{"id":516715,"date":"2018-02-05T09:51:37","date_gmt":"2018-02-05T16:51:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=516715"},"modified":"2018-02-05T09:54:06","modified_gmt":"2018-02-05T16:54:06","slug":"legislators-shouldnt-pick-winners-and-losers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2018\/02\/legislators-shouldnt-pick-winners-and-losers\/","title":{"rendered":"Legislators shouldn&#8217;t pick winners and losers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>COMMENTARY:<\/strong>\u00a0The sponsors of <a href=\"https:\/\/nmlegis.gov\/Legislation\/Legislation?Chamber=H&amp;LegType=B&amp;LegNo=38&amp;year=18\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">House Bill 38<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/nmlegis.gov\/Legislation\/Legislation?Chamber=S&amp;LegType=B&amp;LegNo=14&amp;year=18\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Senate Bill 14<\/a> deserve accolades for trying to keep New Mexico relevant regarding corporate investment in the state.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_516726\"  class=\"wp-caption module image alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 250px;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-516726\" src=\"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/Apodaca-Jerry.jpg\" alt=\"Jerry Apodaca\" width=\"250\" height=\"270\" \/><p class=\"wp-media-credit\">Courtesy photo<\/p><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Jerry Apodaca<\/p><\/div>\n<p>When the legislative landscape is friendly to capital investment &#8212; with safeguards for the employee and consumer &#8212; then New Mexico wins. I truly believe the sponsors of the Wireless Consumer Advanced Infrastructure Act moved on this very spirit.<\/p>\n<p>Unfortunately the process has been hijacked by special interests and out-of-state money. If not handled deliberately and responsibly in the interim, The Wireless Consumer Advanced Infrastructure Act has the potential to leave legislators, advocates and customers with a sour taste in their mouths.<\/p>\n<p>It already is reminiscent of the debacle that was the SunCal session &#8212; when smarter minds than mine decided a good strategy was to dispatch 20 lobbyists on either side of the bill.<\/p>\n<p>To butcher a famous line, I won&#8217;t hold the lobbyists&#8217; and sponsors&#8217; youth against them, but set aside SB 14 and HB 38 for the time being and let carriers, municipalities and consumer advocates work out a compromise that&#8217;s good for New Mexico.<\/p>\n<p>Collaboration and compromise create quality products for everyone. Rushing a bill that has caused so many to feel they need throw money at multiple consultants and lobbyists doesn&#8217;t bode well for the state&#8217;s image or the quality of service to consumers.<\/p>\n<p>Most important is the fact that the wireless infrastructure bill doesn&#8217;t even have industry consensus. That is a recipe for an unintended consequence to manifest itself in the Legislature picking winners and losers in the same industry.<\/p>\n<p><em><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Jerry_Apodaca\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Jerry Apodaca<\/a>, a Democrat, is a former New Mexico governor.\u00a0Agree with his opinion? Disagree? We welcome your views. Learn about submitting your own commentary\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/commentary-submissions\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Unfortunately, the process surrounding a wireless infrastructure bill has been hijacked by special interests and out-of-state money.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":516726,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1192,16],"tags":[3634,3275,107],"class_list":["post-516715","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-commentary","category-guest-columns","tag-2018-legislative-session","tag-infrastructure","tag-roundhouse"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/516715","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=516715"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/516715\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/516726"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=516715"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=516715"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=516715"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}