New York State Proposes Banning All Ethnic School Mascots
The New York State Education Department is doubling down on its ban on Native American-themed sports team names and mascots in public schools, in defiance of the federal government's order to overturn the policy.
In response to federal accusations that the statewide mandate is itself discriminatory—by singling out teams bearing Native American-related names and imagery while allowing others to compete as 'Dutchmen,' 'Vikings,' and 'Huguenots'—state officials on Thursday proposed extending the ban to all mascots connected to any race or ethnicity.
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6 hours ago
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Four Trump administration officials to travel to Santa Fe for regional governors event
Jun. 6—SANTA FE — New Mexico's capital city frequently touts its art galleries, restaurants and progressive policies, but there's a different brand of politics coming to the City Different. Four Cabinet secretaries from President Donald Trump's administration will join seven western governors — including Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham — later this month at the Western Governors' Association's summer meeting in Santa Fe. The two-day event, which starts June 23 at a luxury downtown hotel, will feature discussions about housing shortages, outdoor recreation and wildfire response efforts, according to an online agenda. It will also allow attendees to mingle with corporate sponsors of the event, and travel to the Santa Fe Opera and other local spots. The Trump administration officials slated to attend the meeting are Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, Education Secretary Linda McMahon, Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin. All four will headline the group's annual meeting as keynote speakers, a WGA spokesman confirmed Friday. Burgum, the former governor of North Dakota, took over as Interior secretary from former New Mexico congresswoman Deb Haaland in January, after Trump won the election. As for the governors slated to attend the event, the list includes Mike Dunleavy of Alaska, Jared Polis of Colorado, Kelly Armstrong of North Dakota, Spencer Cox of Utah, Mark Gordon of Wyoming and Arnold Palacios of the Northern Mariana Islands. Five of those governors are Republicans, with Polis and Lujan Grisham the lone Democrats. Additional governors could also end up attending. As for Lujan Grisham, who will be the event's official host, the governor has vowed to work with Trump administration officials when possible, even while criticizing a Republican-backed plan to trim federal spending on Medicaid and other programs. "My job is to create stability in every single relationship in the federal government," she said during a Bloomberg TV interview last month. The Western Governors' Association is a bipartisan group that includes 19 states and three U.S. territories — American Samoa, Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands. Previous WGA annual meetings have been held in Olympic Valley, California, and Boulder, Colorado. Meanwhile, Santa Fe has also hosted big political gatherings in past years, including a National Governors Association summer meeting in 2018. That event included a Western-themed reception and a private burning of Zozobra for governors and their family members.
Yahoo
10 hours ago
- Yahoo
‘Prudent remedy' for veto error is special session, Legislative Council advises
Gov. Kelly Armstrong speaks during a meeting of the Senate Appropriations Committee on March 27, 2025. (Michael Achterling/North Dakota Monitor) Legal staff for North Dakota's legislative branch concluded the 'prudent remedy' to correct an error with Gov. Kelly Armstrong's line-item veto would be for the governor to call a special session, according to a memo issued Friday. But Attorney General Drew Wrigley, who is working on a separate opinion, maintains that Legislative Council has no role in determining the execution of the governor's veto. Armstrong announced May 22 a 'markup error' with a line-item veto that crossed out $35 million for a state housing development fund. The red X over the funding did not match what Armstrong indicated in his veto message that explained his reasoning. North Dakota governor unintentionally vetoes $35 million for housing programs A Legislative Council memo distributed to lawmakers Friday concluded that legal precedent supports the marked-up bill as the official veto document. 'Engaging in interpretive gymnastics' to disregard the markings on the bill could lead to unintended consequences in the future, Legislative Council concluded. Emily Thompson, legal division director for Legislative Council, said the Legislature needs to have an objective document to clearly illustrate what was vetoed, such as the specific veto markings on the bill, so lawmakers can exercise their veto override authority effectively. Lawmakers have six days remaining in their 80-day limit and could call themselves back into session to address the veto. However, the memo cautions that the Legislature may need those days to reconvene to respond to federal funding issues or other unforeseen reasons. Legislative Council recommends the governor call a special session, which would not count against the 80-day limit. A special session of the Legislature costs about $65,000 per day, according to Legislative Council. Armstrong is waiting for an attorney general's opinion to determine the next steps, according to a statement from his office. He previously said he would call a special session if necessary. Wrigley said Friday it's up to his office to assess the situation and issue an opinion on the governor's question. 'The power in question is strictly the governor's power and it has to be in compliance with the constitution and laws of North Dakota,' Wrigley said. 'That's the only assessment here. There's no role for this in Legislative Council. They have no authority in this regard.' Armstrong on May 19 issued two line-item vetoes in Senate Bill 2014, the budget for the state Industrial Commission. His veto message explained his reasons for objecting to a $150,000 one-time grant for a Native American-focused organization to fund a homelessness liaison position. But the marking also crossed out $25 million for housing projects and programs and $10 million to combat homelessness, which he later said he did not intend to veto. Chris Joseph, general counsel for Armstrong, wrote in a request for an attorney general's opinion that the markings served as a 'color-coded visual aid,' and the veto message should control the extent of the veto. Wrigley said his office is working on the opinion and aware that resolution of the issue is time sensitive. Bills passed by the Legislature with appropriations attached to them, such as the Industrial Commission budget, go into effect July 1. 'I look forward to publishing my opinion on that at the earliest possible time,' he said. The Legislative Council memo states, 'It would not be appropriate to allow the governor and attorney general to resolve the ambiguity by agreement.' In addition, Legislative Council concluded that if the governor's veto message is to be considered the controlling document for vetoes in the future, more ambiguities would likely be 'inevitable and frequent' and require resolution through the courts. The memo cites a 2018 North Dakota Supreme Court opinion involving a case between the Legislature and then-Gov. Doug Burgum that ruled 'a veto is complete and irrevocable upon return of the vetoed bill to the originating house,' and further stated the governor does not have the power to 'withdraw a veto.' 'Setting a precedent of the attorney general issuing a letter saying we can just go ahead and interpret the governor's veto message to mean what was, or was not, vetoed, that's a really concerning precedent to set,' Thompson said in an interview. Wrigley said any issues resulting from the opinion could be addressed by the courts. 'I sincerely hope that they (Legislative Council) are not trying to somehow publicly advocate, or attempt to influence a process for which they have no role,' Wrigley said. Legislative Council memo SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Yahoo
11 hours ago
- Yahoo
Homeland Security accelerates border wall construction in New Mexico and Arizona
A stretch of the border wall near Columbus, New Mexico along State Road 9. (Photo by Patrick Lohmann / Source NM) The U.S. government this week set aside environmental protection laws in order to speed up border wall construction along approximately 20 miles of New Mexico's border with Mexico. U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem on Tuesday signed a waiver of various federal laws to expedite border wall construction in southwestern New Mexico. She also signed two similar waivers for areas in neighboring Arizona on Tuesday and Thursday. Taken together, the waivers allow the federal government to speed up construction of physical barriers and roads along approximately 36 miles of the U.S.-Mexico border, the agency said in a news release on Thursday. The waivers 'ensure the expeditious construction of physical barriers and roads, by minimizing the risk of administrative delays,' DHS said. The New Mexico waiver lifts the legal requirements of 24 separate federal statutes, including the National Environmental Policy Act, the Endangered Species Act, the Clean Water Act and the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, just to name a few. 'Trump is recklessly casting aside the foundational laws that protect endangered species and clean air and water to build a wildlife-killing wall through pristine wilderness,' Laiken Jordahl, Southwest conservation advocate at the Center for Biological Diversity, told Source NM on Friday. New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham told Source NM on Friday in a statement that she has serious concerns about the waivers, saying they bypass protections for endangered species, cultural heritage sites and Native American artifacts. 'New Mexico's archaeological resources and sensitive ecosystems could face permanent damage without proper environmental review,' Lujan Grisham said. 'While we understand border security concerns, the federal government should engage with state officials before waiving decades of established environmental protections.' The New Mexico waiver designates an area in southwestern New Mexico as 'an area of high illegal entry,' divided into three sections. The DHS news release states that the sections of the border where the laws have been waived total approximately 8.5 miles, but that figure is inaccurate, according to Jordahl, who has traveled to every part of the U.S.-Mexico border as part of his work. 'It is extremely frustrating how difficult they make these waivers to track,' he said. 'Instead of using simple [latitude and longitude] coordinates, they pick landmarks that are almost impossible for the public to map. I believe they may have made an error in their locations in the waiver.' One section starts at a point on the border just south of Antelope Wells in Hidalgo County and extends one-tenth of a mile east, according to International Boundary and Water Commission data. Jordahl told Source NM he found the same measurements using his own map of the border. This section is already walled off, and so DHS is likely adding another layer of wall, he said. Another section begins at a point on the border just south of Wamels Draw, a valley in Luna County, and extends approximately 7.5 miles east. This section of the border already has vehicle barriers, but is not walled off yet, Jordahl said. Building a border wall along this particular stretch would be the most environmentally damaging by far, Jordahl said, because it would threaten the movement and migration of Mexican gray wolves. 'We've seen Mexican gray wolves in this area; we've seen them cross the border,' he said. 'We've also seen them push up against the border wall in New Mexico, wander along it for days and then ultimately have to turn around, being unable to cross.' Jordahl said his organization's focus lies on Arizona's two waivers and potential wall construction, which would also threaten wildlife. 'Throwing taxpayer money away to wall off the Santa Cruz River and San Rafael Valley would be a death sentence for jaguars, ocelots and other wildlife in the Arizona-Sonora borderlands,' he said. 'This is happening while border crossings are at the lowest level in decades. We'll fight this disastrous project with everything we've got.' The third section starts at a point on the border west of Santa Teresa and extends approximately 12.4 miles, over Mount Cristo Rey, to the Rio Grande near El Paso. This section already has older mesh border walls, and DHS may be installing newer walls there, Jordahl said. The sections of the border described in the waiver lie in the same general area as the New Mexico National Defense Area, a newly created military buffer zone which the U.S. government is trying to use — along with novel criminal charges — to discourage people from crossing the border. Gov. Lujan Grisham, in the statement provided to Source, urged meaningful consultation with state and local officials before the federal government begins construction that 'could cause lasting harm to our communities and environment.' 'New Mexico's natural and cultural resources deserve consideration in this process,' she said. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
