Republicans in the New Mexico House of Representatives are calling on an interim legislative committee to consider suing Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham over her continued emergency spending, according to a letter House GOP leaders released Thursday.
The Republicans are urging the Legislative Council Service committee, which meets Friday, to add an item to its agenda related to “possible litigation” prohibiting Lujan Grisham from funding the state’s disaster response from a certain state fund without legislative approval.
Lujan Grisham’s disaster spending from the state’s Appropriation Contingency Fund, which is effectively the state’s savings account, has caused friction with the Legislature, including with members of her own party.
In total, the governor has spent roughly $380 million via emergency orders from the fund since July 1, 2024, even though the Legislature put just $150 million into the fund in that period. Funding has gone for wildfires, floods, National Guard deployments and, recently, to pay for food assistance amid a federal government shutdown.
Lawmakers unanimously approved a bipartisan bill, House Bill 180, during the legislative session earlier this year that would have required the governor to secure legislative approval, via a special legislative session, if she wished to spend more than lawmakers allocated to newly created disaster response funds. The governor vetoed the bill March 10, however, saying the bill “introduces structural delays at precisely the moment when speed and flexibility matter most.”
In a letter Tuesday to the LCS committee Co-Chairs House Speaker Rep. Javier Martínez (D-Albuquerque) and Senate Pro Tem Sen. Mimi Stewart (D-Albuquerque), Republican Reps. Gail Armstrong (R-Magdalena), Alan Martinez (R-Rio Rancho) and Rebecca Dow (R-Elephant Butte) said the governor’s veto means she will continue her illegal spending, a matter that “can only be settled in a court of law.”
Martinez and Stewart did not immediately respond to Source NM’s request for comment Thursday afternoon. Neither did a governor’s office spokesperson.
The Legislative Council meeting Friday morning is the first of several months of interim legislative committee hearings on a number of topics, including health care, criminal justice, the environment and more. As of Thursday afternoon, its agenda did not include the disaster spending issue.
The letter asks the committee to also consider whether a lawsuit is warranted for nearly $7 million in spending the governor line-item vetoed from the state’s roughly $11 billion spending bill, vetoes the Republicans say left the budget bill with “nonsensical or unimplementable” spending provisions.
“These two items need serious review by the Legislative Council, including the consideration of possible litigation, to protect the Legislature’s power of appropriations from the illegal usurpation of legislative power due to executive branch overreach,” the Republican lawmakers wrote.
