SANTA FE, N.M. — New Mexico’s Democrat-led Legislature delivered on a handful of the governor’s major priorities in her calls for public safety reforms, gun control, housing construction and the use of incentives to forge new solutions to climate change as lawmakers adjourned their 30-day annual session Thursday.
Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham praised a trio of public safety bills that ban some guns at voting locations, extend a waiting period on gun purchases to seven days and give judges an extra opportunity to deny bail to defendants who are charged with new crimes while already awaiting trial on a felony.
But she also delivered a grim assessment of violent crime across the state, invoking the Feb. 11 stabbing death of a Las Cruces patrol officer at the hands of a man with a record of crime and mental illness.
“I just want to just say to New Mexicans, I don’t think it’s safe out there,” said Lujan Grisham at a news conference, warning she might call legislators back to the Capitol to debate public safety initiatives. “And I don’t think they think it’s safe out there because it plays out horrifically every single day.”
The Legislature delivered enhanced penalties for second-degree murder, but a long list of gun control and public safety bills languished.
The entire Legislature is up for election in November, and House Republican Leader T. Ryan Lane of Aztec said GOP lawmakers are aggressively defending gun rights as they also pursue public safety initiatives.
“Guns are not the issue,” he said. “Our issues in New Mexico are more foundational.”
Lujan Grisham declared a public health emergency over gun violence last year, suspending the right to carry guns in some parks and playgrounds in the greater Albuquerque area, in response to a spate of shootings there that killed children.
Legislators forged an annual budget plan that slows down a spending spree linked to an oil production bonanza in the Permian Basin that overlaps southeastern New Mexico and portions of Texas.
The budget bill, finalized Tuesday, funnels the lion’s share of a multibillion-dollar general fund surplus into a series of trust accounts designed to sustain future spending if the world’s thirst for oil falters, as well as debt-free spending on roadways.
One new $960 million trust consolidates the governor’s yearslong campaign to guarantee tuition-free college for residents.
Another new $75 million trust would help state and local governments compete for more federal infrastructure spending from the Inflation Reduction Act, the Biden administration’s signature climate, health care and tax package.
“A lot of credit needs to go to President Biden for the infrastructure projects, and then our Legislature stepped up to provide matching funds,” Democratic House Floor Leader Gail Chasey said.
Lane called the defeat of the paid leave bill a “resounding wakeup call.” House Republicans joined with 11 Democrats to defeat the bill on a 34-36 vote Wednesday.
“The fact that that bill came to a screeching halt on the House floor, I think sends a huge message,” Lane said. “It’s not flexible for business owners, for employees who don’t want to participate in that system.”
New Mexico lawmakers waded into whether to regulate artificial intelligence in the creation of political ads, sending a bill to the governor that would require disclaimers on campaign ads that feature “deepfake” images, audio or video. The bill doesn’t prohibit those ads.
Legislators balked at a proposal to make it a crime to pose as a fake presidential elector, never bringing the bill to a floor vote. New Mexico is one of the few states where Republicans signed certificates in 2020 falsely declaring Donald Trump the winner.
