Isabella Solis

Affordability and economic opportunity: Housing, food, utilities and other necessities have become increasingly expensive for New Mexicans. What specific actions should the Legislature take to make life more affordable while creating more stable, well-paying jobs in Doña Ana County?

Families in Doña Ana County feel the squeeze every time they buy groceries, pay the light bill, or renew their insurance. Santa Fe treats this as a mystery. It isn’t.

New Mexico has the highest property crime rate in the nation, and every family pays for it. More theft and more break-ins mean higher insurance premiums for homes, cars, and businesses, and those costs show up on every receipt. Controlling property crime is one of the fastest ways to bring prices down.

Then there’s the Gross Receipts Tax. The GRT is a job killer. It taxes services, and it stacks tax on top of tax as goods move through the supply chain. It drives employers to every state but ours. I will work to rewrite our tax code and eliminate the GRT, so families keep more of what they earn, and businesses have a reason to build here.

Good jobs also need a trained local workforce and a state that stops treating employers like adversaries. That means cutting the red tape that strangles small businesses and investing in roads, water, and broadband. It also means partnering with NMSU, DACC, and our trades programs, so the people who grew up here can fill the jobs created here.

Lower costs, safer neighborhoods, and real opportunity are how we keep our kids from leaving New Mexico.

Education: New Mexico has substantially increased spending on public education but continues to struggle with student achievement. What should the state do differently, and how would you measure whether those changes are working?

New Mexico is spending more on education than ever, and our children are still last in the nation. That tells us the problem isn’t money. It’s leadership, and a refusal to change course.

We don’t have to guess at what works. A decade ago, Mississippi sat near the bottom of the country. It committed to the science of reading, put literacy coaches in struggling schools, trained teachers in proven phonics-based instruction, and set a clear expectation that children read on grade level by the end of third grade. Today Mississippi’s fourth graders outperform most of the nation. If Mississippi can do it, New Mexico can do it.

I will push for that model: evidence-based reading and math instruction, accountability for results, funding that reaches the classroom instead of the bureaucracy, and parents treated as partners rather than spectators.

We’ll know it’s working when the numbers move. That means third-grade reading proficiency, our NAEP scores against other states, chronic absenteeism, graduation rates, and how many graduates are ready for college or a skilled trade without remediation. If those numbers don’t improve, we change course again. Our kids can’t afford another lost decade.

Crime, behavioral health and public safety: What changes should the Legislature make to improve public safety and address violent crime, substance abuse and repeat offenders, and how should the state balance law enforcement and incarceration with behavioral-health treatment and prevention?

New Mexico has a revolving door. The same people are arrested, released, and arrested again, while victims are left to pick up the pieces. That has to end.

The Legislature should allow judges to hold dangerous, violent defendants before trial, starting with a rebuttable presumption of detention for serious violent offenses and repeat offenders. We need to focus on the small number of people who commit a large share of the crime. And we need to give law enforcement the staffing, pay, and recruitment support to do the job.

Accountability and treatment are not opposites. As a County Commissioner, I helped bring the Crisis Triage Center to Doña Ana County. It gives officers a place to take someone in a behavioral-health crisis around the clock, for short-term care, instead of an overcrowded emergency room or a jail cell. That model frees up officers, gets people real help, and should be expanded statewide. Addiction treatment should be available to anyone ready to accept it, including inside our jails.

The balance is simple. Treatment for people who are sick, consequences for people who are dangerous, and no more policies that leave victims paying the price.

Water and economic development: Southern New Mexico needs economic growth but also faces limited water resources and increasing demands for energy and infrastructure. What standards should the state require of major new developments, including data centers, and under what circumstances should New Mexico decide a proposed project's costs outweigh its economic benefits?

In southern New Mexico, water is everything: our farms, our pecan orchards, our chile fields, and the tap in every kitchen. Any project that touches it has to earn the public’s trust. Project Jupiter never did.

The groundwork was laid in Santa Fe, through legislation pushed by a coalition led by the Speaker of the House. One key piece was tacked onto another bill as a last-minute amendment and passed with less than a minute of debate. Then a $165 billion county vote moved forward with barely a month of public notice. 

Before any major development moves forward, the state should require four things. First, full public disclosure of water and energy use before approval, not after. Second, water supplies that never compete with agriculture or drinking water. Third, developers paying the full cost of grid upgrades, so ratepayers never foot the bill. Fourth, binding commitments on jobs and community benefits, with clawbacks if they aren’t kept.

A project’s costs outweigh its benefits when it threatens our water, raises utility bills, or can’t survive honest public scrutiny.

We also need to plan ahead. El Paso has shown that desalination works in our desert, and we sit on vast brackish aquifers. That is the insurance policy our grandchildren deserve.

The Bulletin asked each Dona Ana County candidate four questions to allow voters to assess where the candidates stands on important issues heading into the election. The questions vary for each office, but are the same for every candidate running for the same office.