"'[T]he amount we require being small, [New Mexico] will be the lowest-taxed sovereign State in the nation' declared New Mexico statehood promoters to Congress in 1901. The promoters were actually continuing an argument with their fellow New Mexicans, who had voted statehood down by a two-to-one margin just a decade earlier. Miguel Otero, future governor, had opposed statehood too at the time because he notice[d] 'all the politicians on both sides favor statehood, and all the business men and tax payers on both sides are not in favor,' at least in 1890 when the election was held.
"It is not a widely known fact that many residents of American territories oppose statehood on the grounds that the new state government will be too expensive. I, for one, didn't know it until I was conducting research for my history master's thesis in the 1980s. In all six of the southern territories I studied, there was significant opposition to statehood within the territory, usually for fear of its expense." Stephanie D. Moussalli, The Fiscal Case Against Statehood: Accounting for Statehood in New Mexico and Arizona https://books.google.com/books?id=xI9_kVfuiKsC&pg=PA1
AHC: To this day, NM or AZ or some other OTL state isn't a state for fear by the residents that statehood will be too expensive...
"It is not a widely known fact that many residents of American territories oppose statehood on the grounds that the new state government will be too expensive. I, for one, didn't know it until I was conducting research for my history master's thesis in the 1980s. In all six of the southern territories I studied, there was significant opposition to statehood within the territory, usually for fear of its expense." Stephanie D. Moussalli, The Fiscal Case Against Statehood: Accounting for Statehood in New Mexico and Arizona https://books.google.com/books?id=xI9_kVfuiKsC&pg=PA1
AHC: To this day, NM or AZ or some other OTL state isn't a state for fear by the residents that statehood will be too expensive...