On Wednesday, lawmakers introduced 11 bills for the ongoing special legislative session.
Some of the bills are the product of weeks of negotiations between Democratic lawmakers in the House and Senate and represent their consensus on how the state can use record savings to prevent immediate harm from federal spending cuts. Those bills will likely pass.
Republicans introduced the rest of the bills. Those are related to other issues, like ongoing troubles at the state child welfare agency, medical malpractice reform and harsher penalties for parents whose children are exposed to drugs. Those bills likely won’t get a hearing.
Any legislation outside the narrow focus of the proclamation will not be considered in the special session, said Senate Majority Floor Leader Peter Wirth (D-Santa Fe)
“Any attempt to hear it would be unconstitutional,” Wirth said in a news conference before the noon start.
Below is more information about each of the bills introduced during the session, which Senate Majority Leader Peter Wirth hopes will wrap up by the end of the day Thursday.
If the bills below have been referred to the Senate Committees Committee, whether they are outside the scope of the session remains an open question.
House Bill 1: General appropriations
Sponsors: Democrats
Current committee: House Appropriations and Finance Committee
House Bill 1 spends the money called for in other pieces of legislation. If lawmakers approve it, the bill authorizes the spending of nearly $162 million in spending over the next two fiscal years.
The money will go toward rural hospitals, tax credits for health insurance, food stamps for seniors and other areas.
While costs add up to $161.9 million, according to a Source New Mexico analysis, lawmakers said that taxpayers won’t end up paying that full tab. That’s because much of the bill is funded by a $120 million transfer from a Health Care Authority fund for federal compliance. That fund, which has gone unspent for about a decade, is being transferred early.
House Bill 2: Health care coverage changes
Sponsors: Democrats
Current committee: House Health and Human Services Committee
This bill seeks to give the Health Care Authority all the flexibility it needs to ensure New Mexicans who acquire health insurance via New Mexico’s exchange will avoid huge premium increases when tax credits expire later this year.
Rep. Reena Szczepanski (D-Santa Fe) said at a news conference Wednesday that the creation of Enhanced Premium Tax Credits in 2021 made health care affordable for working families across the state.
Without the state’s intervention, premiums could double next year for some New Mexico families. About 75,000 people buy healthcare from BeWell, New Mexico’s health insurance marketplace. Most of them receive some form of state or federal subsidy.
“Imagine your monthly insurance payment doubling at the same time that economic chaos is causing other prices to keep rising,” she said. “For some low-income families, this drastic increase may need less money to put food on the table or even forgoing health insurance in order to pay rent.”
According to a fiscal impact report from the nonpartisan Legislative Finance Committee, the cost to taxpayers of paying for these expiring credits would be about $87 million over the next three years, as $17.3 million cost will double over the next two years.
Senate Bill 1: Health care grants & stabilization
Sponsors: Democrats (and Sen. Pat Woods (R-Broadview))
Current Committee: Senate Floor, after passing Senate Finance
This bill transfers $50 million from the state general fund to the rural health care delivery fund. Various cuts in the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” mean that between six and eight rural hospitals in New Mexico could be on the brink of closure, according to warnings from New Mexico’s congressional delegation.
Sen. Mimi Stewart (D-Albuquerque), the Senate Pro Tem, said at a news conference Wednesday the closure would mean the loss of 1,300 jobs statewide as well as large swaths of the state without access to health care.
In addition to the funding, the bill expands definitions of rural hospitals and gives the Health Care Authority flexibility to “stabilize the provision of existing health care services,” according to the bill.
“We want our small communities to have access to this critical funding,” Stewart said. “Access to health care shouldn’t depend on your ZIP code.”
The bill passed the Senate Finance Committee on Wednesday afternoon.
Senate Bill 2: Criminal competency
Sponsors: Democrats
Current Committee: Senate Judiciary
This bill would allow the Bernalillo County Metropolitan Court to determine competency.
A fiscal impact report for the bill says it undoes a change the Legislature made in the session earlier this year when lawmakers required the Metro court to transfer misdemeanor cases in which a defendant’s competency to stand trial was an open question to district court.
Senate Bill 3: Immunization rules and recommendations
Sponsors: Democrats
Current Location: Senate Floor for final vote, passed committee 6-3 along party lines
The bill expands vaccine requirements that apply to children in public schools to extend to childcare programs. The bill also allows the New Mexico Department of Health to create its own recommendations for childhood vaccines, instead of being required to follow federal guidance on the issues, which is the current law.
Advocates for the bill pointed to the recent issues with attempting to purchase and to prescribe vaccines for COVID-19, following inaction and delays by a vaccine advisory panel to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
New Mexico Department of Health Secretary Gina DeBlassie said current laws reference the federal Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), which limits the department’s ability to advance its own recommendations based on scientific standards set by professional organizations.
She also said the current law prevents the purchasing of COVID-19 vaccines for insured children — which is the responsibility of the health department — because the acting director of the CDC has still not signed off on approval of the vaccine.
NMDOH Chief Medical Officer Dr. Miranda Durham, said the state has never hit this “roadblock” before and is trying to get a work-around.
“This bill will ensure that all New Mexicans will have access to vaccinations in a timely manner,” bill sponsor Linda López (D-Albuquerque) told Source NM. “We don’t want to be waiting and waiting on a decision from Washington D.C. — we can make our own decision.”
Senate Bill 4: Child best interests standard
Sponsors: Republicans
Current Committee: Senate Committees Committee
This bill would add a new section to the state’s Abuse and Neglect Act in the Children’s Code that spells out what must be considered when determining what is in a “child’s best interest” for the purposes of terminating parental rights or establishing permanent guardianship.
According to a 2023 analysis of a similar bill, adopting those provisions would ensure New Mexico would join 22 other states that spell out lists of factors to be considered, while other states just offer general guidance.
The analysis also cites an opinion from the New Mexico Attorney General, however, that some of the factors to be considered weigh against “families living with limited resources.”
Senate Bill 5: CYFD Secretary Nominating Commission
Sponsors: Republicans
Current Committee: Senate Committees Committee
This bill would create a new commission to nominate a secretary for the Children, Youth and Family Department.
Several secretaries have left CYFD after short tenures at the beleaguered department, including as recently as last month.
The bill would impose hiring standards on any aspiring secretary. It would also create a commission made up of those with master’s degrees or higher with at least 10 years of managerial experience and task them with submitting a list of nominees to the governor.
Senate Bill 6: Exposure of children to drugs
Sponsored by: Republicans
Current Committee: Committees Committee
This bill would make empower police to charge people who expose a child to certain illicit drugs with child abuse.
It would also allow authorities to take newborns into temporary protective custody if they are born with physical drug withdrawal symptoms or if the infant would be exposed to a laboratory where drugs are manufactured.
Senate Bill 7: Child Delinquency changes
Sponsors: Republicans
Current Committee: Committees Committee
This bill would make significant changes to the state Youthful Offender Act, aimed at cracking down on what Republicans are calling a wave of unchecked juvenile crime.
It would lower the age at which a juvenile charged with serious crimes could be tried as an adult from 15 to 14, among other changes.
Republicans have repeatedly called on their Democratic colleagues to crack down more harshly on young people accused of violent crime, writing in March, for example, that, “Our juvenile justice system is broken.”
Senate Bill 8: Medical Malpractice Changes
Sponsors: Republicans
Current Committee: Senate Committees Committee
The bill makes a series of changes to the laws around medical malpractice litigation, which advocates have said is one of the driving issues around a medical provider shortage in the state. Some of the changes include: limiting medical malpractice lawsuits to trials within the county the treatment occurred; removing lump-sum payments to patients; and adding a superintendent to approve settlements from the state’s Patient Compensation fund.
Senate Bill 9: Interstate Medical Licensure
Sponsors: Republicans
Current Committee: Senate Committees Committee
The bill would enter the state into interstate compacts to “create another pathway for licensure,” for out-of-state doctors, advocates say would address the state’s shortage of medical professionals.
New Mexico is a member of just one interstate compact agreement — for nurses — and is one of only four states that participate in one or fewer compacts. Earlier this year, lawmakers passed seven compact agreements out of the state House, but all stalled in the state Senate.
Lujan Grisham and Republicans repeatedly called for Democratic leadership to address compacts in the special session. Wirth said that the Legislature would make compacts a priority in January.
While the medical compact bill will not advance in the special session, lawmakers have put aside $100,000 for the New Mexico Regulation and Licensing Department to study implementing future rules for joining an interstate compact.
