Credit Stephanie Fitzgerald

NM Senate Panel Votes No On Right-To-Work Bill – The Associated Press and Albuquerque Journal

A Senate panel has stopped the advance of a right-to-work bill that has drawn scores of people to the State Capitol for hours of hearings.

The Public Affairs Committee voted 5-3 yesterday to block a bill that prohibits requiring workers to join a union or to pay dues as a condition of employment and includes a 50-cent-per-hour minimum wage increase.

The GOP-controlled House passed the legislation 37-30 last month. The Democratic leadership in the Senate has said it’s united in stopping the legislation.

Arguments Heard In New Mexico PARCC Testing Contract Fight – The Associated Press

Lawyers have submitted arguments in a legal challenge to New Mexico’s contract with a testing company that may halt a much-debated assessment exam in the state.

Santa Fe District Judge Sarah Singleton heard arguments Tuesday in a case that could overturn a contract awarded to London-based Pearson and potentially tangle up other states using the same test.

Last year, Pearson was awarded a contact given out by states belonging to a consortium for the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers exam, or PARCC.

Thomas McGovern, a lawyer for the Washington-based American Institutes for Research, says New Mexico and the consortium unfairly helped shape bidding requirements crafted especially for Pearson.

But attorneys for New Mexico say the process was fair and AIR did not submit a bid.

Abortion Bills Assigned To New Mexico Senate Committees – The Associated Press

A bill requiring parental notification before a minor could have an abortion will go to two New Mexico Senate committees instead of being heard by the full chamber over the objections of Republicans.

The Senate on Tuesday voted 25-17 along party lines to reject the motion by Republican Sen. William Sharer of Farmington.

He and other Republicans said the issue was too important not to be heard by the full Senate. Democrats argued that the committee process should not be bypassed.

The New Mexico House on Friday approved the bill requiring that parents be notified at least 48 hours before a minor ends a pregnancy.

A separate effort by Sharer to have a related bill banning late-term abortions assigned to another committee also failed to muster enough votes.