New Mexico lawmakers charged to the end of a bizarre 60-day legislative session on Saturday, March 20, passing bills into the final hours that would require private sector employers to offer paid sick leave, create long-sought transparency on how legislators use capital outlay money and more.
Masks and Zoom hearings marked the marathon session, as did allegations of racism during a Republican senator's questioning of a Black cabinet nominee, empty galleries in the legislative chambers and the evidence of hundreds of thousands of dollars spent on extra security for the Roundhouse.
COVID-19 and the vague but looming threat of political violence made this perhaps the strangest session ever.
The Legislature accomplished plenty—it passed a bitterly opposed Civil Rights Act that would allow those wronged by government officials to sue in state District Court, tax reform, business relief, and it bolstered abortion rights and a coming constitutional amendment question for voters on education funding. The two chambers agreed on alcohol regulation reform and rent relief, too.
But there was plenty left on the table, as well.
Lawmakers once again failed to rein in predatory lending, an industry that operates with fewer restrictions in New Mexico than in nearly any other state.
And though it reached nearer to the finish line than ever before, a proposal to legalize adult-use cannabis died under the crushing weight of numerous amendments and never even received a hearing from the full Senate.
That failure has prompted Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham to strongly signal that legislators will be coming back to Santa Fe, likely by the end of the month, for a special session to deal with cannabis legalization, which was among her priorities this year.
While you wait for more glitchy video links, hot mic moments and partisan recriminations to once again dominate your computer screen, here is a nearly complete scorecard indicating how some of the bills SFR followed during the session ultimately fared:
Cannabis
House Bill 12 cleared the lower chamber Feb. 26 on a 39-31 floor vote. The measure was similar to the proposal adopted by the House last year and marked the sixth consecutive year of attempts at adult-use legalization. It made two committee stops, ending at the Senate Judiciary Committee that happened after 1 am Thursday, March 18, with a do-pass recommendation. But then it sputtered out, with Senate leaders choosing not to give it a floor vote.
While no date for the special session is firm, Lujan Grisham warned she might call it as soon as March 31. In a news conference after the session ended Saturday, she said, "If you look at all of the brokering of efforts to bring two sides of an issue together, and it happened over and over again, we have an incredible framework ready to go for adult-use cannabis." (Julie Ann Grimm)
Predatory lending
SFR documented the long, frustrating effort to drag New Mexico out of the consumer-protection Stone Ages in a January cover story. Here's the tl;dr version: Ours is among the very last states that allow short-term, small-dollar lenders to charge borrowers triple-digit interest rates. The 2021 session marked the latest in a string of years in which legislators tried to cap rates at 36%, which would more closely mirror national standards.
Midway through the session, the reforms appeared to be breathing, if apprehensively. But after a relatively easy trip through the Senate, Las Cruces Democratic Sen. Bill Soules' legislation smacked into the wall on the House side. Rep. Patricia Lundstrom, a Gallup Democrat and longtime ally to the storefront lending industry, shepherded a "compromise" amendment that was ultimately unpalatable to sponsors.
The effort died, as so many do, in a conference committee as the session wound down. (Jeff Proctor)
Environment
The Community Solar Act is perhaps the most anticipated bill of the lot. It will allow renters and people who can't afford rooftop solar to access the benefits of solar through subscription to a community solar project.
Thanks to HB 76 and Senate Bill 8, we could be breathing cleaner air in the future. HB 76 passed on Tuesday. It allows the New Mexico Environment Department to deny permits for companies that lied on their applications or have been convicted of environmental crimes in other states. SB 8 allows state departments to pass some environmental regulations that are more stringent than those at the federal level, which will help local governments more effectively regulate methane and other air pollutants. (Leah Cantor)
Yazzie/Martinez
For many educational equity bills, the House Appropriations and Finance Committee represents the end of the line. A raft of legislation addressing educational inequalities identified in the 2018 landmark Yazzie/Martinez lawsuit stalled in the House committee this year. HBs 84-87 would have provided appropriations for Indigenous education initiatives and amended statutes to award tribes more agency in the schooling of Native students.
"It's frustrating that there is is yet to be the kind of understanding that results in a more comprehensive action to endorse these pieces of legislation that are critical…to respond to the findings in Yazzie/Martinez," Regis Pecos, co-founder of the Leadership Institute at Santa Fe Indian School and former governor of Cochiti Pueblo, tells SFR.
Despite this disappointing outcome for Indigenous rights advocates, education equity made some progress this session. Two successful pieces of legislation (HB 52 and HB 287) will establish a bilingual multicultural advisory committee and a task force to survey students' access to culturally appropriate social services, respectively.
A reform to educational funding, led by Rep. Patricia Lundstrom, D-Gallup and the chairwoman of the House Appropriations and Finance Committee, passed in the final days of the session. House Bill 6 ensures impact aid—money the government should pay districts located on federal land not subjected to property taxes—actually reaches schools that need the revenue to provide quality education. Since the 1970s, the state diverted these funds to other, better-resourced districts through the state equalization guarantee; this piece of legislation will put an end to that practice if the governor signs the measure.(William Melhado)
MMIWR task force and funding
The worst-case scenario has arrived for the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Relatives Task Force. HB 208, which would have expanded and diversified the group as well as given it added formality with legislation behind it, didn't make it past the House Appropriations and Finance Committee this session.
And it's not clear if the task force will receive funding from the supplemental, or "junior" spending bill, which allots money to each lawmaker for pet projects, to continue at least some of the work of the task force. The funding, which is included in SB 377, is subject to a line-item veto by the governor, according to Stephanie Salazar, general counsel for the Indian Affairs Department.
Salazar tells SFR that she doesn't know when she'll find out if the department will receive the money, but hopes it will be in the next week. It also isn't decided how the money would be used if given to the department or whether the task force will continue to partner with the Native American Budget and Policy Institute.
