The death penalty debate will be coming to the Legislature sooner than many expected.

Susana Martinez announced Sept. 20 that she will add the death penalty to the call for the upcoming special session, adding a contentious piece of debate to a special session that already promised to hold heated debates over fixing the state’s massive budget deficit.

Martinez still has not set a date for the special session.

“I will ask the legislature to reinstate the death penalty as an option for those who murder children and police officers, as well as correctional officers,” Martinez wrote in a statement on Facebook. “Those horrific crimes deserve the ultimate punishment.”

She says...

Attorney General Hector Balderas announced Sept. 21 that his office sent an investigatory letter to the makers of EpiPens.

The devices, which inject synthetic adrenaline through the brand-name injector to those suffering severe allergic reactions, have been in the news recently after public outcry about a massive increase in costs in recent years. The prices for the devices increased 550 percent in just under a decade.

The Attorney General’s office wants Mylan, the manufacturer of EpiPens, to provide his office information on EpiPens in New Mexico. Balderas is requesting how many such devices were sold in New Mexico in the last five years, how many schools take part in the...

A new survey says 50 percent of New Mexican registered voters approve of Gov. Susana Martinez’s job performance, according to a Morning Consult poll that looked at the approval ratings of all 50 governors. That’s compared to the 45 percent who disapprove.

Her approval rating increased from the last time Morning Consult released results, in May. At that time, 48 percent of New Mexican registered voters approved of Martinez’s job performance to 45 percent who disapproved.

Martinez has the 11th highest percentage of those who disapprove, and the 32nd highest amount of those who approve of her job performance.

Still, there’s a big distance between her rating and the top ten...

This story was reported in partnership with the Jal Record, a weekly newspaper based in southeastern New Mexico.

JAL - Like many areas in New Mexico, water is in short supply in this southeastern oil patch town of 2,500 people.

In the past few years, city officials have tried to address the matter by limiting water use, including barring businesses from buying city water for industrial use in the summer of 2013.

But between 2012 and 2014, the city gave one ranch an unusual perk—a more than $1 million discount on its water bills. On top of this, Jal continued to sell industrial water to Beckham Ranch, Inc. for six months after the ban went into effect.

Public records indicate that...