SFR FILE PHOTO
Following Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s announcement today of a July special session focused on public safety, lawmakers and advocates tell SFR they hope for another run at gun control and other measures that failed in the 30-day session earlier this year.
Indeed, that session’s mixed results figured into the governor’s decision to call legislators back to Santa Fe.
“While we made some progress toward a safer New Mexico during the 30-day session, we agree that we must do more,” Lujan Grisham said in a statement. “The special session in July will enable us to deliver additional statutory changes that reduce the danger and risk New Mexico communities face every day. The best proposals for making our state safer will be under consideration, and I welcome input from my colleagues in the legislature.”
State Rep. Andrea Romero, D-Santa Fe, tells SFR says the advance warning allows time to connect with stakeholders—something she says she’s already doing. While her primary aspirations for the session include sentencing, housing and behavioral health, she says she’s “very hopeful” House Bill 137, a bill she sponsored that died in committee during the 2024 regular session and would ban gas-operated semi-automatic firearms, will make it to the agenda.
“The more we circulate the information and have these conversations and address the concerns…the more traction they’re getting,” Romero says, noting the seven-day waiting period she sponsored will go into effect in May. “We’ll have a few months to not only see that in place, but also think through, ‘OK, if this is working, what else do we propose?’ And I hope that folks are comfortable with continuing to bring the best gun safety bills that we can to our legislative body.”
New Mexicans to Prevent Gun Violence Co-President Miranda Viscoli, however, says the focus should shift to another bill introduced in the regular session—House Bill 27—which proposes changes to the Extreme Risk Protection Order, a law allowing the removal of firearms from individuals who exhibit symptoms of mental health issues and dangerous behavior, something Viscoli adds “seems to fit better into what the goals are for this session.”
“This is a special session that is wanting to support law enforcement,” she says, “so I think it would be a good time to fix this law because the way it’s written right now is extremely dangerous.”
The bill in its current language allows for some judges to require the cooperation of a potential victim, many of whom don’t want to testify. Even if the court grants a petition, it orders a person to relinquish the firearm and does not authorize law enforcement to seize the weapons. Proposed changes would empower an officer to obtain a warrant to do just that, and would clarify law enforcement’s power to report the incident, which already exists in its current form.
The governor has the final say on what makes it on the special session agenda. Majority Whip Reena Szczepanski, D-Santa Fe, says gun measures likely won’t make it to the agenda though she backs them because “we saw how close some of the votes were in the past legislative session.”
“I don’t know that those numbers have changed,” Szczepanski says. “I just can’t imagine that those will bear out at this point.”
Instead, like Romero, she hopes to make headway on behavioral health policy—specifically certified community behavioral health clinics—which she adds she’s been looking into “very closely.”
“It is a model that is just starting to be implemented in New Mexico,” Szczepanski says. “It has shown some great results in other states that are just a couple years ahead of us, so we’re not too far behind, but I’m wondering if there’s a role for the state legislature in advancing that model.”
She adds: “It’s all going to depend on the amount of collaboration that we’re able to achieve. I’m a big believer in getting folks together and talking through the issues and coming up with bills that the majority of folks can support,” which will put the Legislature “in really good shape to do a couple of meaningful pieces of legislation.”
The July special session will mark the fifth special session of the legislature during Lujan Grisham’s time as governor.
