Corruption filled the headlines recently when the New Mexico Finance Authority came under scrutiny for allegedly faking its 2011 audit by failing to report $40 million in losses.

Almost since her appointment, Public Education Secretary-Designate Hanna Skandera—an administrator who played a key role in Florida’s education reform initiatives—has faced opposition from New Mexico Democrats.

The Department of Health recently dismissed all five of its Medical Cannabis Program temporary workers—positions that, last fall, Health Secretary Catherine Torres promised to make permanent.

Last week, Gov. Susana Martinez scored points with transparency advocates when her office, after being told by a district judge to remove public employee names and salaries from the state’s Sunshine Portal, posted them on a different web page. It’s an example of her follow-through on a key campaign promise: to make state government open and accessible to the public.

At the New Mexico State Fair, just a few hundred feet west of the Downs at Albuquerque racetrack and casino, sits a row of crumbling stables. On a June afternoon, the walkways are littered with dead pigeons—casualties of BB guns wielded by the horses’ caretakers’ young children, many of whom live onsite. In the bathrooms the caretakers share, layers upon layers of mildew rot the walls of the shower stalls to a color resembling human excrement.

This November, voters will weigh in on five amendments to the state Constitution, all of which would reshape state government.

By a variety of measures—graduation rates, reading proficiency, standardized test scores—Santa Fe Public Schools are failing. But Joel Boyd, the district’s new superintendent, has a plan to turn that around.

Of the 16 states that allow medical marijuana, New Mexico is one of only three that haven’t experienced federal government crackdowns, according to Washington, DC-based National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. Medical marijuana advocates cite the state Medical Cannabis Program’s stringent rules.

On an unseasonably cool mid-July morning, Max Lovato is sampling a pocket-sized meatball next to a mobile grocery truck parked on the west bank of the Rio Grande. The evening before, several of the truck’s volunteers handed out approximately 100 flyers advertising free samples in San Felipe Pueblo, where he lives. The beef Lovato is eating is grass-fed, which is leaner and lower in calories than traditional beef.

“Your note below says toiletries only. Is this one of those clothing optional, naked babe weekends?” So wrote Patrick Rogers—Albuquerque power lawyer, lobbyist and member of the Board of Directors of the New Mexico Foundation for Open Government—in an email to the private account of Ryan Cangiolosi, deputy chief of staff for Gov. Susana Martinez, and the professional account of Stuart Feltman, president of Coca-Cola in Santa Fe, on Aug. 30, 2011.