“Completely honest and highly informative. To look at a legislative body is to observe democracy in the raw—with all its diverse characters and influences and its many conflicts, compromises, and achievements. Dede Feldman, a first-rate observer and chronicler, shows us the insides of the New Mexico State Senate.”—Fred Harris, former U.S. Senator and professor emeritus of political science, University of New Mexico Elected to New Mexico’s state senate in 1996, Dede Feldman faced the challenges that confront state legislators around the country along with some that are uniquely New Mexican. In this forthright account of the workings of New Mexico’s legislature, she reveals how the work of governing is actually accomplished. In New Mexico’s part-time citizen legislature, Spanish may be spoken in the halls of the capitol as often as English, and Native American issues are often pivotal. But each year the Land of Enchantment’s legislators, like those in other states, must balance revenues and expenditures, tangle with lobbyists, and struggle with redistricting and campaign finance reform. State legislatures’ approaches to air pollution, drunk driving, and chronic disease, Feldman’s book reveals, find their way into national law after they’ve been road tested on the highways of various states.

Here some of the state’s most noted and qualified policy experts answer two vital questions: New Mexico 2050—What can we be? What will we be? They have produced in this volume, edited by former US Senator Fred Harris, a dynamic blueprint for New Mexico’s future—a manual for leaders and public officials, a text for students, a sourcebook for teachers and researchers, and a guide for citizens who want the Land of Enchantment to also become the Land of Opportunity for all. Contributors include economists Lee Reynis and Jim Peach, education policy expert Veronica García, health and health care specialist Nandini Pillai Kuehn, political scientists Gabriel Sánchez and Shannon Sánchez-Youngblood, Native American scholar Veronica Tiller, icon of New Mexico cultural affairs and the arts V. B. Price, authorities on water and the environment Laura Paskus and Adrian Oglesby, planning specialist Aaron Sussman, and inaugural Albuquerque poet laureate Hakim Bellamy. Digital versions of individual chapters allow interested readers to explore the key issues impacting the state of New Mexico.

Basic background for every reader seeking a better understanding of the stateAAA1/2s political system.