By Daniel J. Chacón, Santa Fe New Mexican |
February 9, 2021
The seal of the state of New Mexico in the House
A bill that would give local school boards in New Mexico the authority to decide when students could return to the classroom amid a state-issued public health emergency order stalled Monday in the Senate Education Committee after a 4-4 vote.
But the proposed legislation, which garnered the support of one Democrat on the committee, hasn’t been expelled.
“Let’s just leave it there for a while and see if [committee members] go back and read some of the information that’s been sent,” one of the primary sponsors, Sen. Gay Kernan, R-Hobbs, said. “Who knows? Maybe it’ll revive itself.”
  Senator Bill Tallman, D-Bernalillo, on Jan. 27 got his Senate Bill 39 through the Senate Health and Public Affairs Committee. The bill, if signed into law would make private the names of applicants to major public positions in the state.
   Tallman got a similar bill passed 27 to 14 on the Senate floor in the 2019 session but did not get it through the House.
   Currently all applicants to all public positions are open to public review. He told committee members New Mexico is one of five states in the country that has âsuch an archaic rule.â
   His argument for the bill is that individuals doing the same job elsewhere are inclined not to apply if their name could become public.