New Mexico Election 2026: Constitutional Amendments 1-3

Several amendments to the New Mexico Constitution will appear on the Nov. 3 general election ballot which, if approved, would require governors to explain their vetoes, eliminate the requirement to hold school elections on odd-numbered years and pare back the governor’s authority to nominate regents at public universities.

To place a constitutional amendment on the ballot, state lawmakers must first sponsor them as joint resolutions during a legislative session.

Source NM reviewed these three constitutional amendments, as well as the Legislative Council Service’s arguments for and against each of them. Source NM also spoke with state lawmakers who sponsored or co-sponsored each one.

A fourth amendment, which seeks to give state lawmakers paid salaries for the first time, will also appear on the ballot, and will be detailed in a separate news story.

Constitutional Amendment 1: pocket vetoes

When the Legislature passes a bill, the governor must sign it before it becomes a law. New Mexico law requires that the governor sign or veto bills, with a written message indicating why she or he approved or disapproved of the bill, by a specific date after the legislative session.

If the governor does neither, it becomes a “pocket veto,” meaning the bill does not become a law but the governor does not have to explain why.

The proposed amendment would require the governor to provide written messages explaining vetoes. If the governor does not act on a bill, it would become law under the proposed amendment.

State Rep. Matthew McQueen (D-Galisteo) co-sponsored a resolution in the 2025 legislative session to get Constitutional Amendment 1 on the ballot, and told Source NM he believes the measure supports “transparency and good government.”

“I’ve been in the Legislature for 12 years and it’s really hard to pass legislation,” he said. “When you have legislation that just passed, sometimes with a large majority, it goes up to the governor’s desk and the governor doesn’t sign it and doesn’t tell you why, what are you supposed to do?”

The Legislative Council Service’s guide to constitutional amendments provides two arguments for and against Constitutional Amendment 1.

Supportive arguments include providing more transparency to the public and the Legislature, and potentially bringing more balance to the three branches of state government. Opposing arguments include a concern that the amendment is superfluous and could be burdensome, and that it doesn’t adequately define its requirement for the governor to provide a “substantive explanation” with a veto.

Constitutional Amendment 2: school elections

Currently, New Mexico school districts can only hold statewide elections in odd-numbered years, when many local governments hold elections for city council seats.

Supporters of Constitutional Amendment 2, which would eliminate that requirement if approved, say that the current model imposes too much of a burden on schools. If a school district needs to put a bond question on the ballot to get funding for big projects, they would rather do that during a bigger general election when voter turnout is higher, Sen. Linda Trujillo (D-Santa Fe), who co-sponsored the resolution to get this on the ballot, told Source NM.

“This is really to streamline” a district’s process to put bond questions before voters, she said.

Putting school elections on a November general election ballot would require the state, rather than individual school districts, to foot the bill for the election and would put important local issues before voters during what are typically elections with the highest levels of turnout.

Trujillo said she’s encountered a common misconception that moving school elections to a general election ballot, which often includes mid-term or presidential races, would suddenly allow school board candidates to run in partisan elections. That is not the case, she said.

She added that the requirement prohibiting local school races and bond questions from appearing on a general election ballot is “kind of the last little semblance of women not being allowed to vote in anything but school elections.”

The Legislative Council Service published five arguments in favor of the constitutional amendment and four in opposition.

The arguments in favor are: School districts won’t have to pay for expensive mail-in elections; higher levels of participation in school elections; it could increase the number of school districts that participate in the state capital outlay system and result in new construction; districts could still choose to hold special elections; it would dilute the “outsized influence” of advocacy groups in influencing school elections.

The arguments against the proposal are: Adding to a general election ballot could increase voter fatigue and increase election costs; it could lead to politicizing school elections; it could reduce the voting power of teachers and school staff by increasing the size of the electorate; and it could diminish the attention paid to school elections if they’re on a crowded ballot.

Constitutional Amendment 3: nominating university regents

Constitutional Amendment 3, which would require that the governor appoint university regents from a pool selected by a nominating committee, has been in the works for so many years that “I’ve lost count,” Sen. Jeff Steinborn (D-Las Cruces) told Source NM.

He said he’s taken issue with the regent selection process since he was first elected, initially to the state House of Representatives, 20 years ago.

In New Mexico, the governor appoints regents, whom the state Senate must confirm, to oversee the state’s public universities. Current law also requires that boards of regents contain a roughly equal number of people from different political parties.

Steinborn said that system has allowed governors in several administrations to appoint friends or political allies to the posts.

If approved, Constitutional Amendment 3 would task the Legislature with creating a regent nominating committee. The governor would have to choose regents from a pool of people selected by the nominating committee. It would also prevent someone from serving as a regent if they changed their political affiliation in the year prior to their appointment. 

“It’s been abused and we’ve had too many appointments that had no higher education experience and nothing to offer our state,” Steinborn said of the current model.

He co-sponsored a resolution to get this placed on the ballot during this year’s legislative session. He said it was the “perfect moment — between governors, when no one was protecting their power,” to finally get this done.

The Legislative Council Service published two arguments for and against the proposal.

In support, it wrote that a nominating committee could comprehensively vet candidates to ensure they have the necessary experience to oversee a university, and a nominating committee could remove the influence of politics from the process.

In opposition, it wrote that the amendment would alter the checks and balances that currently exist between the Legislature and the governor’s office, and that it could weaken the accountability for the governor and the Senate in the appointment and confirmation processes.