NEW MEXICO HOUSE DISTRICT 43
1. How have your prior experience and education prepared you for this position?
One of the biggest challenges facing New Mexico is expanding high speed internet service across the state. Too many New Mexicans in both rural and urban communities lack access to reliable service. This significantly impedes educational achievement, job training, telemedicine and limits the state’s ability to diversify its economy. Progress is being made through recent legislative initiatives; however, a full scale offensive is needed to tackle the problem on all fronts.
2. What three important issues would you plan to work on?
The state has been making incremental progress in expanding access to health care. A large portion of the state’s residents receive care through Medicaid, in addition, the executive and legislature have worked cooperatively to increase access to affordable insurance through the health care exchange, and has enacted laws to lower the cost of prescription drugs - for example, by authorizing the state to import Canadian prescription drugs, through legislation limiting insulin co-pay.
3. How can the legislature balance the needs of farmers and ranchers with the priorities of cities and towns?
Climate change must be tackled on many levels: increased and on-going support for renewable energy expansion, including large scale battery development, improved and stronger environmental regulatory measures, such as the state’s strong methane rule, the enactment of clean fuel standards and the diversification of the state’s economy to help us move away from oil and gas production.
4. What can be done to support the aging population, i.e., elderly housing, elder care, transportation?
The New Mexico House has adopted many measures, such as early posting of committee agendas and bill analyses, public participation in committee hearings via Zoom as well as live public comment, public access to capital outlay and supplemental (junior) budget expenditures. An area where improvement is needed is better transparency in the use of so-called generic (or “dummy”) bills.