Jackalope Magazine discusses education and the legislative session with NEA New Mexico’s government and media relations director Charles Goodmacher.

By Brandon Ghigliotty/Photos by Sandra Schoenenstein “Mr. Speaker gentlelady from Chavez County, do you love the lesser prairie chicken?” The house gallery erupts in laughter. My reaction is slightly different. I’m uncomfortable with the fact that someone pleading to thwart a species’ extinction is being humiliated. I exit the chamber, shaking my head clear of the ringing laughter. Ideas escape me and the only persistent one is shot down. My colleague convinces me it is too early to visit the bar. I consider writing about the art of the Roundhouse, the paintings of men in cavalry coats striding across the desert, the buffalo built from recyclables (which happens to mark North in the Roundhouse) and the various other bits of furniture and sculpture that have found a home here. It would be easier to approach the pieces of art and their placards than it would be to approach the mayor while he sips his soft drink. I do neither. My photographer arrives and we re-enter the house gallery. Her eyes light up. The lesser prairie chicken is still the topic of debate. “Mr. Speaker, gentlelady…” The question rambles. A frocked woman is trying to ask whether helping the lesser prairie chicken’s current plight would be addressing a drought problem rather than a lesser prairie chicken problem. That perhaps intervention to mark the lesser prairie chicken as endangered is not the best answer to an issue brought on by drought conditions. The response she receives: god is in control of our drought situation. I am stunned. My brain is sick with the implications of this statement. If god made us, and we’re killing the lesser prairie chicken and god simultaneously is trying to snuff them out with a drought. Then god clearly has no love for...

By Clara Hittel/Photos by Christopher Stahelin     Jake Trujillo sits on a bench at the edge of the room observing a heated(ly comical) debate on the preservation of the lesser prairie chicken between state Rep. James Roger Madalena,  D-Rio Arriba, and state Rep. Candy Spence Ezzell, R-Chaves. After some staggeringly unprofessional questioning and a representative’s impersonation of a chicken, House Memorial 21 passes—“A memorial requesting that local officials support local efforts to preserve and protect the lesser prairie chicken and oppose its listing as “threatened” pursuant to the Federal Endangered Species Act”—and Trujillo slips from the House. Photographer Chris Stahelin and I later find him looking down at us from the second floor balcony. We wave at each other, and then the House Majority liaison disappears from the balcony in order to come down and speak to us. I first met Santa Fe-native Jake Trujillo in 2008. He was playing guitar and singing an original composition at Meow Wolf’s old location off Second Street. I thought he was a very impressive songwriter, and after that I saw him everywhere I went like he was a character in a comedy about a small town—the character that seems to work in every shop and café. (Note: Trujillo actually has worked in many cafés around Santa Fe.) This is why I was not surprised to find him working at the New Mexico State Legislature. “I got pretty lucky in the grand scheme of things—I got a pretty cushy job,” he grins. This year is Trujillo’s fourth at the Legislature—a job he says simply fell into his lap. He deserves it, even if it’s only temporary. “…It was always harder…to go back to barista-ing after working at the Roundhouse,” he admits. “Being a barista can be hard...

Even from curb at the intersection of Paseo de Peralta and Old Santa Fe Trail, you can hear the passive aggressive bickering of seemingly bored politicians from inside the New Mexico Legislature. Upon entering the grand rotunda, you are quickly glanced upon by the pampered-up middle-aged tour guides, but since it is a public building, the idea of free reign to walk wherever one pleases is a much more tempting offer.

By Nick Martinez/Photos by Luke Montavon On Sept. 2, 2002 Reece Nord was riding his bike home when he was stuck and killed by a drunk driver. The driver, Justin Mishall, was later charged with several counts, including vehicular manslaughter, and served 3 1/2 years in prison. Part of his sentence was also to pay restitution to the Nord family $15,390 for medical and funeral costs. More than a decade later, Mishall has paid $750 of the total sum he owes. Due to a loophole in New Mexico law, once a criminal completes his or her parole they no longer have to legally pay the restitution the courts originally demand that they pay. Families can take these criminals to civil court, though that brings plenty of expenditures on its own Nord’s family, not wanting to deal with Mishall any longer, penned a letter that eventually reached Gov. Susanna Martinez, who made sure that a bill was drafted. State Sen. Mark Moores, R-Bernalillo, sponsored the Criminal Restitution Act, also known as The Reece Act, which was recently tabled until the next legislative session. “The current loophole lengthens the criminal process, it causes more expense to the family because they have to hire another attorney,” said Moores. “It just clogs up our court system with these civil lawsuits.” While the civil courts may be clogged, the financial report regarding SB 207 indicates that the judicial courts don’t currently have the resources to support tracking down defendants who refuse to pay restitution, and providing those resources may prove too costly. With the state unwilling to pay, it leaves the family in charge of tracking down their restitution, prolonging their relationship with the people who wronged them. This prolongation is exactly what Barbara Nord, Reece’s mother, is trying...