Calling special session is not the solution

Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham said Monday she will speak to legislative leaders about holding a special session on two public safety issues she wanted lawmakers to tackle during the 30-day session.

We can save her the conversation.

The state does not need such a special session, especially after a regular legislative session in which only two gun safety bills became law. The Legislature approved a seven-day waiting period for a legal gun purchase and banned most instances of guns allowed within 100 feet of polling places, with exceptions for police officers and concealed-carry permit holders. On Monday, the governor signed them, along with two other public safety-oriented laws. One increased the penalties for second-degree murder and a second gives judges more leeway in keeping certain defendants accused of felonies behind bars pending trial.

That’s four new laws out of 21 public safety initiatives the governor proposed before the session began.

Under consideration for a special session include how to determine competency to face civil or criminal trial. By doing so, the governor argued persuasively at her bill signing news conference Monday, people involved in the court system — either as a criminal defendant or because they are being sued — could be evaluated for mental health and be steered into the right treatment programs.

This is definitely a worthy public policy initiative. Our jails should not be mental hospitals of first resort. A special session won’t resolve the problem, though. Better to think it through and develop the right strategy — with resources to support it — in our court system. And, make sure there is backing to pass the legislation. A bill setting measures to ensure competency in criminal trials stalled in committee earlier this year.

Her second issue has other problems. The governor wants to pass a state law to limit panhandling on medians and along roadways to increase public safety. Having people asking for money while standing on medians is dangerous, she says, and stopping the practice could reduce pedestrian deaths.

Such occurrences are a crisis in New Mexico, which routinely leads the nation in pedestrian deaths. Albuquerque leaders recently held a news conference to note if pedestrian deaths continue at their current rate through 2024, the city will reach 80 people dead by car. Already, 2023 set a record of 56 people killed in pedestrian crashes within the city limits. Most of those deaths, however, are people crossing the street, not begging for money from a median. The governor’s solution won’t address the overriding problem.

Bans on panhandling, even when spun as safety measures, also have trouble surviving court scrutiny because asking for money is considered protected speech. It is not worthwhile to spend time crafting a law that will be challenged in court and likely overturned.

Instead, the state should spend money on projects such as improving urban roadways, providing overpasses, building pedestrian trails in rural areas and otherwise improving designs so fewer people die. (Heck, it could raise the alcohol tax to discourage overconsumption and at the same time create the money to provide substance abuse treatment — which in turn could reduce the number of panhandlers and drunk pedestrians.)

Critics of panhandling bans say they are less about traffic safety and more about finding ways to reduce the street presence of people who are poor and struggling.

As Monet Silva, executive director of the New Mexico Coalition to End Homelessness, wrote in a My View (“Address homelessness as a public health problem,” Jan. 27): “It’s easy to see how anti-panhandling laws that target the most vulnerable people in our state for arrest and incarceration will only exacerbate cycles of trauma, homelessness, poverty and mental illness.”

The public safety issues the governor wants to address can be tackled during the 60-day session in 2025. Reserve a special session not just for a crisis, but for a crisis in which solutions passed could change conditions on the ground.

We have said before that the situation at the Children, Youth and Families Department — from lack of morale, high vacancy rate, and repeated evidence that children are in unsafe situations — could benefit from targeted, smart legislation in a session dedicated only for that purpose. A special session about CYFD would focus the energy of lawmakers on fixing a crisis that needs fixing. That’s the conversation the governor should have with the legislative branch.