NM Legislative recap Feb. 17: There’s no place like home

In speeches that emphasized New Mexico’s vulnerability to President Donald Trump’s administration alongside its gumption in the face of adversity, three members of New Mexico’s all-Democratic congressional delegation on Monday addressed a joint session of the New Mexico Legislature, while Presidents Day protesters demonstrated in front of the state Capitol.

To be fair, only U.S. Rep. Teresa Leger Fernández, who delivered the closing remarks, mentioned Trump by name, but the 45th and 47th president’s presence lingered in Voldemortic fashion across the hour-and-a-half worth of speeches from her and U.S. Senators Martin Heinrich and Ben Ray Luján.

Heinrich began by noting the “very real impacts” that Washington, D.C. Republicans — in the White House and both branches of Congress — will have on New Mexicans. Nonetheless, he said, citing catastrophic events such as the Hermits Peak wildfire: “In our most challenging times, New Mexicans look out for each other.”

Heinrich also urged New Mexico lawmakers  to put constituents versus party politics front and center. “We live in an era of loyalty pledges,” Heinrich said. “From the right and the left, frankly. From presidents and from rank-and-file activists. From one elected leader to another, I want to implore you not to sign pledges, but to solve problems. Our only loyalty pledge should be to this incredible state and to this country and the incredible people who call it home.”

Luján, whose father, the late Ben Lujan Sr., served as speaker of the House for more than a decade before dying from lung cancer in 2012, paid tribute to his father in his opening comments. He noted that before his speech, he had sat in House Speaker Javier Martínez’s office, and “it brought back some good memories. It brought me back to times where the lessons that I learned right here watching my father work with so many of you.”

Luján also dwelt on the notion that partisan disagreements aside, shared New Mexico values eclipse those differences. 

“I’m more convinced than ever that as New Mexicans, as we’ve proven in the past, we can stand strong against whatever headwinds there are, and we’re going to come out stronger,” he said. 

Luján’s father, before his death, equated his lung cancer with exposure to asbestos at Los Alamos National Laboratory, where he worked.

Luján Jr. has championed expansion of the federal Radiation Exposure Compensation Act to include New Mexico downwinders and uranium miners. The U.S. Senate has passed the bill twice, but it did not receive a House vote during the last session.

“Some of you have loved ones who have been diagnosed with cancer or some chronic illness,” he said. “It’s not right when we see them suffer.…without any help, especially a group of Americans who are doing their job for national security.”

Concerns “of contamination all across America,” are rising, he said, “and it’s not just from those that worked where there was downwind testing; it’s also where all this stuff has been stored.”

“There’s got to be a better way in America, and I know we’re on the same team here,” he said to applause.

Leger Fernández also began by talking about family, specifically her brother Steve Leger, who died from a heart attack on Feb. 6 at the age of 71. The family buried him in Las Vegas over the weekend, she said.

“Steve was not only the soundtrack to my family’s life, but his trumpet sound was heard throughout Northern New Mexico,” she said. Yet even while friends and families told stories about her brother’s life, they also came up to her and told her, “I am so sorry. I know this is not the right time to raise this, but I want you to know how scared I am about what is happening to our country.”

Perhaps it was not the right time, she said, her voice breaking. “And perhaps this is not the right time for me to be sharing [this] with you, but in New Mexico, we are all connected. All of our stories are connected. And we are connected to each other in place, in a way that other states are not.”

That being said, Leger Fernández continued, with her voice rising: “We’re at the door of a constitutional crisis. And I’m going to say it because I’m emotional. I know some of the guys were a little nicer … I’m saying it guys — we are at the door of a constitutional crisis when profiteering billionaires who were not elected and did not believe in fairness and justice have taken over our federal government.”

Meanwhile outside the Roundhouse, hundreds of protesters gathered to denounce Trump and tech billionaire Elon Musk’s firings of thousands of workers in the federal government.

Bill watch

The House Education Committee advanced three bills Monday morning, all of which are headed to votes on the House floor. The committee agenda included House Bill 32, making electric or alternative fuel buses an option for public schools; House Bill 89, amending the requirements for the Graduate Scholarship Act; and House Bill 27, the Librarian Protection Act.

Several advocacy organization representatives spoke in favor of the bills, including retired librarian Valerie Booker.

“Librarians have had to be heroines and heroes in defending the rights of their communities to read,” Booker said. “I urge you to give us this tool to keep collections open to all points of view and all members of our community.” 

The Senate Education Committee rolled a few bills to another committee day, but passed Senate Bill 268, providing funding to New Mexico State University and University of New Mexico athletics departments; Senate Bill 280, providing capital outlay funds to New Mexico Military Institute; Senate Bill 163, protecting student’s rights to wear tribal regalia at graduation ceremonies; Senate Bill 300, appropriating funds to the Higher Education Department to expand adult literacy programs.

SB 163 regarding tribal regalia will head to the Senate floor while the other three bills advance to the Senate Finance Committee.

In the afternoon, the House of Representatives passed House Bill 6, which would require employers working on projects funded by public bonds to pay the prevailing wage to their workers. The bill still needs to go through the committee process and a vote in the Senate before it reaches the governor’s desk.