LEGISLATIVE ROUNDUP
Days remaining in session: 3
Slow down: The House of Representatives, with almost no debate, moved rapidly Tuesday to approve a series of bills.
Among them:
◆ Senate Bill 224, which removes the requirement for noncustodial parents to pay $5 per month in medical support for children covered by Medicaid.
◆ Senate Bill 102, which lays out new provisions for drivers on roads with multiple lanes — including when a driver may use the left lane to pass. The measure includes a $250 fine for violations.
◆ Senate Bill 72, creating a fund for the Wildlife Corridors Act, which calls for building wildlife overpasses, underpasses and fencing along roadways to help protect animals and motorists.
◆ Senate Bill 21, which prohibits prescribed burns during times when the National Weather Service issues a red flag warning. In the evening, the Senate approved amendments to the bill in a concurrence vote, sending it to the governor’s desk.
◆ House Bill 388, creating the cybersecurity fund to be administered by the state Department of Information Technology for responses to cyberattacks and recovery after any data breach.
Things were moving so fast on the House floor that House Speaker Javier Martínez, D-Albuquerque, said, “Slow down, I’m starting to sweat.”
The House approved about 20 bills in 45 minutes.
Capital outlay: The Senate Finance Committee rejected a proposed amendment Tuesday to strip a $10 million appropriation in the capital outlay bill proposed by Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham to build a clinic near the Texas border that would provide abortion services and other reproductive health care.
“It’s $10 million for an abortion clinic,” said Sen. Bill Sharer, R-Farmington, who proposed the amendment. “I don’t think the state of New Mexico ought to be paying for that, [and] if it’s that important, let private enterprise build it. Doctors build things all the time without state money.”
Sharer’s amendment failed on a 7-4 vote along party lines.
House Republicans and two Democrats voted against House Bill 505 over the proposed clinic in Doña Ana County.
The Governor’s Office has said New Mexico’s reproductive health care providers are seeing a strain on services “as neighboring states pass extremist abortion bans that limit women’s healthcare.”
“The governor committed to funding this facility after hearing from medical providers and community members that there is a critical need for more access to women’s healthcare in the Las Cruces area,” Maddy Hayden, a spokeswoman for Lujan Grisham, wrote in an email last year.
Name-change bill: A bill to remove the requirement that name changes be published in a newspaper passed the Senate 35-5 Tuesday.
Sen. Leo Jaramillo, D-Española, told his colleagues he was happy to bring the bill forward on behalf of the LGBTQ+ community and survivors of domestic and sexual violence. He called the practice of publishing a name change in a newspaper outdated.
“The statute was first created in 1889,” he said. “What we know is this outdated law negatively impacts trans and nonbinary people who are often outed to their entire community in the local newspaper, as well as survivors of domestic and sexual violence and their children, many of whom are trying to escape violence from an abusive family member.” The bill now heads to the governor.
Jury duty: As part of an effort to dissuade New Mexicans from trying to get out of jury duty, the Senate passed a bill Tuesday to pay jurors more.
Senate Bill 170 would “increase compensation for jury service to 150 percent of the federal minimum wage rate or the New Mexico minimum wage rate, whichever is greater,” a fiscal impact report states.
Jurors are currently paid $12 an hour, and SB 170 would bump up the pay to $18, the report states.
“The American Bar Association a couple of years ago put out a memo that indicated their concern for the judiciary and people who try to get out of jury duty because they are paid minimum wage,” said Sen Bill Soules, D-Las Cruces. “This is just attempting to fix some of that for the state of New Mexico.”
Quotes of the day: “We will cram this bill through.” — House Speaker
Javier Martínez, D-Albuquerque, on a bill that clarifies the definition of the word “cramming” when it comes to telecommunications.
“This almost sounds like one of those shark TV stories.” — Sen. Pat Woods, R-Broadview, during discussion on a bill pertaining to the New Mexico Finance Authority’s venture capital program fund. Woods was apparently referring to the TV show Shark Tank.