Rep. Sarah Silva (D-Las Cruces) outside her office in the New Mexico Legislature on Friday, Jan. 31, 2025. (Photo by Austin Fisher / Source NM)
With 10 days left in the 2025 session, Rep. Sarah Silva (D-Las Cruces) announced Thursday morning that her proposal aimed at updating and strengthening New Mexico’s press shield law is “out of time.”
To become law this session, House Bill 153 would need to survive a vote on the floor of the House of Representatives, and then make it through the entire committee process and another floor vote in the Senate before reaching Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s desk.
“House Republicans are dragging out debate on any bill that’s even mildly controversial to the maximum of three hours,” Silva said in a statement. “I assume they’ve been preparing for a chance to hit journalists and maximize the time a hearing on this bill would consume.”
In an interview with Source NM on Thursday, Silva said what has stood out to her in the debates around HB153 is overall skepticism from lawmakers and the general public about whether journalists should have these protections, as well as the law’s broad definition of a journalist.
“For me, this bill was not a referendum on whether you hate or love journalists,” she said. “This bill is about protecting a critical piece of a healthy democracy, freedom of speech, and our ability to protect whistleblowers and the people who write on their behalf.”
“What surprised me was that it was a hard sell, and that’s a little scary to me,” she added.
Silva is married to journalist Heath Haussamen.
Silva said she’s still pursuing her other priority bill this session, and it “has a real chance of passing”: House Bill 143, which would bring more transparency to lobbying in the New Mexico Legislature. Sen. Jeff Steinborn, another Las Cruces Democrat, is co-sponsoring.
The House passed HB143 on March 4, and the bill passed through its first Senate committee six days later. It still faces one Senate committee vote, one floor vote and then the concurrence process in the House by March 22 to have a chance with the governor’s pen.
Silva told Source NM this is as far as any transparency bills have made it in many years, though public support and opposition to the bill has been “at least publicly quiet.”
“That tells me that there are probably forces at work that are going to try and stop it, but they’re not going to make themselves known,” she said.
Silva said she thinks HB143’s momentum has to do with the amount of freshman lawmakers in both chambers, and an appetite for it among members of the public.
“When I talk about lobbyist transparency and political transparency here in the Roundhouse, that resonates across my district, from Chaparral to the East Mesa — very different types of communities both understand the importance of it,” she said.
Speaking of Chaparral, Silva is making headway in securing funding for a new public safety facility in the unincorporated community of about 16,000 residents that straddles Otero and Doña Ana counties, in the southeastern part of the state.
She said Otero County Sheriff David Black asked her to secure $10 million when she first started her campaign for office. Her neighbors told her about relatives who died or are permanently disabled because they had an emergency and the ambulance didn’t reach them in time, or they lacked a sheriff’s office substation at which to file a police report.
Otero County has a volunteer fire station, but no paid firefighters for nearly 20,000 residents, Silva said. Doña Ana County has a paid fire department but still needs more staff, she said.
Eighty percent of the animals kept at the Alamogordo animal shelter come from Chaparral, she said, where there is no animal control. “I got bit by a dog on election day, because there’s just packs of feral dogs running around Chaparral,” she said.
Silva said she, Rep. John Block (R-Alamogordo) and Sen. James Townsend (R-Artesia) collectively secured $3 million in capital outlay funding for the facility. She secured another $1 million in the budget she’s hoping the Senate will preserve, and she’s asked Lujan Grisham for additional matching funds.
New (old?) Young Guns
Billy the Kid never gets old — except, maybe, on the silver screen.
Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, joined by actor and director Emilio Estevez, on Thursday announced the filming of “Young Guns 3: Dead or Alive,” marking the third installment in a Western franchise based around the 1870s Lincoln County War. The first two films came out in 1988 and 1990 respectively.
Estevez will reprise his role as Billy the Kid, the gunslinger and outlaw. The real Kid died at 21 shot by Lincoln County Sheriff Pat Garrett in 1881.
“The original ‘Young Guns’ films showcased New Mexico’s stunning landscapes to the world and helped establish our state as a premier filming destination,” Lujan Grisham said in a statement. “‘Young Guns 3: Dead or Alive’ will add to this legacy, further solidifying New Mexico’s place in the national film industry.”
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Cleared the floors
The Senate passed Senate Bill 434, which would require public schools to provide high-impact tutoring to students with a mathematics or reading deficiency, and provide their parents with regular progress reports; Senate Bill 357, which would allow state funding to go to essential infrastructure in residential areas including broadband, energy, water and sewer; Senate Bill 364, which would allow people with work authorizations from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to work as police officers, Senate Bill 327, which would create a special “lowrider capital of the world” license plate; and Senate Bill 42, which would move authority for caring for substance-exposed newborns from the Children, Youth and Families Department to the Department of Health.
The Senate unanimously passed Senate Joint Memorial 3, which would direct the Higher Education Department to work with universities to create a bachelor’s degree in elementary
bilingual multicultural education; Senate Memorial 9, which would ask the Legislative Education Study Committee to convene a working group to study how to improve the Native American language certification program; and Senate Memorial 22, which would ask the Public Education Department to create a K-12 curriculum focused on water by the end of the year.
The Senate was expected to meet again on Thursday night at 6:30 p.m., Senate Majority Floor Leader Peter Wirth (D-Santa Fe) said on the floor.
The House of Representatives passed House Bill 518, which would pronounce the fourth Tuesday of January of odd-numbered years as “Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer and Expansive Day”; House Bill 346, which would amend the Hemp Manufacturing Act to allow the New Mexico Environment Department to regulate hemp finished product sales; House Bill 219, which would require the Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources Department to designate Slot Canyon Riverlands a state park and appropriate $9 million to the department for operating costs; House Bill 21, which would make amendments to the land-grant merced assistance fund; House Bill 182, which would enhance retirement benefits for district court judges, Bernalillo County Metropolitan Court judges, appellate court judges and Supreme Court justices; House Bill 183, which would enhance retirements benefits for magistrate court judges; House Bill 444, which would move authority over the New Mexico Athletic Commission to the Regulation and Licensing Department and adds members to the commission; House Bill 336, which would allow retired public employees to return to work with the state in public order or law enforcement areas; House Bill 131, which would enhance background checks for caregivers in the state; House Bill 433, which would require the Higher Education Department, in collaboration with the Public Education Department, Workforce Solutions Department and the Legislative Education Study Committee, to study career technical education courses and instructors; and House Bill 553, which would create the Timber Grading Act and allow the Forestry Division of the Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources Department to create a grading system for structural timber.
Bill watch
The Senate Health and Public Affairs Committee passed Senate Bill 430, which would redefine a “neglected child” to no longer include children whose parents or guardians were unable to care for them solely due to their poverty.
The Senate Conservation Committee passed House Bill 161, which would give veterans living in New Mexico passes for unlimited day use and camping in state parks; House Bill 175, which would add projects to create or maintain buffer zones around wildland and urban areas eligible for state funding; House Bill 191, which would create a $12 million post-wildfire fund and a second preparedness fund; House Bill 289, which would add $20 million in grants for developing geothermal energy; and House Bill 308, which would remove all irrigation conservancy districts from the Local Election Act, and require the districts to pay for the cost of elections.
The Senate Judiciary Committee passed Senate Bill 225, which would increase criminal penalties for littering, graffiti and illegal dumping; Senate Bill 318, which would regulate firearms and destructive devices under consumer protection law; House Bill 5, which would create an independent Office of the Child Advocate attached to the New Mexico Department of Justice; House Bill 10, which would create a new police agency under the state’s insurance regulator to enforce state cannabis laws; House Bill 66, which would increase the size of attorney fees that can be collected in workers’ compensation cases; House Bill 251, which would allow retired educators to remove their spouse as the designated beneficiary and designate a new one; House Bill 252, which would help kinship caregivers navigate the legal system and provide other supports; and House Joint Resolution 2, which would ask voters to amend the New Mexico Constitution to take away the governor’s pocket veto power.
The Senate Finance Committee passed Senate Bill 375, which would allow early discharge for people who comply with probation and make other changes to parole; Senate Bill 383, which would allow the city of Roswell to levy a sales tax to pay for repairing infrastructure damaged by floods; House Bill 214, which would create a licensing process for doulas to enable Medicaid reimbursement; and Senate Bill 120, which would eliminate insurance costs for behavioral health care above the premium already paid for a health insurance policy.
The House Transportation and Public Works Committee passed House Bill 580, which would create a specialty license plate supporting the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish’s Share with Wildlife Program; House Memorial 38, which would ask the Department of Transportation to consider restoring the musical highway along Route 66; House Memorial 41, which would require the Department of Transportation to assess how long state train crossings are actually blocked by trains and and to work with rail providers to limit the blockings; House Memorial 50, which would request a rest stop be constructed at the entrance of the Trinity Site on US-380 in honor of downwinders impacted by the atomic bomb tests conducted in the 1940s; and Senate Bill 123, which would amend the Regional Transit District Act to allow districts to hire or contract with law enforcement officers or agencies for security.
The House Agriculture, Acequias and Water Resources Committee passed Senate Bill 37, which would create the strategic water reserve fund to support the strategic water reserve; and Senate Bill 100, which would allow the Albuquerque Metropolitan Arroyo Flood Control Authority to raise indebtedness restrictions from $80 million to $120 million.
The House Energy, Environment and Natural Resources Committee advanced Senate Bill 83, the Innovation in State Government Fund, which appropriates $10 million for grants in seven state agencies to assist in lowering climate change by creating master plans and helping with technical assistance to other groups looking to apply for grant funding.
“I believe [state agencies] need to be equipped for the challenges of our climate changing, support clean energy development and protect our air, and water,” sponsor Senate Pro Tem Mimi Stewart (D-Albuquerque) told the committee. The bill now heads to its second committee, House Appropriations and Finance.
The House Energy, Environment and Natural Resources Committee also approved Senate Bill 9, which would double civil penalties for people who own or operate gas or oil pipeline facilities and violate federal regulations. SB9 now heads to the House Judiciary committee.
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