Evictions, Our Land, & New Mexico on the National Stage | 1.8.21

New Mexico in Focus (A Production of NMPBS)

This week on New Mexico in Focus…

The COVID pandemic has thrown many people into financial crisis and has spotlighted how important adequate shelter is to health. Correspondent Megan Kamerick talks to law professor and housing advocate Serge Martinez about housing as a human right and how to stem the flood of evictions once the moratorium is lifted.

This month’s installment of Our Land looks back to an early 2020 conversation between correspondent Laura Paskus and Eugene Herrera, former governor of the Pueblo of Cochiti. Now, in 2021, Sen. Martin Heinrich’s plans to reintroduce a bill to change Bandelier National Monument into Bandelier National Park. While other northern New Mexico Pueblos support the measure, leaders at Cochiti still oppose it. Former governor Herrera tells why the people of Cochiti believe such a designation would damage spiritual and sacred sites.

Gene Grant and The Line opinion panelists talk about newly elected Republican Congresswoman Yvette Herrell’s objection to certifying electoral college votes for President-elect Joe Biden. They then debate the fines imposed on Legacy and Calvary megachurches for packing their Christmas services beyond capacity limits and not enforcing mask mandates. The Line panelists also voice their opinions on Albuquerque’s passage of the CROWN Act, which prohibits discrimination based on ethnic hairstyles or head coverings like burqas.

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