On Monday, far-left state Rep. Javier Martinez (D-Albuquerque) took to Twitter to place blame for the effects of the novel coronavirus on (you guessed it), “racism.”
A typical play by Democrats, Martinez claimed COVID-19 is hitting New Mexico the hardest because of “[y]ears of policies that uphold historically racist systems like..failures 2 invest land grant fund in youngest kids, failures 2 build water systems in communities w/out, failures 2 build an economy that works for ALL.”
However, Martinez does not give any detail about his outrage over “racist systems” with any facts. On the contrary, it does not appear that racism has anything to do with land grant funds going to the state’s “youngest kids,” supposed “failures” to build “water systems” or the vague ability to “build an economy that works for all.”
Paul Gessing, President of the Rio Grande Foundation retweeted the post, writing, “And there you have it, Chair of House Tax in #nmleg arguing that if we weren’t so RACIST that we didn’t tap the permanent fund for pre-K minority groups wouldn’t be as impacted by Coronavirus.”
During the 2020 legislative session, the Legislature passed and Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham signed into law HB 83, which originally would withdraw 1% from the state’s Land Grant Permanent Fund for pre-kindergarten programs, but the final version of the bill passed by a wide margin in both chambers with .5% extraction from the fund.
New Mexico’s current systems, which have been run by Democrats for over 89 years, is fully in the hands of Democrat lawmakers, not Republicans, and so it appears Martinez is blaming Democrats for his perceived failures in the state. Since 1931, Democrats have had a majority rule over the state legislature and most state offices, so by Martinez’s logic, Democrats are 100% responsible for any “racism” in the current system.