Font ResizeDays remaining in session: 12
• Senate votes down sex offenders bill: A measure that would have prohibited any city or county from placing legal restrictions on where convicted sex offenders may reside was voted down on the Senate floor Monday. The Senate voted 16-20 against Senate Bill 184, sponsored by Sen. Cisco McSorley, D-Albuquerque.
McSorley said that parole boards and judges are better qualified to determine where sex offenders make their homes. A fiscal impact report on the bill said the state Sex Offender Management Board believes that "offenders are safer when they have jobs, homes, friends and family, and access to treatment. Imposing blanket restrictions has had a destabilizing impact in every jurisdiction where it has been implemented and most experts believe that it is dangerous and counterproductive."
But opponents argued that local governments should retain the ability to impose such restrictions.
The bill would have permitted the imposition of distance restrictions for a sex offender's residence as a condition of probation or parole.
• Sunshine portal to include public schools: By a vote of 40 to 0, the state Senate passed a bill Monday requiring public schools to provide certain types of information to the state of New Mexico for inclusion in the state's sunshine portal.
The types of information SB 327 would require of public schools include operating budgets, revenues, expenditures, real property,
The information would then go up on the state's sunshine portal no later than July 1, 2012.
"Something is missing, and it is something huge," Sen. Sander Rue, the bill's sponsor, said in a news release issued Monday. "Nearly half of the state's budget is dedicated to public education, all that spending needs to be exposed on the site."
• New Mexico big-game registration plate: The state Senate on Tuesday passed legislation that would amend the Motor Vehicle Code to provide for a new big game hunting registration plate for private motor vehicles except motorcycles, according to the fiscal impact report. The logo of the new plate shall feature a mature bull elk, the report said.
A fee of $25, in addition to regular registration fees, will be charged for the new plate and $10 charged for each subsequent year as long as the vehicle owner wants to keep the plate.
• Battling Native American suicides: By a vote of 37 to 0, the Senate on Monday passed legislation that calls for a statewide clearinghouse for Native American suicide prevention and three culturally-based suicide prevention initiatives.
Currently, New Mexico ranks 4th nationally among the 50 states and Washington D.C. in its suicide rate among 15-24 year olds, according to a fiscal impact report on SB 417. Although New Mexico's rates are higher than the national rate, American Indian rates are even higher, the report said.
Originally, the bill, sponsored by Sen. Lynda Lovejoy, D-Crownpoint, appropriated $450,000 to the Human Services Department to start the initiative, but that proposed funding was pulled from the legislation earlier in the session.
Lovejoy told her colleagues that the state's Behavioral Health Collaborative "will use its skeletal resources in FY12 to start the initiative."
Looking Ahead
• A dog who survived an abusive owner will appear at the state Capitol today at a news conference to draw attention to an animal cruelty bill. Trinity is a Grant County dog whose hind legs had to be amputated after she was mistreated, starved and abandoned by a Grant County man. The owner only was charged with a misdemeanor, which Animal Protection Voters say is an example of why New Mexico's laws should be strengthened.
HB 319, sponsored by Rep. Al Park, D-Albuquerque, would amend the state's animal cruelty law to make reckless mistreatment of, abandonment of or failure to provide necessary sustenance to an animal a fourth degree felony if those acts lead to great bodily harm or death of an animal. The bill also makes it a fourth degree felony to engage in or cause another person to engage in bestiality. It's expected to be heard in the House Business & Industry Committee this week.
A similar bill, SB 348, sponsored by Sen. Richard Martinez, D-Espa-ola, was tabled in the Senate Judiciary Committee last week.
• The New Mexico Diabetes Advisory Council will have a presentation at the Halls of History in the State Capitol today from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m.
