesn't count but you're not being pulled, you're not being included, that also I would say leads to

that idea of well, they're not enthusiastic. But I think it's more about like there is a level of disenfranchisement that we are consistently trying to battle back against. We do have some real excitement in the congressional district here around Albuquerque with Deb Holland, who would be the first or the first of two Native American women elected to Congress if she wins. Is this motivating people? Is this important? Is this something that people are excited about? Or is the race not that competitive so people are not what Lana was saying that they don't really feel like it's going to matter? Well, I think for Indian people there's a lot of folks that are really excited about voting for her. So I think that's like a positive thing, right? And I think I actually think there might be a little bit more of an impact on our younger voters, our younger Native voters who are interested in seeing a congressional representative

that is familiar, is from one of our pueblos here in New Mexico. So I think that's a place where we see a lot of enthusiasm happening. I think that a lot of our community is also recognizing like, well, it's also just another one voice amongst however many congressional representatives. So that's a kind of tempering that like experience voters to be a little bit more cynical. No, I wouldn't say that, but just not as naive about what kind of an impact could this one congressional representative have. And you know, but we think it's important. We think, you know, these are the steps that need to be taken that allow people to think more concretely about, well, what is my contribution, right? Could I run for office, you know, and starting with all the different races, whether that's

school board or county commission, you know, all these different races, I think are important. Lana, I just want to agree with that descriptive representation factor being an importantist, you know, a first like that, a first to vote, you know, opportunity to vote for a woman or an African-American. And I think those do drive people and the descriptive link is important as a mobilizing agent as well. The descriptive link being I'm going to vote and we've seen this a lot of in the primaries a lot of women winning and people saying I wanted a woman in the seat, I voted for a woman, right? So that's an advantage that two of our candidates have for sure. I noticed that turnout in Bernalillo County has been lower, much lower than in Donia and a county. Is that because the big races here are not as competitive, not as exciting to them? Yeah, that would be my take on that, that, you know, you really have all the action going on CD2, you can't turn on your TV without getting a CD2 commercial or a governor's commercial.

And so those are really mobilizing agents, that's really a big election down there. And, you know, these numbers speak to that. Yep, Pierce has had that seat for a long time, punctuated by Harry Teague, but he's been down there a long time, so this is an opportunity for people to shake things up if they want to. Laurie, I want to talk about barriers to voting. You know, we're talking about all these last minute pushes to get people out the door. What are the barriers to getting people to the polls in Indian country? There's a lot, you know, from the lack of infrastructure, so it could be as basic as terrible roads and on a day like this where it's raining, you know, that can be a real barrier for getting people to the polls, you know, those sorts of things, no broadband, all that sort of issue. But I also think there's, you know, and we've struggled for a long time, the Secretary of State has the name of American vote task force who is working to sort of study some

of these barriers and figure out ways to deal with those. They put out a voter guide for the first time ever this year? Yes, we collaborated with the League of Women Voters to put together this voter guide. And, you know, so there's a lot of challenges and even things like competing jurisdictions, so like especially on Navajo, you'll have a recognized chapter house, right? So this is, I belong to this particular chapter house and that's my political subdivision or understanding of the community and yet a precinct might cut, you know, through a portion of that particular chapter house or whatever. And so those sorts of things then start to create kind of lack of clarity about poll sites and it just can tumble down into a lot of different ways that sort of, I guess, disenfranchise our community. You mentioned something interesting because it's raining on the day that we're taping

this. Right. And that can be a big problem, especially if you're driving on dirt roads in the middle of nowhere. Lana, we have not very often, do we have weather on election day, but I, you know, things are different this year. What if it rains? What if it happens when it rains on election day? Absolutely. Dampens turn out and it actually actually hurts Democratic candidates more than Republican candidates. Why does it hurt Democrats? Democrats are less reliable and committed voters and, you know, they're, I mean, as a group, they're more resource poor and so, you know, they have other obligations and those obligations become more important when it rains. So early voting is everyone's pushing people to vote early just in case because you can't count on, especially Democratic voters to come out on election day. How has early voting changed things? So I mean, the campaigns, of course, love early voting because it means they can collect information every day about who's voted and then they know, you know, they check you

off your list or not and you get a phone call or not. And so, you know, the earlier they can get you off in the quicker they can take you off the list and they have less work to target everybody else. So, yeah, so this has been great. It's great for campaigns. It's, it's also great for voters, right? I mean, so it, and it's great for election administrators because it eases the lines on election day and we've seen huge movements towards early voting in New Mexico and, you know, that's in response to line problems and investments that election administrators have made to say, hey, vote early. Yes. You're going to have a great time. Does that work the same way in Indian Country? It does somewhat, I mean, there's a lot of effort being pushed to have like those early vote sites in Cochity Pueblo or whichever of our communities, but, you know, the hours are still kind of crazy at times, you know, 10 to 3 or something and it's like, well, you know, folks are still driving home from work or, you know, whatever those issues are. So, you know, there's still a lot of challenges, but it has been helpful and, you know, that's

one of the things that we really try to push with our folks, but we find that a lot of native people love to vote on election day because it gets a little more festival-ish. It's more fun. Yeah. It's more fun. Yeah, except for, you know, and we worry, like, what if we have that rainstorm and, you know, roads are, you know, muddy or whatever those sorts of things are and so we try to get as many people to vote early and then just go party and help others to vote on election day. Okay. Jackie, thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Welcome to the line. The governor's race has been a hot topic for Indomexco for nearly two years now. It was December of 2016 when Michelle Luhan Grisham first announced her plans to run in a slew of candidates followed suit, including her Republican opponent, Steve Pierce. Both candidates are staying on the offensive with just a few days left to go before election day here to talk about all the twists and turns in this race are our line opinion panelists. And joining the table by Laura Sanchez-Rivei, she's an attorney at Cudian McCarthy, LLP.

D.D. Feldman is here. She's a former state senator, one of our wonderful regulars, Tom Garrity is here. He's a regular from the Garrity Group PR in Diane Snyder, who is also a former state senator and a long time contributed to our show. Thank you all for being here. Laura starting with you. Lots of accusations flying around both sides. Let's start with policy. Both have been talking a lot about what to do with the state's projected budget surplus. They have very different opinions about this. Talk about where Michelle Luham-Grisham is on this, because there has been a lot of talk over the last four or five, six, seven years. Let's start looking at this a little bit differently, see if we can solve some of our problems with it. Is she going to get an audience with that position? Well, I think there's definitely a lot of support for some of the things that she's talked about. She's been a big supporter of education and trying to increase education funding. And she's also, I think, very aware of the Yazdi decision that came down not too long ago about requiring additional funding for school districts, for schools, and putting more money into education, which is something the legislature is going to have to deal with in this next session.

So that's been a big part of her platform. She's also talked about additional social workers or CYFD, which is a big part of the, I think, systemic problems that we've seen in New Mexico recently. So those are two social issues that she very much cares about, and that I think a lot of people as well care about, and certainly her base is concerned with that. And contrast that with what Pierce has talked about recently, he's been mostly focused on trying not to grow government. What's interesting though is that, you know, under the Martínez administration, a lot of the positions that went that were vacant were not filled. And so government didn't grow, but you have to question whether certain positions that were not filled ended up resulting in maybe less services from those agencies. So the question is then, is that the same thing that Pierce is looking to do? And he's talking about non-recurring funding and trying not to sort of use the surplus as now to create that long-term requirement to have to fund things going forward. And Tom, you know, Mr. Pierce's position has some traction with certain elements in

our state. Is that enough? I guess I'm curious about this idea of touching the permanent fund. How much of that is an election issue and how much of that is going to get votes or repel votes, frankly? Yeah, you know, on the topic of the permanent fund, it's always, I think that's one of those that's going to be talked about regardless of its an election year or not. You know, with the $1.2 billion in projected additional revenues for the state, I think that the state permanent fund discussion kind of takes a back seat for now. As legislators and the governor, the new governor, whoever it is, will start to say, here's how I want to be able to spend the funds. I think that there's a physical argument that can be made as far as not expanding staff, whether it's as Laura had mentioned as far as a number of positions at the government that have not been filled, you know, just kind of making the government whole again, I think it's one conversation. But adding jobs on top of that, you know, I think that there are a number of fiscal conservatives that will say, you know what, John Arthur Smith among them saying, you know, maybe we don't need to be able to, you know, create those recurring expenses right now

just because we have one good year. It's a good point there. You know, the Emerson poll, the latest one shows Ms. Luhan Grisham up by nine points. There could be an argument made that since the time that poll was taken in today and particularly next Tuesday, that number might narrow quite a bit there. What's your sense of it and her messaging and what she's gone, getting out there to the public duty right now, is it getting traction, is it getting out there, is in, on the other side, is Mr. Pierce getting somewhere now too? Well, there's a barrage of negative ads on both sides, each candidate calling the other one corrupt. But on some of the issues, there is agreement and, you know, I'd just like to get back to this issue about how to spend the surplus because the next governor, whoever it may be, or her relationship with the legislature is going to be a key thing. And, you know, the fact that, you know, state government has, is down 4,000 employees since the beginning of the Martinez administration is significant.

Now the legislature has come in and tried to fill those positions, has funded those positions. And the Martinez administration has, in some cases, diverted that funding within the Department of Health to existing salaries. Meanwhile, the services for children, in particular, in CYFD, and for those that are receiving food stamps, for example, out of the human services department, really suffering. So Michelle Luhan Grisham is cognizant of those issues because she's experienced in government. One of the things that, and she has, I think, a more balanced approach. She, too, wants to create jobs, and she, too, wants to have broadband infrastructure in the rural areas. But she's cognizant of some of those, you know, bread and butter agency issues because she's been ahead of an agency.

So I think that's coming out, but it's kind of been substumed in these last days of the campaign by the bricks and the bats. The Breaking Bad ad is, you know, broken for one example. Let's talk about Mr. Pierce. It might be, it might be, it could be reasonably argued that this race is a lot close and a lot of folks might have thought it could have been even a year ago. Do you know what I mean? Yes. If you talk about blue wave and all kinds of following a Republican governor, this Republican president, one could assume he would be struggling, but it doesn't look like he's really struggling necessarily. It's just punching through right at that last little bit there. Would you agree with that? And it can't even get there by next Tuesday. I think he can, and I'll tell you why, is people like what he's saying, he's not, first of all, infrastructure. People used to not know what that meant, so it was just this nebulous word out there. But now they understand that that's roads, that's Wi-Fi, it's communication, it's safety. All of these things relate to infrastructure.

And I don't know if you're familiar, not, but there's a national organization of engineers that do a study each year on infrastructure and grade the states. And we're not doing real well on those ratings. So at some point, we have to bite the bullet and fix our roads. And we have, we're really bad on bridges. In the, most people think, they think of bridges as crossing the Rio Grande, while it's crossing any culvert, and school buses do this daily, back and forth. So we're talking, ambulances, we're talking about the safety of our citizens. And I think people understand that. He also has been more moderate on many issues. And people understand being moderate and not hard right. And I think that his message has been well received. And I was saying earlier that I've talked to many Republicans.

And once you are kind of Lucy Goosey about voting, have been out at the polls. There you go. Okay. Tom, I want to daily go across you and stay with Mr. Pierce for a quick second. I find his ads talking about the need to pump up the trades industry here in New Mexico as an opportunity very interesting. It's meeting New Mexico where it is. It's understanding it seems to me where our opportunities are. We're not going to build a Harvard here or a Yale, but we certainly can build a state of the art industry that revolves around the trades and all that kind of thing. What do you make of that? That's a very almost like a very old school conservative way to approach things. Well, you know, both in the final debate, both Mr. Representative Pierce and Representative Luhan Grisham talked about the importance of trades in building and apprenticeship programs into K-12 education saying that not everybody has a desire to move on to universities as far as extended education. It's a voter block that is very interesting because when you look at the unions themselves,

typically the unions will support Democrat or Liberal causes, whereas a lot of their membership will go just the opposite direction of saying we're going to support conservative causes. So it's a very, it's one of those true middle ground air groups that both candidates can really respond to and play to. I think to how your question started as far as the ads in general, what a sad state of affairs this has become with this new round of political advertising. There really need to be some limitations, but you know, society just soaks it all in. So unfortunately, I don't think we'll see much change. That's right. Good point there. We'll have to wrap that discussion right there. Be sure to join us on election night for live coverage and analysis of the midterm elections. We'll begin at 7pm on channel 9.1 and online at demexicopbs.org. Got a great group of folks ready to join us. It will be also live at the party headquarters for the victory in concession speeches. Now still ahead on the line, local reaction to the synagogue shootings in Pittsburgh. There are other items on the ballot this year as well.

We've already talked about constitutional amendment number two, which would pave the way for an independent ethics commission. But there's also constitutional amendment number one, which has to do with potential changes to how minor court cases like traffic violations are appealed in the Mexico. I recently sat down with an expert to find out how those changes would work and why the amendment is just the first step in the process. Joining us today is Arty Peppin. Arty is the director of the administrative office of the courts. Welcome. Thank you. Thank you for being here. We'll start very briskly on what this amendment would do. If I understand this correctly, basically would completely change the way cases in probate magistrate and mental courts are appealed. How is that situation done now and we'll get into what would change with the amendment. But how is this situation handled currently? Currently cases that come out of the limited jurisdiction courts, they're called inferior courts in the Constitution. Go to a district court, a trial court, on appeal, including the court cases that come out of the Metropolitan Court here in Albuquerque that are heard on the record domestic violence

of DWI cases. And then from the district court, they can be appealed to the court of appeals and then ultimately to the Supreme Court. Now what's the difference? Well, let me ask you this first. A lot of appeals, as we know, go first to the district court, right? And then for intermediate rulings, this would allow cases to go straight to the court of appeals instead. If I have that, is that correctly, am I stating that correctly? Yes. Okay, flush that out a little bit. What's the changes that happen here? So the constitution right now makes it impossible to send those cases directly to the court of appeals. Even when they're on the record cases, right, they have a trial, you can have a jury trial, and they can't go to the court of appeals. Because the court of appeals and the limited jurisdiction courts were created after the constitution came into existence, that's why it's written that way. But because we have record cases, for example, in Albuquerque, it makes a lot more sense for the cases to skip the district court and go up to the court of appeals. Now the amendment itself doesn't require that that happened. It just allows a legislature to enact a statute that changes the statutory way that the appeals flow.

The statute that exists right now follows the constitution and has them go from metric court to the district court to the court of appeals. And again, if I have this correct, the change would be you could skip that process and go straight to the appellate, it could go straight over district court and go straight to the court of appeals. Right, so the misdemeanor cases and the civil cases that are on the record, which are cases involving $10,000 or less in metric court, for example, would go to the district court just, I mean, to the court of appeals story, just like the cases that are heard in district court that involve $100,000 or felonies, kidnapping, they go to the court of appeals. So all of them could go to the court of appeals if that's what the legislature decided. Gotcha. And does this help out with the backlog that we see in district court around our state? And instead of having to muck with cases that are under that threshold, you just mentioned, just free up those folks markedly? It certainly will reduce the number of cases that the district court has to handle because in addition to their regular trial load, which is heavy, substantial, they have to do these appeals. And the court of appeals is, that's what they're designed for. They're exactly as 10 judges there and they're supposed to do appeals and they're very

good at it. Right. So they come from originally. What was the, what was the impetus here? Was there a specific case or was there a specific series? No, the, the, did you share, I went through a process we call re-engineering a few years gone, looked at a whole, everything we do and other ways we could do it better. This was one of those things. It's not a major thing, it's not the biggest thing in the world, but it's important, we think. And the idea surfaced as part of that re-engineering focus. We went to the legislature and we're glad that in 2017 it got traction on this. So there was a case that went to the Supreme Court in 2016 on this exact issue and they said unless the Constitution has changed, the cases go to the district court before they come to the court of appeals and they have a right to go both places on a, on a misdemeanor on the DWI, whereas you only have the right to go to one court on a felony, like a kidnapping or something. Yeah. Interesting, you just said that because, does this not have the potential to shift some of the burdens that the district courts are struggling with now to the appellate court? Is there a potential that, you know, one less burden ends up someone else's burden down

the road? Yes, that's the intended effect, in fact. If the legislature passes a statute on the governor signs it, it would shift some work from the district court to the court of appeals, but there are a couple of good reasons for that to happen. First of all, the district courts are not, they're designed to do trials. You go down to the district court and you'll see judges making rulings on motions and conducting trials and impaneling juries and things like that. These cases are cases where there's a record, it's already been decided, and the way you look at an appeal is very different than the way you look at a trial. The rules are different, the standard you apply is different, and that's exactly what the folks up the hill here in Albuquerque are the court of appeals and in Santa Fe. That's exactly what they do every day. They apply an appellate standard of review, they look at whether the judge was right or wrong in making a decision about suppressing evidence or something, and it's a very different work. Some work will move from district court to the court of appeals, but they're suited for that. But again, could it potentially overburden the court of appeals for the situation?

We certainly don't think so. If there were a need for more resources in the court of appeals because of this, and we don't certainly don't think so with regard to the cases that come out of the Metropolitan Court, which is the most likely place the legislature would make a change, probably that wouldn't need to be any more resources. But if there were, there are staff, folks, attorneys in the second judicial district who do these appeals, make recommendations, or review them for the judges. We could shift those resources to the court of appeals if there was a need there, but we don't think it's a huge volume of cases, it's not because the court of appeals does this routinely, it's easier for them to do it than it is for the district court. But it is different processes, sort of, yes, and for the appellate court, it's not things like retrials or anything. So again, as a layperson here, that does not cause any problems potentially for the appellate court folks, that even though their processes are quite different, they get things landing on their lap that they have to deal with. No, because it's the kind of things that come to them anyway.

So for example, the same case that gets appealed to the district court that the district court finally decides on, that case gets appealed to the court of appeals, it's exactly the same as the one that got appealed to the district court because the record that comes from a metric court goes to the district court and they do their thing with it. And then any party in the case can then appeal that to the court of appeals. So it's the exact same case, we're asking the district court to do two different things as opposed to the appellate court doing one thing, which is what it does routinely. Gotcha. But a new situation sometimes requires new training, a new way of looking at things, this cost money, this cost time, do you feel like the legislature could potentially be in a position to see those issues as well at the same time they're looking at this? Certainly the legislature will ask us, if we propose to the legislature or if a legislature says, well, now that the people in their wisdom have adopted this constitutional amendment, we should make a change in Albuquerque for the metric court cases on the record. What kind of resources are you going to need? Are you going to be coming to us saying you need another staff attorney having forbid you

need a new judge, you know, and we've looked at the data and we've examined the workload of both the district court and the metric court and the court of appeals and we're pretty confident that the answer would be no. But we'll give them an honest answer, that's our job and that doesn't do us any good not to give them an honest answer. But we really think not, but if we did, and if they propose a statute maybe in a way we didn't anticipate and it did require something that we would tell them, yes, we'll need whatever it is we would need. My last question and sort of an obvious one, again, a late person's question, I have to forgive me a little bit. But the judicial branch is certainly its own separate form of government but we've got an other branch of the government deciding what you folks can and can't do, meaning the legislature. For a lot of folks that seems kind of odd. Are you comfortable with how this is, I mean, it's our process is what we have to do certainly but are you comfortable with how the legislature be able to handle this process and come out with an appropriate result? Absolutely. We talk a lot about the independence of the judicial branch but that kind of independence

is the independence to make decisions based on the law, the constitution, without interference from the other branches of government. When it comes to appropriating money for the judicial branch or determining if we get another judge here or there, those kinds of things, allocating resources, it's perfectly appropriate for the legislature to make that determination and because the constitution sets out the kind of the framework in which this all works, we're very comfortable with us, that is the judicial branch, having to go to the legislature and say now that the amendment allows you to do this, we think this would be a good idea for you to take advantage of that authority given to you by the people who voted for the amendment and certainly talk with the Senator Worth and Representative Mayestus, the sponsors of the amendment and I think that they would be inclined to do something reasonable and if they weren't okay, we'll continue with the system we have and it's a good idea to have balanced authorities among the branches of gold. That makes sense. Arty Peppin, thank you so much for coming in. My pleasure to be here. It's an important amendment. We want to get the information and you supplied it. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Welcome back to the line, communities across New Mexico came together this week in spirit and prayer to support the victims of last weekend's deadly synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh. Eleven people were killed in the attack by a man who allegedly told police, quote, he just wanted to kill Jews, unquote. Indeed he gun violence anti-Semitism or let me just stick with anti-Semitism. It is clearly rising in this country. There can be no dispute about this and you think about some of the situations we've had here in New Mexico and here in Albuquerque as a matter of fact just a little more than a year ago. Yes. Where should we be on this right now? It's hard to get our heads around where we could go from here. Well we had a, there is a huge rise nationwide in these crimes and in bomb threats we had one last year at the Jewish Community Center. It was one of 17 states. We were one of 17 states that endured these threats and now of course it's come into reality. You know anti-Semitism is the oldest hate there is dating back not just centuries but

millennia and it unfortunately has been stoked in this political atmosphere and I really agree with what the rabbi from Santa Fe said, rabbi Neil and switch who said that the Jews who were murdered in Pittsburgh were murdered not just because they were Jews but because they were obeying one of the tenets of their faith which was to greet the stranger, to help the stranger and the immigrant. There is a direct line between the murder who said he felt that the Jews and their organization called Hias who welcomed and resettled refugees, Jewish refugees coming in the early 1900s that they were aiding and abetting the immigrants who were illegally coming into this country.

The situation is not helped when you have a president saying the George Soros funded the recent immigrant caravan. These are dog whistles and there are crazy people out there that take up those dog whistles and follow that direct line against globalists, you know, globalists, you know, in a narrow of nationalism, no minority is safe and often the Jews are the canaries in the coal mine and I think that's what's happening right now. I agree with you. In fact, Diane Didi mentioned this organization's connection to settling refugees and immigrants that are coming in and the shooter referenced that in his some of his Facebook posts. So there's a connection here but I want to get to an idea that Didi brought up as well.

How should we consider the language that's out there in our public consciousness right now and as a connection to these kind of heinous crimes? Is there a connection? Is there not a connection? I mean, how much guilt should one take for saying, and it's not just this one person I'm sort of hinting at here. There's a lot of, a lot of us out there putting things out in the air right now. I think the language that everyone's rhetoric could be toned down regardless of which party affiliation you are or what group you represent. I mean, Louis Fairconn is still loud and proud in his statements. I think that our president gets a lot of blame for things because if you look at his record, his rhetoric may be strange but if you look at his record in supporting the Jewish community, I mean, he has been a leader far and above the last three presidents. So I think that it's hard to but I think that his rhetoric could be toned down in a lot of areas.

I think the immigration issue is an issue for everybody. I think that's playing a part and we didn't mention this earlier in our gubernatorial race. It's certainly playing a part in the second CD. So I think that rhetoric encourages people to latch on to one little phrase and run with it and say, and I think they think they're doing the right thing because they're so twisted in their minds. I have to tell you a personal connection to Pittsburgh, my father grew up near there. Every time I hear this, my stomach just, and I live four blocks from Temple Albert and congregation Albert and it was in my senate district and I spent a lot of time there and it just, it does something to me that some of the other tragedies have not done. And I just think that this for me is the last straw.

This is the end. If we don't stand up and make a difference and it's each of us, each of us, don't even joke about anything, be compassionate, be loving, be generous. That doesn't mean you have to support total immigration. It means that you have to love your fellow man and I just, it really does break my heart when I see this happening. I also watched the president for its lady go, place the rocks of memory on each of the star of David's, place the little flowers, paying respect to those 11 individuals. And I don't care if you like Donald Trump or not, the president of the United States and the first lady went to the scene of the tragedy and paid respect to those who were departed. So I just think we all have to move in that direction. Fair enough.

Absolutely. Tom, we've got about 30 seconds for each one of you guys. Touch on that if you would. How does this conversation start? We can't turn this thing around in our country. How does that, who's big enough to get all of our attention to get us going on this? It's difficult. Yeah, as, as tried as it might sound, it just starts with the single conversation. You know, if we need to, if we want others to tone down the rhetoric, we have to tone it down ourselves. And, you know, it's really as simple as that. I agree. Laura, would you agree with that as well? I don't think it's worked so far as far as Donald Trump goes. I mean, there's a lot of people who have chosen not to use divisive language and it hasn't changed anything. And I, you know, I'm struck by what the senator says, senator Snyder, senator about him paying respect. And I think that if he were doing that and then we're consistent with his message in terms of respect, overall, and not divisiveness in his words, then I would have a tremendous amount of respect more for him in terms of his position, overall, and his responsibility, I think, in the entire conversation, but he doesn't do that.

He's, he does the right thing and, in fact, his, his daughter and son-in-law are observant Jews. So I have no doubt that he's done a lot for the Jewish community, but he also has done a lot to stoke those, that nationalism, that white nationalism, that hate. He has, I think, in his rhetoric, in his rallies, in the words that he has said, he has done a lot to empower that fringe group of people. I don't know. I know the incidents have increased, but I'm not sure that the hate itself has not always been there. I think what's different is that they feel more empowered now because of what they hear at rallies from the president. And that's something we can't do. As a reminder, we just had a situation on an airplane here in our city where fellow claimed the president said it's okay to grab women, you know, as we know, and this is what he said on his arrest, and it just, it wasn't just out of his head, so, interesting, have to end that there. When we come back to the table, the line will look at a pair of recent stories that have put the Catholic Church in the election spotlight this year. Southern New Mexico is experiencing an oil and gas boom.

This month, we're looking at how the boom has impacted the local housing market. Many locals have had a hard time finding an affordable place to live. That's tough for families and also hurts their ability to engage in the community. In the final installment of our series, which we produce with the Calls Bad Current Argus, special correspondent Sarah Gustavus, looks at how the boom in hotels has created challenges and opportunities for tourism and local arts. If you wanted information about what to visit near Calls Bad, the Chamber of Commerce on Canal Street is a good first stop. Lisa Baker is the tourism director. Calls Bad Caverns is what we're known for. We also have the living deserts doing gardens. We've got Guadalupe Mountains, even though it's in Texas. A lot of people do come for the outdoor activities and our Pagos River that runs right through the middle of town. But unless you came here in your own RV, you might experience some shock if you try to book a room in a local hotel.

So they can rent anywhere from 200 to 400 a night, generally. But we do have a lot of properties in town that are willing to work with us for the tourists and still offer some moderately priced rates. We can tend to be a little bit less expensive than our weekdays. Baker says tourists are still coming, but there's more day trippers and people traveling through the region. But since the hotels are full, the city is still receiving the benefit of a boost in the lodgers tax. The city reported more than double the revenue in August of this year compared to two years ago. In addition to the big tourist sites, there are new attractions in the works downtown. Carla Hamill is the executive director of Calls Bad Main Street. Here in the Caverin Theater, this is a building that was built and opened in 1951 and used to be just movies, an old movie theater that had lots of character, lots of memories for a lot of people in this theater.

And it closed a couple of decades ago and now we are in the process of renovating. We have these murals that are original to the building and we are going to keep those. Today we are really excited. We have been the old original sign that was taken away a couple of months ago. It has been revitalized and now all of the lights work. It was a neon sign. Now it's LED lights, but it looks just like neon. So we are excited they are putting that sign up today. The newly renovated theater will be a performing arts center. And that increase in lodgers tax dollars is part of what made this work possible. Hamill says it is part of a broader effort to boost the local arts scene. People want art. People want to expand their minds to experience new things and with the growth, we will grow the arts, we will grow the community, we will grow education, we will grow, you know, with more people, the expectations will be higher and which is great.

We don't want to ever become complacent with where we are, we want to expand and keep growing. The theater is in the newly designed downtown arts district. It also includes a local park and the Carlsbad Museum in Art Center. Julie Chester owns a bed and breakfast in town. She also sits on the Creative Carlsbad Arts Council. We are at the Carlsbad Museum in Art Center. It's a wonderful, wonderful museum. They are constantly rotating exhibits. They bring in different traveling exhibits right now. They have the quilters guild and they are with their quilts and they are doing quilting demonstrations. They have the Carlsbad Hall of Fame is one of the mayor's prize projects right now. There are several events around the holidays that take place in the park. They show movies and hold free events for families throughout the year. We're with all of the influx of the new people coming to town. They've come from different cultures, different places and we like for everybody to know what

our heritage is. To know who we are and give opportunities to meet new people and just have a little fun and find a place in our community to participate. Reminding people that there's so much more to life than working, being able to come out and come together and celebrate our culture and our heritage and holidays and tradition. It's things I think get lost a lot in the world that we live in today. These are such important things to remind people of. There is still good old fashioned fun in the world. And for workers who came in for a job in the oil and gas fields, the hope is that they'll see things in Carlsbad that make them want to call the city home for a lot longer. For New Mexico and Focus, I'm Sarah Gustavus. Welcome back to the line. Elections can be a tricky tightrope act for churches. In this week, the Catholic Church has found itself in a delicate balancing act.

First, a Santa Fe Catholic Church raised eyebrows with a sign encouraging people to vote pro-life in these upcoming midterm elections. And a political action committee from Texas put out a full page ad in the journal and the Santa Fe Mexican that also included a pro-life message and a breakdown of the two candidates for the governor's stance on those abortion issues. And Diane, the state conference on Catholic bishops has denounced the ad and even called on candidate Pierce to denounce the ad as well. But boy, here it is. It really, you know, the big sign in front of St. Anne's, it's an amazing thing. But they're not talking about a candidate. Just an issue. Is that okay? If it's just an issue? Certainly, I think it complies with what law or tradition we've had. The signs, this is not the first election, the signs have been up on the church at St. Anne's. So, it's always a very fine balance when you get between church and state and first amendment rights because, should you not?

I mean, what's the difference of putting up a sign or talking about it on the pulpit at the pulpit? Right. So, I don't know. I think that, I think it's confusing now, using the bishops' letter, I tend to think it's okay. It's a matter of public, it's a public document now. It was sent out as public. I see them as using TV journalist talking and there used to be an unwritten rule. You didn't use the news a live recording, so- That's long gone. Yeah. But I don't think- I don't think Mr. Pierce has to apologize or do anything because this is an independent campaign fund, independent PAC. He hasn't been coordinating with that. They didn't call him up and say, can we run this ad? And so, he should not have to apologize for something. Any more than the RLCC or the Republican Party, any of them that have run-

Exactly. Run ads. Exactly. I'll talk about CNN's and Reverend Larry Brito, and he's been in the news before, as Diane just mentioned, his stance is, I think, pretty simple. He's very anti-abortion. He calls it a holocaust of assaults, and he would be from, as a reverend, it would not suit him to stay silent about these things. And there would be a lot of people out there who would support that stance. That abortion is so heinous and why we've just been quiet about it, and it is his obligation as a man of the cloth to let people know that his stance about that. Is that a bad thing? I mean, is- Well, I think it runs afoul of the law, and as a man of God, I think he should obey the law. Which is simple. The issue advocacy is not permitted very close to the election. This is issue advocacy. There may not be a candidate mentioned, although in the newspaper ad, it was very clear who

was being endorsed by the Hispanic Action Network ad, and that was, you know, brings in the whole problem of independent expenditures there. But the reverence or the priest's advocacy really threads that line between a violation of church and state, and whether priests should be able to preach from the pulpit and say vote for this one or vote for that one, even if they don't use the names. Is that something that runs afoul of a nonprofit tax status that churches have? I mean, that's a, you know, no corporation, no nonprofit, C3, nonprofit anyway, would be able to do that and maintain their tax status. But apparently the Catholic church there, St. Anne's, is exempt from that. Interesting point there.

Reverend Brito also says, uses a comparison to Planned Parenthood, saying Planned Parenthood does this kind of thing all the time. There are packs that support this. They name names. They support candidates. Same same. Why does he get grief in Planned Parenthood doesn't? Is that a reasonable argument when you hear that? You know, there's, there's a lot of different arguments that can be made up on those lines. You know, I think that, you know, the attorneys will work out what needs to be litigated, what doesn't as far as what does, is against the law, what isn't, what's, lines with the law. But it really comes down to perception and education. And a lot of churches, a lot of church organizations will go ahead and say that, you know, we don't want to take a particular position, but here's a survey that we did on the two candidates. We decide for yourself. And then there's a perception as far as, you know, biblical teachings, you know, say one particular thing on particular issues. And you know, so there's a certain expectation that the church is going to have a particular position because of what the book that they work out of and stuff.

So, you know, I don't think there's a whole lot of surprise. I think it's just more of something that makes the headlines at this point, point there. It's about being active and being activist in your positions. And sometimes when I read these stories about what's going on here, it seems like we've settled in this area where a certain kind of person or an issue can be an activist. But if you do it on this other side, it's not seen quite the same. Why doesn't Reverend Brito just get a little credit for being an activist for his position on this? You know what I mean? He's just hanging a sign. He's just doing his thing. He's trying to let folks know where he stands as a reverend on the issue of abortion. If it was something else, would it be his big and issue? So I want to take the question actually that you gave to Tom because it's a legal issue. Okay. It's not same, same plan parenthood and the church and plan parenthood. And I think that his comments come from a position of ignorance as to these issues. I mean, it's not as bailiwick. And so he's making assumptions as a lot of people maybe do about, well, plan parenthood does it.

Why can't we? Frankly, it's a seventh grade argument. Well, that person did it. Why can't I? I mean, that's not a good way to look at it. One parenthood has formed its own political action committee in order to do this properly. If the church, if that particular parish wanted to do that, they could do that and create a separate, and actually the bishops have also done their own, they do separate, it gets segregated, the funds are separate, he's mixing it all into one pot and he's co-mingling all of that. And that runs a foul of what the tax laws are. So there's tax laws and there's state campaign finance laws and he's essentially creating, I mean, he's not even understanding that those are issues that, once he steps into that activist role and starts to campaign and do issue advocacy, as Dee Dee mentioned, he's in that realm now and it does trigger an inquiry. And so just as it would for a non-profit, a non-profit who didn't register, they could be in danger of doing it too. So the difference is that when plan parenthood does it or any other non-profit, they have an action network, they have separate, properly organized, I mean, that's the presumption, it or not, they get in trouble.

But they have the properly organized, you know, different tax status, his tax status or not his, but the church's tax status has to do with, you know, essentially a faith-based organization and they have a purpose and that purpose is not advocating elections, whether it's issues or candidates. I think that's the big problem there. So he's sort of, he's mixing and mingling all of that. If he had hung the sign, it's his faith, he's entering into the political fray. And that's the problem is that he's actually spending money, he's doing something within politics. That's where that line is drawn. Regrettably, Tom's right, the lawyer is going to figure it out, we're out of time. Sorry about that. It's all the time we have for this week. If you want to weigh in on any of the topics we discussed, be sure to reach out to us at New Mexico and focus.org or join our Facebook group, focus on New Mexico. I'm Gene Grant, thanks for joining us for New Mexico and focus, and as always, we appreciate your time in effort to stay informed and engaged. We'll see you next week in focus.

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