{"id":507302,"date":"2018-01-22T21:14:51","date_gmt":"2018-01-23T04:14:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=507302"},"modified":"2018-01-22T22:03:08","modified_gmt":"2018-01-23T05:03:08","slug":"legislation-would-prohibit-selling-state-land-for-border-wall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2018\/01\/legislation-would-prohibit-selling-state-land-for-border-wall\/","title":{"rendered":"Legislation would prohibit selling state land for border wall"},"content":{"rendered":"

In her State of the State address<\/a> last week, Gov. Susana Martinez called for building more infrastructure on the border.<\/p>\n

“Relax Mr. Speaker,” the governor said. “I’m not talking about a wall.”<\/p>\n

\"Bill

Courtesy photo<\/p>

Bill McCamley<\/p><\/div>\n

Democrats want that in writing.<\/p>\n

A group of state lawmakers is backing legislation that would prohibit selling state land to build a wall on the border with Mexico.<\/p>\n

“Mexico is obviously not going to pay for it,” one of the bill’s sponsors, Rep. Bill McCamley, D-Las Cruces, told reporters\u00a0on Monday<\/span><\/span>, referring to President Donald Trump’s pledge that the country’s southern neighbor will pay for the project. “And the border wall is ineffective,” McCamley said.<\/p>\n

The Democrat from Las Cruces called the idea “a 12th Century solution to a 21st Century problem” and argued a wall would be a setback for a state that is trying to boost trade and has strong cultural ties to Mexico.<\/p>\n

The state owns about 22 miles of land along New Mexico’s 180-mile southern border, mostly in the Bootheel.<\/p>\n

House Bill 138<\/a> is something of a longshot. Martinez would have to add it to the agenda for this 30-day session. And even if she decided to take that stand against her fellow Republican in the White House, it may not go far. A similar bill died in the Legislature last year.<\/p>\n

But House Democrats say it would send a message to Trump that New Mexicans do not want the wall he has promised.<\/p>\n

It is not just a partisan issue, however. Some Republicans, such as U.S. Rep. Steve Pearce, a Republican candidate for governor this year, have criticized the idea of building a wall along the entire border with Mexico.<\/p>\n

This article comes from\u00a0The Santa Fe New Mexican<\/a>. NMPolitics.net is paying for the rights to publish articles about the 2018 legislative session from the newspaper. Help us cover the cost by\u00a0making a donation to NMPolitics.net<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The state owns about 22 miles of land along New Mexico’s 180-mile southern border, mostly in the Bootheel.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":54772,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[3634,140,107,208],"class_list":["post-507302","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-2018-legislative-session","tag-border-and-immigration","tag-roundhouse","tag-susana-martinez"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/507302","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=507302"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/507302\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/54772"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=507302"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=507302"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=507302"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}