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From helping people who are unhoused to addressing the lack of affordable homes in New Mexico, we have a serious problem with no easy or quick solution. There are some lawmakers who are trying to help though. On the latest from #YNMG we'll discuss some of the bills that have been filed to help with housing with KUNM reporter Alice Fordham.

Today we’ll take our first dive into education in this legislative session - and it’s a doozy. But we don’t shy away from controversy on #YNMG; we dig into it. School boards around the country have been among the new cultural battlegrounds where parents with differing political views fight for their respective moral values. Sometimes it gets ugly. Along with new ideas of trying to respect more perspectives in school curriculum has come the backlash over the perception of critical race theory sneaking in and harming our kids.

This is the introduction to the latest from the "Your New Mexico Government" podcast. Over the next four weeks we’ll check in with journalists, lawmakers, and other stakeholders about what’s going on in our state capital during the 2022 legislative session and we invite you to join us.

We have ten days left in this legislative session. This is the point where everything starts moving very quickly - almost frantically - so lawmakers can get to all of the bills they care about before time runs out. On today's #YNMG we’re going to focus on House Bill 132, a bill that would limit interest rates on storefront loans - you know, the kinds of loans given in strip malls that sometimes require a car title as collateral. They’re problematic for the way they tend to cluster in less affluent parts of town and for the exceptionally high interest rates that often keep borrowers trapped in a cycle of debt that’s difficult to escape.

This week we felt the action at the Roundhouse pick up speed, and there were some shake-ups that threw journalists and the public off balance. So #YNMG is taking the opportunity to focus on access and transparency. Monday, was supposed to have a hearing for Senate Bill 8, but that got pushed to Wednesday, then extended to Friday. There was another Senate bill aimed at making sure farmworkers would get some extra pay this year. That passed through a committee without the public getting a chance to look it over first. And, away from the legislature, the state’s Department of Health has been making changes over the last couple weeks to how it engages with journalists and the public in the weekly COVID-19 updates.

Amid a national conversation about voting rights, we’ve seen efforts to restrict access to the ballot in other states and two federal voting rights bills stalled in the United States Congress. On this episode of #YNMG we'll cover New Mexico's Senate Bill 8, the New Mexico Voting Rights Act, which has the backing of Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver and Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham. It's aimed at expanding voting access by making it easier to vote and even allowing new classes of people a chance to cast ballots.

The session ended about a week ago. Now that we’ve had some time to catch our breath, take a nap, and really assess what was accomplished, we’re going to do a live wrap-up show. And you’re invited to join us and to contribute comments or questions.On Monday, February 28th, join #YNMG for a Facebook Live event where we’ll ask journalists who spent the last month focused on the lawmaking process what they saw, what surprised them, and which issues we’re likely to revisit either in a special session this year or in 2023.

On this #YNMG we’re dedicating the entire episode to one piece of legislation that is now on Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham’s desk waiting for her signature. House Bill 52 is an amendment to the Harm Reduction Act. Overdoses from Fentanyl are the top killer of young adults in New Mexico, but HB52 will give drug users a new tool that will make them a little safer – fentanyl test strips.

We're joined by Dr. Theodora Dryer, the research lead for Climate + Water at the AI Now Institute, and research assistant professor at New York University’s Tandon School of Engineering. We’re also joined by Dr. Amrah Salomón, an assistant professor of English at the University of California Santa Barbara and a founding member of the Center for Interdisciplinary Environmental Justice. Dr. Dryer and Dr. Salomon, among others, collaborated to produce the report Water Justice and Technology, covering topics on both North and Central America.

We're joined by Dr. Shawn Graham. Dr. Graham is a professor at Carleton University, where he teaches digital archaeology and digital humanities. Recent work includes studying the online trade in human remains; developing graph-theoretic representations of historic events; and publishing two books, Failing Gloriously and an Enchantment of Digital Archaeology. He is the founder and editor of the open access journal, Epoiesen: A Journal for Creative Engagement in History and Archaeology.