Serving the High Plains
Serving the High Plains
This year’s legislative session in Santa Fe, which began Tuesday, has the potential of being a highly productive session, owed to a record-setting surplus of funds and a still-ambitious two-term governor whose time is running out.
This will be the last 60-day session for Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham. It’s boom times for state coffers and she and the state’s lawmakers now get to divvy up nearly $892 million in “new money” while a spending bill that tops $10 billion is being advanced by the Legislative Finance Committee.
The money is there, but whether the willpower exists to make systemic changes remains to be seen.
Public safety is certainly atop the legislative agenda, for Democrats and Republicans alike, and there’s already been plenty of debate over how best to address a rise in violent crime, especially in Albuquerque.
Of course, there will be plenty of action elsewhere, with 120 bills already filed in advance of opening day, and much more to come.
Here’s what a couple of good-government advocacy groups are planning to work on this session:
n Think New Mexico is taking on healthcare — no surprise since this nonpartisan think tank’s latest report is centered on the state’s shortage of healthcare workers.
Executive Director Fred Nathan and his team will be lobbying lawmakers to join a major interstate healthcare workers compact, to allow for out-of-state providers and practitioners to work with patients in New Mexico. That’s something Think New Mexico says would “immediately help alleviate the healthcare shortage in our state” — and they have ample evidence to back up such a contention.
Think NM will also be pushing for a permanent fund exclusively for healthcare, to support Medicaid, behavioral health and workforce reforms in the healthcare industry. And, as financial incentives, they want to repeal the state’s gross-receipts tax on medical services and expand the state’s Rural Health Care Practitioner Tax credit to include more healthcare professionals.
Plus, they seek to reform the state’s medical malpractice laws, something that a lot of physicians say is killing healthcare practices in New Mexico.
n Meanwhile, Common Cause will be seeking to allow voters who “decline to state” a party affiliation to vote in either the Republican or the Democratic primary without having to update their voter registration. Such an open-primary process would likely increase voter turnout as well as nudge candidates toward a more moderate, and less partisan, stance on the issues.
This good-government advocacy group also wants to strengthen the state’s campaign finance laws and provide a pathway for previously incarcerated people — those who were convicted of felonies and served their time — to earn back their right to vote.
Plus, Common Cause is again pushing to get the state’s lawmakers on a salary rather than a stipend, thereby allowing more New Mexicans the financial ability to serve in the Legislature — part of Common Cause’s longstanding efforts to reduce the power of money in our democratic processes.
Expect a lot more as the 57th Legislature settles in for 60 days of lawmaking. Let’s hope what they pass is worth the future of our state.
Tom McDonald is editor of the New Mexico Community News Exchange. Contact him at: