Pay attention, New Mexico residents, your "representatives" may not be representing your will.

I have lived in New Mexico for almost 20 years. Most of the time, although I have not always agreed with decisions made by the New Mexico Legislature, I've realized that with the good usually comes bad.

But this year, in the 2010 legislative session, something has drastically changed.

Although the Legislature has been controlled and dominated by Democrats for most of the past 60 years, with only two years recently having a majority of Republicans in the House of Representatives, the state remains at the bottom of good lists and at the top of bad lists.

Why do we keep putting up with this? Why do "we" keep electing the same-old in-your-face Democrats?

We have had Republican governors off and on, and they maintained some sanity by vetoing the worst bills, so that it kept the state on a more or less even financial keel, even though it remained at the bottom of good lists.

This year, the entire state hierarchy, including the governor and lieutenant governor and other elected statewide officials, along with a huge preponderance of the House and Senate are Democrats.

Not the conservative Democrats that live in the rural areas of the state, but the rabid, destroy-all-personal-rights, make-the-government-manage-every-aspect-of-residents'-lives and give-us-power Democrats.

This year, due to successful extractive industry revenues, including from oil and gas in the state, New Mexico has $1 billion in surplus.

It seems to me that the legislators, in cahoots with a power-hungry governor, have gone on a drunken orgy of spending all that money as quickly as they possibly can.

Those of us who have a more pragmatic view of things, KNOW that oil and gas revenues go up and then they go down. We know that most revenues go up and down cyclically. When we receive extra money in our businesses, we may spend some on one-time improvements, but then save the rest for days when the cash flow is lower.

Why would our legislators put that one-time money toward recurring expenses?

Do they not remember two or three years ago when the state was in dire straits financially?

Shouldn't they save some of this one-time surplus? Yes, they should.

And raiding the Permanent Fund is just plain crazy. The Permanent Fund has that name for a reason. It provides, permanently, a certain percentage of its proceeds received through interest on the core of the fund, to pay for education for the state's children.

Taking more money out of it, just reduces in future years, the amount of sustainable funding that is available to produce the needed revenues on a long-term basis.

And Democrats are supposedly the party of transparency. Yet, already in the first few weeks of the session, they have prevented people who oppose their radical agenda from speaking—sometimes by holding hearings in rooms they know are too small for the crowd that has gathered; other times, by closing the doors late at night so that no one other than members can speak, and not even all of them if they don't arrive in time.

This is just under-handed coercion.

If you believe in killing babies and seniors, then you agree with this group of Democrats. If you believe that a lizard is more important than a child in the womb or freshly born, then you agree with these Democrats. If you believe that an illegal immigrant's needs are more important than your or your father's job, then you agree with these "representatives."

If you believe in good stewardship of the state's finances and the rights and freedoms given to all U.S. citizens by the foresight of the country's founding fathers, then you need to pay attention. Because you may not like what is going on the Roundhouse in Santa Fe, New Mexico.