Andy Lyman
Cover Story
Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham addressed the Legislature with her State of the State speech on Tuesday.
Following her announcement last week of a special legislative session focused on public safety starting July 18, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham—who sets the session’s agenda—tells SFR her priorities include efforts related to behavioral health, sentencing and pedestrian safety, some of which are measures that died during the 2024 regular session.
“Special sessions are special,” Lujan Grisham says, “and they’re intended—at least my interpretation in this administration—to be very focused, because if they’re not, you don’t typically have good results.”
Previously, SFR spoke to legislators and advocates who sounded off on their hopes for legislative action, including behavioral health and a revisit of gun safety measures.
Lujan Grisham notes lawmakers made progress on several of her focus areas during the regular session that ended in February, including in behavioral health. She cites the creation of a rural health care delivery fund as one example. Yet more needs to be done, Lujan Grisham says, noting the special session’s focus on the topic specifically relates to creating “an interruption in growing risk in our communities,” including retail theft.
“I challenge you, particularly in Albuquerque, to find a pharmacy where more things than not aren’t locked up,” she says, adding while work in behavioral health and housing is important, “we also need interventions because these are individuals who are often addicted to drugs, who are openly using them on the streets and are often victims of crime and are put in places in order to have access to funds for additional self medication.”
One piece of legislation Lujan Grisham would like the Legislature to take another look at is the competency bill, which proposes staying a case in order to complete a competency evaluation on the defendant in a criminal case if one of the parties or the court “has a good-faith basis that there is concern relating to a defendant’s competence” and can also result in the case’s dismissal and instead order a treatment-based alternative. It died in committee earlier this year.
Another priority, Lujan Grisham says, is changes to sentencing for felons in possession of firearms, which legislators unsuccessfully attempted to do earlier this year.
“We’re seeing the number of individuals who reoffend immediately have a firearm,” she says. “I think extending penalties keeps people off the streets who are most dangerous high-risk individuals is really important as we do more upstream to prevent those issues for people who turn to a life of crime often because of trauma.”
Much like Mayor Alan Webber, Lujan Grisham says she also plans to tackle pedestrian safety issues, including the “increase in panhandling in busy areas which I’m very nervous about.”
At the April 10 governing body meeting, Webber introduced a bill that would prohibit sitting or standing on any median less than 36 inches wide. If violated, an individual could receive a fine of up to $500 and/or up to 90 days in the county jail. Lujan Grisham says she’s looking at similar strategies which “make it altogether safer while not violating someone’s constitutional right to free speech” regarding pedestrian and traffic safety.
“I cannot tell you how many times I’ve almost seen some hit or car accidents as a result of trying to miss a cart, a person, several people, any number of things,” Lujan Grisham says. “So a pedestrian safety bill related to that I also think is prudent and can allow us to do the interventions that I think the majority of us believe need to be done.”
Yet ACLU New Mexico told SFR last week it believed Webber’s measure addressing the issue to be vulnerable to legal challenges because it didn’t provide ample alternative spaces for people to engage in first-amendment speech activities—the same argument that the organization used against the City of Albuquerque’s attempt to regulate median activity which the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals deemed unconstitutional in 2021.
The governor has run into legal issues in the past related to her public safety initiatives. Specifically, her efforts to temporarily ban guns in Albuquerque and Bernalillo County last year via public health emergency order faced immediate and numerous legal challenges. Lujan Grisham doesn’t rule out future challenges.
“I don’t think we should be passing laws just to see what happens. I think that we have to start figuring out what really works,” she says, yet “we should expect that we get sued about everything we’re doing. And that’s not a complaint. It’s just a recognition of the way in which our society operates.”
But the threat of legal battles shouldn’t stop progress, Lujan Grisham argues, because “not doing anything is not a strategy. Inaction is one of the worst possible things that we could push ourselves towards.”
She says the legislative work she wants done “are things that have already been upheld in court that are being instituted in other jurisdictions” to address ongoing issues within the community.
“We have a crisis of unmitigated risk occurring all across the state and all across America…And this special session is intended to make those kinds of differences rather than waiting a year and letting it grow and having more businesses close,” Lujan Grisham says. “Having people hurt while they’re shopping at Walmart is an untenable situation for me on behalf of the people of the state of New Mexico, and I will tell you, the public wants something done and I don’t blame them. If you’re afraid to go out and buy necessary goods, groceries, go to a movie theater, take your family out to a park, something has gone terribly wrong, and we must address it.”
The July special session will mark the fifth Lujan Grisham has called during her time as governor.
