NM legislative recap Feb. 12: It’s still too cold to harvest, but the session is heating up

When New Mexico first became a state, it was even more rural than it is today, and most state lawmakers were ranchers and farmers who volunteered to work in Santa Fe during the winter, when it’s too cold to harvest.

Times have changed, said Mason Graham, the policy director at Common Cause New Mexico, a nonpartisan watchdog group also interested in bills this session related to money in politics and free and fair elections. 

A lack of pay for lawmakers is “really an artifact of the old New Mexico Legislature,” Graham told Source NM on Wednesday.

On Tuesday, he and a coalition of other advocates held a “Modernization Day of Action” to push for legislation they say would allow people from more walks of life to serve as state lawmakers.

Graham said “modernization” means bringing the Legislature up to the standards in other state legislatures across the country.

“We want to create an environment where the Legislature is just as effective as the work that the executive branch does, and the work that the courts do,” Graham said.

He said accomplishing that requires three main policies: provide lawmakers with paid staff, increase the length of legislative sessions and pay lawmakers a salary.

Lawmakers already implemented the first in 2024 through money allowing each lawmaker to have one staffer and one district legislative aide, Graham said.

The second is up for debate this year through House Joint Resolution 1, which got the nod from the House Government, Elections and Indian Affairs Committee on Jan. 30. HJR 1 still needs to be heard by the House Judiciary Committee. If passed by both chambers, the question would go to voters.

The third is also making its way through the Roundhouse in the form of Senate Joint Resolution 1, which passed the Senate Rules Committee on Feb. 5 and awaits a hearing in the Senate Finance Committee.

Big day for behavioral health and crime bills

Lawmakers have identified behavioral health and public safety as top priorities for the first half of the 60-day session. They made big progress on both fronts Wednesday. 

First, a trio of behavioral health bills that will spend $200 million initially and put an additional $1 billion in a behavioral health trust fund is now headed to the Senate floor. 

Then, in the afternoon, the House Judiciary Committee forwarded to the full House of Representatives a package of six bills intended to reduce crime.

The bills cleared those hurdles amid an ongoing – though declining – substance use disorder and drug overdose crisis in New Mexico, the details of which lawmakers discussed Wednesday after a presentation to the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Officials from the state Health Department and an Albuquerque police commander shared data showing the rates and absolute numbers of drug overdose deaths in New Mexico are declining. Preliminary 2024 data shows that trend continuing, though officials noted it is incomplete and tentative.

Between 2021 and 2023, the rate of overdose deaths per 100,000 New Mexicans declined from 50.4 to 46.4, according to Mary Durham, chief medical officer at the state health department. Overdose-related emergency room visits also declined in that period, from 2,343 to 2,063. 

Despite those trends, the rate of children under age 4 who died of drug overdoses has increased, from about 1 per 100,000 people to about 5, according to the presentation. The increasing number of young children dying prompted Sen. Crystal Diamond Brantley (R-Elephant Butte) to call for harsher penalties for parents, including murder charges, who expose their children to fentanyl. 

Check out the presentation here. 

Bill watch

Bills and constitutional amendments that would change the way university regents are appointed and trained made it through the Senate Education Committee.

The House Health and Human Services committee advanced House Bill 35, which would prohibit the construction of new fracking wells within one mile of schools.

“This bill will protect children from toxic oil and gas pollution, so it’s wonderful to see it move closer to becoming law,” Gail Evans, New Mexico Climate Director and senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity, said in a written statement. “New Mexico owes it to our children to make sure they’re safe at school and that their learning environment is healthy. Keeping fracking sites away from schools is the least our leaders can do to fulfill that commitment.”