More than a dozen new laws that the New Mexico Legislature recently enacted go into effect Wednesday, including bills that create new privacy protections for drivers, finalize reforms to the former New Mexico Game and Fish Department and increase penalties for those convicted of aggravated battery upon a police officer.
July 1 is the beginning of the state’s fiscal year, meaning the $11.1 billion budget lawmakers passed during the legislative session earlier this year takes effect, along with at least 12 separate laws that specify effective dates of Wednesday.
Advocates of one of the most high-profile bills — Senate Bill 40, aka the Driver Privacy and Safety Act — said drivers hitting the road Wednesday should feel more at ease about their license plate and other data collected by increasingly prolific automatic license plate readers.
The bill prohibits New Mexico law enforcement from using the technology, which are often stationary cameras that continuously snap photos of license plates, for general surveillance or civil traffic enforcement.
The bill also specifies that personal information the cameras collect cannot be given to out-of-state third parties, and it prohibits license plate data from being used in investigations into immigration status; “protected health care activities” like seeking gender-affirming or abortion care; or participating in First Amendment activities, such as rallies.
“This incredibly powerful and potentially incredibly invasive technology of license plate readers has some guardrails on the way it’s being used in our communities now,” Daniel Williams, deputy director of public policy at the American Civil Liberties Union of New Mexico, told Source NM.
The ACLU-NM has spent the weeks leading up to the law’s effective date meeting with local law enforcement agencies, Williams said, and ensuring they know to including the new data-sharing provisions with vendors they hire to collect license plate data, including Flock, which is the most popular vendor in the state, Williams said.
“Flock assured many of their law enforcement customers and us during the process of the passage of SB40 that they would be building in support for compliance with SB40 into the system,” he said. “And so we’re really looking forward to learning more about what that looks like.”
NM Game & Fish makeover
A 2025 bill that changed the mission of the New Mexico Game and Fish Department to include funding and protections beyond just game species requires the department to formally adopt a new name Wednesday reflecting the change: The New Mexico Department of Wildlife.
While NM Rep. Matthew McQueen (D-Galisteo), who co-sponsored the Senate Bill 5, told Source NM on Wednesday that while the name change required in legislation is mainly a “formality,” it caps off a years-long fight to reform the department to focus on protections of endangered species and other wildlife across New Mexico beyond just those hunted for sport.
“You see this at the national level, like the difference between the Department of Defense and the Department of War. I think it affects your outlook,” he said of the name change. “The idea that wildlife is now part of their name, that’s a reminder for not only people who work there but also the public at-large that they have a broader mission that includes not just hook and bullet species.”
Under the law, the Department of Wildlife will receive roughly $10 million over three years from the state’s General Fund, not just fees from hunters and anglers, to support habitat improvements for animals on the state’s Species of Greatest Conservation Need list, which includes 15 species of amphibians, 145 species of birds and 57 species of mammals, among others.
McQueen, who left the Legislature in a failed bid for the Democratic party’s nomination to become commissioner of public lands, said it was nice to get the bill he championed for several years “across the finish line” before he left the Roundhouse.
Crime and punishment
Republican lawmakers have sought for several years to increase penalties related to a host of crimes for several years. One bill going into effect Wednesday makes aggravated battery on a police officer punishable by up to nine years in prison, up from three years under the previous statute.
New Mexico Rep. William “Bill” Hall (R-Aztec), one of House Bill 61’s cosponsors, told Source NM that the bill brings parity to state statutes regarding violence against police. Until the Legislature approved the change, assault on a police officer carried a harsher sentence than aggravated battery, he noted.
“Hopefully it will make people think twice before they attack a police officer,” Hall told Source NM. “We want them to know we actually care.”
