The proposal is deeply satisfying to a public exhausted by crime and seemingly lenient judges, especially in the ABQ metro. Politicians from both sides of the aisle have rushed to support the measure, including Dems MLG, Mayor Tim Keller and BernCo District Attorney Raul Torrez. MLG even made it part of her highly publicized '22 crime package and ABQ GOP state House candidate Nicole Chavez is building her candidacy around the bill.
But not all Dem state senators have joined in that support. At the last session a House Committee passedpassed a pretrial detention bill but it did not go to the floor and Senate Health and Public Affairs Committee also tabled a pretrial detention bill.
Sen. Joe Cervantes is chairman of the Judiciary Committee another committee that could get the bill in the future.
Without key senators support the bill is very unlikely to see the light of day. Judging by Cervantes' blast on social media in the poll's aftermath the bill is going to stay in the dark:
What's needed to jail dangerous criminals are not presumptions - which are only advisory. Judges can still override "presumptions". What's really needed? Scrutiny, accountability and consequences for those failing to do their jobs.
The measure would create “rebuttable presumptions,” where defendants charged with high level felonies are presumed dangerous to the community and are forced to prove otherwise in order to obtain a stay out of jail card.
As the Journal poll revealed the bill's intent provokes an emotional response with an overwhelming 85 percent of respondents supporting it, but most of the respondents probably never saw the expert reports showing it would have a negligible impact on crime.
Researchers found that under the current system, about 4 in 5 defendants who were released remained arrest-free pending trial. . .Currently, people charged with a felony can be held without bond only if prosecutors can persuade a judge that no conditions of release would protect the public, or that a defendant is unlikely to appear in court. . .A study by the Santa Fe Institute and the University of New Mexico Institute for Social Research found that under House Bill 5 – which was proposed during the 2022 legislative session – an additional 2,403 people would have been held in jail. In reality, those people were released and – while awaiting trial – 96% were not charged with any new violent crimes and 85% were not charged with any new crimes, the study found.
While Cervantes, a trial lawyer, and others are blasted as a pawn of the criminal defense bar, the evidence is on their side. What decidedly is not is public opinion. That makes for one big logjam.
RUNNING WITH RONCHETTI
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| Pierre-Louis, Journal |
Ronchetti unveiled his multipoint public education plan Tuesday that included an eye-catching proposal to give low income parents $1500 a year for three years to employ tutors to help their 1st to 3rd graders catch up on school work that suffered during the long Covid shutdown. (Full plan here.)
But it was this Ronchetti proposition that Stewart found even more eye-catching:
A zip code shouldn’t determine whether a child has access to a great education from a great public school. Parents should have more public school options to choose from and be empowered to select the public school that best fits the interests, needs, and abilities
of their child – whether that’s a traditional, magnet, or charter school.
Vouchers for parents to use to send their kids to private schools is a Republican dream but Ronchetti was careful to say at his news conference that his voucher plan applied to the public schools and he left private schools unmentioned.
But state Dems and Stewart did not let him off the hook and pointed to a March radio interview where Ronchetti indicated his support for vouchers for private schools:
In response to an interviewer asking, “Now when you said, you mentioned the money follows the student. How far would that money be able to follow the student? Does the student have to be in public school or would that money be able to follow if the parent wanted to put them in a private school?” Ronchetti responded “No, no, I think ideally, you want to give people the maximum amount of flexibility you can.” [KSVP, 10:52-11:12, 3/31/22]. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPGkcjx3Z7I
Ronchetti went on to explain that vouchers giving flexibility to parents for their public school education would come first but that he would build on that success to then cover private schools. He admitted that any plan would be a tough sell in the Democratic dominated legislature. That brought Stewart before the microphones:
Ronchetti seems determined to undermine public education in his effort to push school vouchers. And even though he said this morning those vouchers would be for public schools, he’s said in interviews that it would extend to private schools, draining funding for public schools and New Mexico’s most vulnerable students. That means he would send taxpayer dollars to private schools with no accountability to the public. We must keep public dollars in public schools.
Vouchers for private schools are a favorite of the conservative think tank crowd but the public remains skeptical. That's a problem for Ronchetti who desperately needs to overcome opposition from women to resuscitate his trailing candidacy--and education is one of their top issues.
There's a pattern here. This summer Ronchetti proposed a compromise on abortion in which the procedure would be allowed for the first 15 weeks of pregnancy with exemptions for incest and life of the mother. But then ABQ Rev. Steve Smothermon surfaced and said Ronchetti told him privately that he wants to do away with all abortions but first he must start with limitations in order to get elected.
Ronchetti deneid that, but the description is strikingly similar to how he handled the voucher question in that radio interview--start with public school vouchers but then extend them to private schools.
Ronchetti is stuck between two worlds--the conservatives he must have and the independents and moderate Dems he must have. Trying to please both is a Herculean task and has the candidate taking spills from his tightrope.
GO TO THE GATORS
How about he throws his support behind the constitutional amendment that would use a portion of the over $20 billion Land Grant Permanent School Fund for early childhood education and that voters will decide November 8? The proposal is garnering 69 percent support in the latest poll and even a majority of Republicans are in support as was Ronchetti's GOP primary opponent state Rep. Rebecca Dow.
And there's another path he could go down. What about the landmark 2018 Yazzie-Martinez lawsuit in which a district court judge found the state in violation of its Constitution for failing to provide proper education for "at risk" children, most of whom are Hispanic or Native American and come from low income families?
The court-ordered implementation of Yazzie has been going slowly and MLG has been taking heat over that. What would Ronchetti do to bring these children up to snuff, many of whom hail from Democratic families that might be thankful for any new approach he offered.
Rebuilding his candidacy in the wake of the abortion earthquake is not easy but it only gets harder if Ronchetti doesn't start thinking outside the box.
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(c)NM POLITICS WITH JOE MONAHAN 2022
(c)NM POLITICS WITH JOE MONAHAN 2022