Well, it’s official.

Five years into Susana Martinez’s “bold change” of state government, New Mexico now has the “worst-run” state in America.

That’s not another report on New Mexico’s education challenges, expanding poverty or shrinking population. Wall St 24/7 looked at how the state’s leaders are managing the state to solve those problems – and they failed.

So what has changed? Leadership for one.

Republicans now control the governor’s office, secretary of state’s office and the state house. Their ‘do-more-with-less’ and ‘prosecute our way to prosperity’ made New Mexico the worst-run state in America, dropping to the bottom of the list behind Illinois where four of their last seven governors went to prison.

Need a recap of their race to the bottom? Here’s a quip from political blogger Joe Monahan:

The Governor may be “working” but is she delivering? A court just recently stopped her major education policy in its tracks, finding the teacher evaluation tests the administration so vigorously pursued are deeply flawed. Meantime, her major education triumph in the Legislature has been approval of a symbolic bill that gives A to F grades to the public schools. How’s that working out for you?

…A bipartisan bill to solve the state’s driver’s license problem with undocumented immigrants passed the Senate this year with major Republican support (it was co-sponsored by Senate GOP Leader Ingle) only to be rejected by the Governor.

And then there is the “Washington dysfunction” the administration blames for all the state’s economic woes. What about the five long years the administration has had to attract “job creators” and still come up empty handed? Is that all Washington’s fault as well?

In the end, the Governor and her political machine revert to their default setting–that the state is the worst run because it has always been that way–the “decades-long failed status quo” as her office puts it. The solution, she avers, is too simply “embrace” her inchoate economic and educational policies and all will be well.

Instead of imagination, innovation, negotiation and results in education policy and policy across the board we get rancor, bullying, defensiveness, heated political attacks, vendettas and the passing of the buck to leaders of the past. But you would never know it if all you see is the pseudo-smiling governor posing with third graders as a compliant media eggs her on.

That, my friends, is a political strategy, not a governing strategy. And that’s why you live in the worst run state in the United States. Read Joe’s entire post here.

And don’t forget that the governor’s political operatives, notorious for taking huge donations from oil and gas companies and Republican super-donors, have made millions of dollars telling us how bad New Mexico is, but doing little to actually fix it.

Now they are under FBI investigation for all sorts of illegal deeds. Allegedly.

Now they want to take over the State Senate, too.

No thank you. New Mexico needs leaders ready to roll up their sleeves and work for us; hard workers of any political party welcome.

Wall St. 24/7 is an international business report followed by investors and analysts looking for places to invest.

Now Wall Street is seeing what we’ve all known here in New Mexico for too long: we need new a new governor, and fast.

But, there is good news: we elect a new governor in 1,066 days.

ProgressNow NM is a year-round campaign for progressive action. We aren’t waiting on candidates to start their work -we’re already here.

Help us start the next campaign.



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