Friday’s commemorations at the Roundhouse included American Indian Day and the first-ever Maternal Health Day. For some attendees, the overlapping observances drew light to two grim statistics.
New Mexico for years has grappled with an outsized maternal mortality rate. Likewise, Native and Alaskan American women experience maternal mortality rates two to three times higher than non-Hispanic white mothers, according to a series of reports on Native American maternal health published late last year.
Nicolle Arthun (Navajo Nation) addressed a crowd of midwives, doulas and other birth workers in the Rotunda Friday afternoon and urged them to continue “building relationships with each other.”
“That’s where good policy begins,” she told them. “With each of us.”
Arthun, one of the contributors to the advisory group to the U.S. Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, told Source NM she hoped that in the future tribal leaders would engage on the issue along with lawmakers.
“It takes a community to elevate an issue to tell lawmakers what’s important and what’s a priority,” she told Source NM. “It can’t be just this year, it has to be every year. It’s not just important today.”
Crossing chambersAs the midpoint of the session just passed, legislation is beginning to cross over from one chamber to the other.
The centerpiece of the session, House Bill 2, which contains the $11 billion dollar state budget, is now before the Senate Finance Committee. The committee plans to have several hearings in the coming days, Senate Democrats’ spokesperson Chris Nordstrum told Source NM Friday. He said the goal is to clear the Senate Finance Committee by the end of next week.
On Thursday, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham signed two bills into law to ease barriers for moving and practicing medicine for physicians and social workers, but the House has passed additional compacts for a variety of professions.
Those interstate compacts are for: physician assistants in House Bill 10; audiology and speech language pathologists in House Bill 11; physical therapists in House Bill 12; occupational therapists in House Bill 13; dentists and dental hygienists in House Bill 14; emergency medical personnel in House Bill 31; counselors in House Bill 32; psychologists in House Bill 33; and school nurses in House Bill 34.
Each compact bill is assigned to the Senate Health and Public Affairs Committee. Chair Linda López (D-Albuquerque) told Source NM in the Roundhouse Friday morning that it is “tradition” to prioritize hearings for legislation that originated in the Senate.
“We’ll hear some of the House bills, but not until sometime mid-next week,” she said.
Senate Bill 3, which would change the definition of the phrases “harm to self” and “harm to others” in state law, unanimously advanced out of the House Judiciary on Wednesday and heads to the House floor next. Behavioral health advocates early in the session told lawmakers they were concerned the changes could be weaponized to forcibly commit people to treatment they don’t want or need to receive.
A pair of education bills to overhaul qualifications for math and reading literacy — Senate Bill 29, and Senate Bill 37, respectively — will have a Saturday morning hearing in the House Government, Elections and Indian Affairs Committee.
That same committee will also likely hear Senate Bill 64, a noted priority of the governor’s which would establish the Office of Special Education, next week.
Final countSource NM previously reported that, as of publication time on Wednesday afternoon (the last chance for lawmakers to introduce proposed laws for the ongoing 30-day legislative session), New Mexico’s elected senators and representatives had filed 553 bills.
Source NM’s Bill Tracker shows that they kept filing into the night, though. The final count for newly proposed bills is 686. So far, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham has signed six bills — less than 1% of all proposed legislation — into law.
The home stretch?Lawmakers gathered around the governor on the fourth floor of the Roundhouse Thursday to celebrate the signing of four priority bills that focused on interstate medical compacts, ICE detention and $1.5 billion in statewide road projects. Two of the governor’s main priorities continue to work their way through each chamber of the Legislature.
Work to fully fund universal child care and reform medical malpractice remains unfinished.
A bipartisan majority on the Senate Education Committee on Friday advanced a bill, co-sponsored by Sen. George Muñoz (D-Gallup), that would fund Lujan Grisham’s universal child care initiative and only implement co-pays for higher-earning families under certain economic conditions.
A number of stakeholders, from the governor’s office and lawmakers to health care officials and advocates, have spent weeks negotiating medical malpractice reform. House Bill 99 would implement sweeping reforms by putting a cap on punitive damages for physicians across the state and raising the bar for juries to award punitive damages.
However, an “unfriendly amendment” — meaning the bill’s sponsors oppose it — to keep limitless punitive damages for corporate-owned hospitals divided an otherwise bipartisan coalition.
At a bill signing ceremony Thursday morning, Lujan Grisham said she was concerned about the amendment, but remained optimistic that meaningful reform would cross the finish line before the Legislature adjourns for the year on Feb. 19.
Senate confirms new child advocate
The New Mexico Senate on Friday confirmed Dawn Walters to lead the new Office of the Child Advocate.
Lujan Grisham nominated Walters, who led the state Children, Youth & Families Department’s Office of Advocacy, in January.
Officials in the new advocate’s office are charged with investigating complaints on behalf of children in state custody or families interacting with CYFD. The office is under the auspices of the New Mexico Department of Justice. Walters will start her new position in March.
Rallying for public lands
The second and third floor of the Roundhouse were standing-room only for a rally in support of public lands, which began outside as part of “Camo at the Capitol Day.” Friday’s speakers in defense of public lands included U.S. Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-NM), who addressed the crowd and praised the Legislature’s work to invest in public lands and make New Mexico “the envy of much of the West.”
