Southwest University of Naprapathic Medicine set up a massage room in the Roundhouse halls, Wednesday March 19, 2025. (Danielle Prokop / Source NM)
We put out a call earlier in the legislative session for folks to send in their observations from the state Capitol, but we unfortunately didn’t specify that we would also be happy to take overheard conversations as well.
Yes, we’re nosy.
So nosy, we figured we’d walk off our breakfasts Wednesday morning in the Roundhouse and see if anyone had anything interesting to say. Here’s what we got:
“It’s very, very wound.” — Small child on a field trip in response to a teacher’s question: “Why do you think they call it the Roundhouse?”
“I think he’s in for a rude awakening. The first trimester is the worst.” — Security guard talking to possible legislative staffer
“This is the Seinfeld session, nothing’s happening.” — A lobbyist on the basement floor
“It’s like Santa Cruz.” — One man to another while walking through the ongoing massage room set up in the lobby corridor by Southwest University of Naprapathic Medicine
“All the people who should have voted for us philosophically, the question is: ‘Will they realize it?’” — One man to another in the Capitol Cafe
“I’ve built interstates faster.” — City of Santa Fe mayoral candidate in response to a journalist’s question about the Guadalupe Street construction (OK, we didn’t so much overhear this one as provoke it)
Big bucks in the budget and capital outlay
The New Mexico Senate on Wednesday afternoon voted to pass the state government’s budget for the upcoming year on a near-party line vote, with two Democratic senators joining all Republican senators in voting against it.
The budget, contained in House Bills 2 and 3, totals nearly $10.8 billion in revenue and spending, a 6% increase from last year.
Over the past couple of years, lawmakers have set aside money into trust funds to generate income so that by 2030, New Mexico will receive “robust returns” from the financial market that will equal revenue from the oil and gas industry, said Senate Finance Committee Chair Sen. George Muñoz (D-Gallup).
“Our future is secure until we know what the feds will do with us,” Muñoz said, referring to U.S. House Republicans’ efforts to cut the federal budget by $2 trillion, including a directive to the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which oversees Medicaid and Medicare, to find $880 billion in savings.
The state budget legislation is for Fiscal Year 2026, which begins on July 1, 2025 and ends on June 30, 2026.
The budget must head back to the House for concurrence of differences, which includes $259 million to fully implement the behavioral health package signed into law; new funding for the Children Youth and Families Department to meet requirements of the Kevin S. settlement; $20 million for the rural health care delivery fund; $2 million to expand the Behavioral Health Institute in Las Vegas; additional money for police, prisons, prosecutors and public defenders; $76.4 million for the public school funding formula; and additional funding in five separate pots of money to improve the economy and the environment.
New Mexico is saving $3.2 billion in reserves, equal to 30% of the annual spending.
Senate Majority Floor Leader Sen. Peter Wirth (D-Santa Fe) said on the Senate floor he expects senators to vote on the capital outlay and tax bills on Thursday.
The capital outlay bill was held up in the House after what the sponsor called an “eleventh-hour” addition from the governor’s office to the list of construction projects. Representatives debated at least two — as of press time — Republican amendments to strike the $10 million for the proposed reproductive clinic for an hour and a half.
House Bill 450 contains $1.2 billion for projects across the state, including 90 projects that have been on the list “year after year after year,” said sponsor Rep. Derrick Lente (D-Sandia Pueblo).
Nearly $600 million in general fund revenue in HB450 is split between local projects prioritized by House and Senate members and the governor, according to the analysis on the bill.
Some projects in HB450 include $50 million for public school buildings, $40 million for state parks, $8.5 million for an acute care hospital in Valencia County, and $8 million for a recycling center in Taos.
The bill was still being debated at press time, but many House Republicans said on the floor they would not vote for the bill, citing their objections to providing abortion care.
On the gov’s desk
The House passed Senate Bill 21 on a party line vote to restore stream protections for most rivers in New Mexico and continue the yearslong process to create a state program for permitting pollution in New Mexico’s rivers and streams.
SB21 co-sponsor Rep. Kristina Ortez (D-Taos) said the bill restores the protections New Mexico waters had for the past 50 years before a 2023 U.S. Supreme Court decision stripped federal water laws applying to 95% of New Mexico’s waters.
“Many of our streams are intermittent and ephemeral, but that doesn’t mean they’re unimportant,” Ortez said on the floor.
The bill would also establish a program at the New Mexico Environment Department to take over pollution-permitting authority from the federal government in surface water. New Mexico remains one of three states that cedes that authority to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
In an interview after the vote, Jonas Armstrong, the director of the Water Protection Division at the New Mexico Environment Department, said he doesn’t anticipate any issues securing the governor’s signature.
The next step for the department will be a rule-making process to establish the state’s surface water permitting program, which will require public input. The draft rule would then need to go before the Water Quality Control Commission for approval. That process of drafting, deliberation and decision will take a while, he said.
“I think a year would be pretty ambitious,” Armstrong said.
Advocates like Tricia Snyder, the rivers and waters program director at the New Mexico Wilderness Alliance, said they will follow the rulemaking closely and celebrated the passage on the house floor.
“Passing SB21 is protecting New Mexico’s waters in a really big way,” Snyder said.
Signed off
Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham signed Senate Bill 163, which ensures Native American students at public and charter schools can wear culturally significant regalia during their graduations.
Last May, Farmington High School officials ordered a Lakota student to remove her graduation cap, which was beaded around the rim and had an eagle plume, as she stood for the national anthem. Eighteen other states have similar prohibitions, according to a news release from the governor’s office.
“Every student deserves to celebrate their academic achievements in a way that honors their identity and traditions,” Lujan Grisham said in the news release.
Cleared the floors
The Senate unanimously passed House Bill 182, which would increase retirement contributions made by judges and courts; House Bill 183, which would increase retirement benefits for magistrate judges; and House Bill 352, which would restructure magistrate courts by closing and relocating some courts.
The Senate also unanimously confirmed Rob Black to be the state’s new Economic Development Secretary.
Black was most recently the president and chief executive officer of the New Mexico Chamber of Commerce, and also served as community relations director for the Pacific Gas and Electric Company, one of the nation’s largest power utilities, according to a news release from the Economic Development Department.
Black’s “broad experience and consensus-building skills will grow our economy and expand opportunity in all corners of the state,” Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham said in a statement.
Bill watch
The Senate Rules Committee passed Senate Bill 2, which would appropriate $140 million from the general fund to multiple state agencies linked to the activities in the Behavioral Health Reform and Investment Act, which Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham signed last month; House Bill 518, which would designate the fourth Tuesday of January of each odd-numbered year “Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer and Expansive Day;” and House Bill 120, which would enact the Accessibility Act to require state agencies’ websites, mobile sites and physical facilities comply with digital and physical accessibility standards.
The House Education Committee passed Senate Bill 13, which would authorize the Public Education Department to enter into compacts with Indian nations, tribes and pueblos in New Mexico to create language- and culture-based STEC schools.
State lawmaker proposes bill to create cultural schools to preserve Native languages
The House Government, Elections and Indian Affairs Committee passed Senate Bill 52, which would amend the Per Diem and Mileage Act for legislators and staff to change reimbursement rates for private auto and air to the ones set by the U.S. General Service Administration; Senate Bill 480, which would require PED to report on directory information for all out-of-cohort students, or school-aged people who have not graduated from high school within four years from entering ninth grade of the immediate preceding year; and House Memorial 60, which would have the Science, Technology and Telecommunications and Revenue Stabilization and Tax Policy Committee interim committees review the Regional Spaceport District Act and the Spaceport Development Act and consider potential reforms and make recommendations for the Regional Spaceport District Act and the Spaceport Development Act for the fifty-seventh Legislature second session.
If you missed this New York Times story examining the disappointment some local residents have when it comes to Spaceport America, it’s worth reading.
Two bills that would funnel hundreds of millions for climate change adaptation into communities and state government advanced Tuesday night through the House Appropriations and Finance Committee along party lines.
The House Taxation and Revenue Committee passed Senate Bill 112, which would amend the Property Tax Code to allow a limited real property tax exemption for student housing built on land owned by an institution of higher education and leased to a non-exempt entity to manage and collect rents; Senate Bill 383, which would expand the use of revenue bonds to include rebuilding, repairing, replacing and hardening of municipal property damaged by a flood; and House Bill 450, the 2025 capital outlay appropriations bill.
The House Health and Human Services Committee passed Senate Bill 78, which would amend state law as it relates to registered nurse anesthetists by changing the standard of care to be in line with national guidelines, among other facets; Senate Bill 120, which would amend the Health Care Purchasing Act and New Mexico Insurance Code to permanently eliminate behavioral health services cost sharing by striking the 2027 sunset date; Senate Bill 122, which would amend the Drugs and Cosmetics Code so that any person can donate prescription drugs to “eligible recipients,” aka licensed individuals or facilities; Senate Bill 443, which would amend the Health Care Purchasing Act and the New Mexico Insurance Code to prohibit cost sharing for medications used for the treatment of cholesterol disorder; Senate Bill 278, which would revise coronary artery calcium screening provisions; and House Memorial 61, which would request the Children, Youth and Families Department collaborate with experts to provide language development training and workshops for families and caseworkers.
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