Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Gov­ern­ment Sen­ate Leader Dar­rell Al­la­har has ex­pressed con­cern over the fail­ure of pub­lic ser­vice com­mis­sions, cit­ing par­ti­san­ship and pol­i­tics “mas­querad­ing un­der the cloak of in­de­pen­dence” and warn­ing of a “deep state PNM thing” at play.

Al­la­har raised the is­sue dur­ing Sen­ate de­bate on a bill to cre­ate a Small Claims Court in the Civ­il Di­vi­sion of the ju­di­cia­ry, which will han­dle small-val­ued claims re­lat­ed to es­tate ad­min­is­tra­tion and sim­i­lar mat­ters. He said he hopes the mat­ter of com­mis­sions’ fail­ure to hire staff re­turns to Par­lia­ment for fur­ther dis­cus­sion. “Be­cause we can­not con­tin­ue like this. It is ab­solute col­lapse,” he said.