Editorials

(PFAS Alternatives ACT) introduced Jul 20, 2023 by Congressman Brian Fitzpatrick.

While the municipal water contamination lawsuits have been settled with 3M, DuPont et al., in July and August alone, 1,000 new cases have been added to the AFFF MDL docket, and it has now surpassed 6,400 after 351 new cases were added to the MDL in the past 30 days showing a clear resurgence of individual personal injury cases, which will serve as a promising precedent for those who are still waiting for a resolution to their claims.

The EPA's release re-confirms the potential carcinogenic nature of PFAS chemicals and that there is no acceptable level of exposure or consumption for these substances.

By Paul Gessing

Recently, a group of business and economic leaders traveled to Phoenix, AZ to get some ideas on why the Phoenix economy is so much stronger than New Mexico’s. Ideas were exchanged and I’m sure a good time was had by all. 

But, the trip was a waste of time. You don’t need to travel to see why Phoenix is more economically prosperous than Albuquerque or why Arizona does better than New Mexico. Like most New Mexicans I have indeed been to Phoenix (and other parts of Arizona) many times and seen how the State has grown.

By Ruben Leyva, Gila Apache

In one photograph, an Apache scout sits bare-chested, defiantly holding a revolver, his expression steady, adorned in wristlets, in Apache moccasins, and a headscarf tied with precision. The Smithsonian caption reads, "Felaytay, Yuma Scout for San Carlos Apache, 1881." In another, more obscure photograph, perhaps the same individual stands wrapped in a patterned blanket, his face lowered and half-hidden among a group of Native Americans on the steps of the Carlisle Indian Industrial School. This individual, the label states, is "Francisco, Indian Name – 'Hollow Loud'" and is among a group of Navajos. But he was neither Yuma nor Navajo. His baptismal name was Francisco de Jesús Leyva (pronounced Lay-vah). He was born a member of the Warm Springs Apache and married and started a family near the Gila River.

By Ruben Leyva

They called him El Indio del Gallo (The Indian of the Gallo Mountains). The term echoed off porch rails and adobe walls—part warning, part forgetting. He lived in Mangas, or just outside it, one of those places in western New Mexico where memory lingers like smoke. While we cannot be entirely sure, some family researchers suggest that the man known as El Indio del Gallo was Procopio 'Pomposo' Leyva, drawing on patterns of residence, kinship, and oral tradition in the Mangas area. Procopio was the son of José Albino Mariscal Leyva and Soledad Alderete, and the grandson of Norberta Ishnoh'n Leyva, a Warm Springs Apache matriarch who once marched from the springs of Cañada Alamosa to the San Carlos Apache Reservation.

By Carter Swanson

The Land of Enchantment has beautiful mountains, a rich cultural history, a hard-working population, and more oil than it can reasonably expect to extract from the ground. These are the kinds of things that make a state prosperous.

But New Mexico remains impoverished.

While the Rio Grande Foundation supports much broader and more aggressive economic reforms than anything discussed in Santa Fe in recent years, one proposal pushed in the 2025 legislative session is a step in the right direction. I'm referring to HB 7 or the "Children's Future Act." This bill would set aside a trust fund so that every child born in New Mexico would receive a check when they turn 18 and graduate high school (or earn a GED).

Bob Ippel

Executive Director

Support for the Educational Choice for Children Act (ECCA): A Bipartisan Opportunity

The "Big Beautiful Bill" has sparked strong reactions across the political spectrum. However, amidst the debate, one provision stands out as a potential point of bipartisan agreement: the Educational Choice for Children Act (ECCA).

ECCA proposes a national tax-credit program designed to encourage individual and corporate donations to nonprofit scholarship-granting organizations. In return, donors would receive a 100% non-refundable tax credit. These funds would provide qualifying students with scholarships to attend non-public schools, offering families greater educational choices.

By Ruben Leyva

The descendants of the Gila Apache were not loaded into boxcars and sent east. Some from all four principal bands stayed in the West, particularly the young and elderly, and found refuge on the San Carlos and White Mountain Apache Reservations. These communities took in children whose parents were lost to death or exile. Like the ocotillo, they remained rooted, blooming when the time was right. They concealed their Chiricahua ties to avoid deportation. One such story begins with a ten-year-old boy who stayed behind, John Talgo.

John stayed and adapted after the upheaval of the Chiricahua in 1886, when many Apaches were exiled to Florida. He married Nona Zaye Yundehe and raised their children in Bylas, Arizona, within the San Carlos Apache Reservation. Like other San Carlos and White Mountain families with ties to those deported, they embodied a quiet resistance: young people hidden among relatives, shielded from government removal, nurtured by close-knit clan networks that understood survival meant remembering.

By Paul J. Gessing

Gov. Lujan Grisham recently went on the TV show Face the Nation to decry potential cuts to Medicaid. She even claimed the reforms would “destroy health care as we know it.” Pretty much every elected Democrat in New Mexico supports Medicaid as it currently exists. This is partially because they view it as an “economic development” program. That’s because the federal government picks up 72% of the bill while New Mexico pays “only” 28%.

That may sound like a great deal for New Mexicans until you realize that Medicaid spending is expected to grow by a mind-blowing 27% next year and spend an astonishing $15.5 billion. That’s 1/3rd larger than the State’s fast-growing general fund budget which pays for education and public safety (to name just two priorities). In other words, even with “just” 28% of that coming from New Mexicans, that’s STILL $4.34 billion state tax dollars. Of course, New Mexicans also pay federal taxes and bear the $36 trillion in federal debt, but who’s counting?