NM Daily Lobo 09 16

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Daily Lobo new mexico

The Independent Student Voice of UNM since 1895

tuesday September 16, 2014 | Volume 119 | Issue 22

County Commission counters state on pot poll By Tomas Lujan Officials will have to wait a little longer to mail out this year’s general election ballots, after the New Mexico Supreme Court scheduled an emergency hearing for Sept. 24. On Monday the Bernalillo County Commission voted 3-2, along party lines, in favor of taking emergency legal action against Secretary of State Dianna Duran’s decision to deny two poll questions — one on decriminalizing small amounts

of marijuana and another that would encourage a mental health services tax — from reaching voters in November. Following the meeting, County Commission Chair Debbie O’Malley, a Democrat, said Bernalillo County attorneys would challenge Duran’s authority to deny content from appearing on a ballot. “We have interference from the state level telling people what they can and cannot vote for,” O’Malley said. “We’re going to move forward to basically litigate

or sue the Secretary of State about her authority to remove questions from the ballot.” Last week, the Commission voted in favor of allowing the advisory measures to be presented to voters on the Nov. 4 ballot. This action was seen by some as an attempt by the county to circumvent Albuquerque Mayor Richard Berry’s veto of a city council resolution to place the same items on the Albuquerque ballot, which would only have affected city laws.

Following the county commission’s decision last week, Duran, a Republican, issued her legal opinion stating that Bernalillo and Santa Fe counties could not put advisory questions on the ballot and vowed to have the questions removed. “The questions that serve merely as poll questions or advisory questions are not authorized either by the constitution or by statute,” Duran said last week in an interview with KUNM. “We have never had on the statewide ballot any question of this nature.”

However, Bernalillo County Clerk Maggie Toulouse Oliver said in an interview that there is no statutory authority for Duran to prevent questions from appearing on the ballot. “We have a custodial role that’s spelled out in the state statute,” Toulouse Oliver said. “When it comes to county questions, the state secretary has no role. It’s the county clerk that’s charged with submitting those questions to the ballot.”

see

Ballot page 2

professional percussion — see page 5

Aaron Anglin / Daily Lobo / @aaronjanglin

Trice Be “Phantom Magnetiq” sings Molodi’s rendition of “Feeling Good” at Keller Hall on Sept. 11. Molodi incorporates collegiate stepping with body percussion and diverse forms of music and dance in their performances.

Immigration resolution fails ASUNM vote By Aydan Sparks

ASUNM voted down a resolution asking for the student government to support immigration reform in New Mexico. The decision came Friday after a discussion about whether the resolution should be passed in its current state. After a vote of 3-16, the resolution failed in the Senate. The resolution sought to gain ASUNM as a cosponsor in order to get representation from the

University when it is sent to state and national leaders. The resolution was introduced by the UNM Dream Team, a student club that supports immigration reform and provides assistance for immigrant students and their families. It proposed that “ASUNM support federal immigration reform to provide undocumented immigrants with a pathway to citizenship” and to call upon President Barack Obama, the

New Mexico State Legislature and UNM President Bob Frank to take action. Senators pushing the resolution believe ASUNM could make a difference in the immigration debate, Senate Representative Nadia Cabrera said. “It’s not about fixing the immigration system,” she said. “We all know it’s broken and there is nothing we can do about it right now, but it’s about getting our voices out there.”

Cabrera said she believes showing ASUNM’s support for immigration reform and calling upon officials locally and nationally to take action could be powerful. “We are a part of a larger movement. There are already three other schools that have passed a resolution like this,” she said. “Maybe NMSU and other schools in the area will follow.” Other senators expressed concerns about the resolution. Some thought that if the

resolution passed, it wouldn’t represent the whole undergraduate population of students represented by ASUNM. “I think it’s really hard to put our statement of this when we are representing students, when there is such a wide array of students and their opinions,” Sen. Kaitlyn Loafman said. Aydan Sparks is a freelance reporter for the Daily Lobo. He can be contacted at news@dailylobo. com or on Twitter @DailyLobo.


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