The University is gearing up for UNM Day at the Legislature on Jan. 31, when University representatives will lobby lawmakers not to raise tuition as a means to alleviate budget shortfalls.
Today, at 9 a.m., the House Education Committee will hear higher education recommendations for fiscal year 2012, and the meeting will be webcast on the New Mexico legislative website.
ASUNM Chief of Staff Michael Thorning said his group’s No. 1 priority is to ensure no tuition credit is passed during the 60-day session.
“The tuition credit acts more like a tax on students,” Thorning said. “It is a way for the Legislature to reduce the University’s overall allocation and divert funds to other programs.”
UNM students saw an 8.5 percent tuition hike last year. Thorning said the University only recommended a 3.5 percent increase, but because the Legislature passed an additional 5 percent credit, tuition rose by 8.5 percent.
“We are hoping legislators will do what’s right and not put the burden of funding other programs on college students,” he said.
UNM will also ask the Legislature to implement across-the-board budget cuts at higher education institutions and allow departments to determine the areas they will cut funding from their budgets.
Redefining marriage
One representative is giving voters another chance to redefine marriage as between a man and a woman in the state’s constitution.
Rep. Nora Espinoza (R-Roswell) introduced House Joint Resolution 7, or the Definition of Marriage Act, into the Consumer and Public Affairs Committee on Monday.
“How a person chooses to live is not the issue,” Espinoza said. “We don’t want the definition of marriage to change.”
The five-member committee, composed of three Democrats and two Republicans, will determine if the bill will be voted on by the full House of Representatives.
If passed by the House and Senate, a proposition would be placed on the ballot that would give voters the option to lock marriage into a legal definition between one man and one woman. Espinoza has introduced the bill each year since 2007.
Rep. Dennis Kintigh (R-Roswell), a member on the committee, said he will support the measure to ensure children will have the opportunity to be raised in a household with a mother and a father.
“If you just have one gender in the residence, the child is missing out on the interaction between both genders,” Kintigh said. “It’s like they are missing a portion of the pie.”
LGBTQ Resource Center representative Jeffrey Waldo said Kintigh’s statements are false.
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“There is no factual evidence that a child raised in a household with a mother and father is better off than a child who is raised by a single gender,” he said.
Passing this legislation would deny basic human rights to certain communities, an Equality New Mexico news release said.
“Everyone who is married, and everyone who dreams of one day becoming so, knows that marriage is a public way of declaring your undying support and love for one another, in good times and bad,” Equality New Mexico President Todd McElroy said.
With the legislation, Espinoza wants to ensure New Mexicans get to determine the social issue, not legislators.
“It’s not a partisan issue,” she said. “Hispanics and Catholics are very, very strong about family values and would support this issue at the polls.”
Waldo said New Mexico voters would not support the DOMA if it were placed on the ballot. He said New Mexicans are more open-minded than that.
“Family includes LGBTQ families,” he said. “The rights of marriage should be extended to those families, as well.”
