Commentary: The 60-day, 2021 legislative session closed at 12 p.m. as we speak, marking the tip of a singular session by which legislators and the general public participated just about and a few of the most transformative laws in New Mexico’s historical past handed by means of the legislature.
Home Democrats succeeded in passing long-held priorities and created a finances that units an lively position for the state in financial restoration and makes sustained investments in training, well being care, infrastructure, workforce growth, job creation, and extra. Though well being issues prevented the general public from gathering within the Roundhouse, public participation reached report ranges with greater than 19,000 members of the general public testifying throughout committee hearings over the previous 60 days.
“Dealing with the worst pandemic our nation has seen in over a century, Home Democrats confirmed up for the individuals of New Mexico this session. Our devoted and resilient caucus members by no means missed a beat, preventing laborious day-after-day to advance very important laws that helps New Mexicans by means of this troublesome time and strikes our state ahead,” stated Speaker of the Home Brian Egolf (D-Santa Fe). “Regardless of all odds, this session noticed quite a few long-fought battles to advance our state lastly obtain victory. From transformative investments in our youngest youngsters, to turning into the primary state within the nation to carry all authorities our bodies accountable for civil rights violations, to repealing an antiquated state statute and defending the precise to high quality reproductive well being care.”
“New Mexico has emerged from the 2021 session a greater, stronger, fairer state. I couldn’t be extra happy with the work we’ve achieved this yr, and sit up for persevering with to construct on the vital progress we’ve made for New Mexico and the hardworking individuals of our state.”
KEY LEGISLATION PASSED
COVID-19 Reduction
HB 11: GRT and Everlasting Fund for LEDA Initiatives
Sponsored by Rep. Christine Chandler (D-Los Alamos) and Speaker of the Home Brian Egolf (D-Sante Fe)
- Offers $200 million in direct monetary assist to small and mid-sized companies. It makes grants obtainable to cowl issues like hire and gear that preserve a enterprise working. These grants can whole as much as $100,000 for every enterprise and don’t have to be paid again. It additionally supplies extra funding for Native Financial Improvement Act tasks.
SB 1: Restaurant GRT Deduction
Led by sponsors Senate Majority Chief Peter Wirth (D-Santa Fe), Senators Jacob Candelaria (D-Albuquerque) and Siah Correa Hemphill (D-Silver Metropolis), and Rep. Javier Martínez (D-Albuquerque)
- Offers a four-month tax vacation for eating places and meals service companies who’ve been so laborious hit by the pandemic. It additionally creates a $600 tax credit score for New Mexicans who earn $31,200 or much less, placing extra money into native economies.
SB 3: Small Enterprise Stimulus Act
Led by sponsors Rep. Marian Matthews (D-Albuquerque) and Sen. Jacob Candelaria (D-Albuquerque)
- Expands the Small Enterprise Restoration Act, making very low-interest loans obtainable to a wider vary of companies.
Financial system Alternative & Supporting Working Households
HB 255: Alcohol Supply
Led by sponsors Rep. Antonio “Moe” Maestas (D-Albuquerque), Sen. Daniel Ivey-Soto (D-Albuquerque), Rep. Rod Montoya (R-Farmington), Rep. Joshua Hernandez (R-Rio Rancho), Rep. Dayan Hochman-Vigil (D-Albuquerque) and Rep. Javier Martínez (D-Albuquerque)
- Helps our struggling eating places and hospitality companies by opening up new income streams, together with the supply of alcohol and extra tastings. This invoice additionally creates a brand new license for eating places that enables them to serve spirits along with wine and beer, and supplies tax reduction to guard the investments of present liquor license holders.
HB 291: Tax Adjustments
Sponsored by Reps. Javier Martínez (D-Albuquerque), Christine Chandler (D-Los Alamos), and Matthew McQueen (D-Galisteo)
- Expands two confirmed poverty-reduction applications within the state: the Working Households Tax Credit score (WFTC) and the Low Revenue Complete Tax Rebate (LICTR), offering reduction to low-income households and serving to them preserve extra of their hard-earned {dollars}.
HB 20: Wholesome Workplaces Act: Earned Sick Depart
Led by sponsors Rep. Christine Chandler (D-Los Alamos), Rep. Angelica Rubio (D-Las Cruces), Senate President Professional Tempore Mimi Stewart (D-Albuquerque), Rep. Daymon Ely (D-Corrales), Rep. Patricia Roybal Caballero (D-Albuquerque), and Rep. Linda Serrato (D-Santa Fe)
- Ensures the precise for all New Mexico’s employees to earn sick go away for that can be utilized once they or a liked one falls unwell. Nobody ought to have to decide on between their well being and never with the ability to pay their payments as a result of they’ll’t afford to lose a day’s pay. Permitting employees to remain residence when they’re sick additionally protects public well being.
HB 270: Autonomous Autos
Led by sponsors Harry Garcia (D-Grants), Rep. Patty Lundstrom (D-Gallup), Rep. Dayan Hochman-Vigil (D-Albuquerque), Rep. Pleasure Garratt (D-Albuquerque), Rep. Randal Crowder (R-Cloves), and Rep. Randall Pettigrew (R-Lovington)
- Authorizes testing of self-driving autos in New Mexico, placing our state on the forefront of this rising new business and creating a brand new financial driver for our state.
HB 68: House Flight Knowledgeable Consent Act Adjustments
Sponsored by Rep. Day Hochman-Vigil (D-Albuquerque)
- Positioning New Mexico on the cutting-edge of area tourism by facilitating the uninterrupted operation and progress of the industrial area flight business in our state.
Infrastructure
HB 10: Broadband Improvement Division, “The Join NM Act”
Led by sponsors Reps. Natalie Figueroa (D-Albuquerque), Pleasure Garratt (D-Albuquerque), Susan Herrera (D-Embudo), Candie Sweetser (D-Deming) and Christine Chandler (D-Los Alamos)
- Offers a centralized, complete plan to ship broadband web to each residence and enterprise in our state. This laws would set up a director of broadband for New Mexico and leverage federal and state sources to construct this vital infrastructure.
SB 93: Broadband Entry & Growth Act
Led by sponsors Senators Michael Padilla (D-Albuquerque) and Elizabeth “Liz” Stefanics (D-Cerrillos)
- Works in tandem with HB 10, establishing an workplace of broadband, leading to a complete broadband program in New Mexico.
HM 33: Rural Alternative Interim Committee
Sponsored by Reps. Roger E. Montoya (D-Española) and Gail Armstrong (R-Magdalena)
- Establishes the interim Rural Alternative Committee, composed of legislators from every home and different related interim committees, to handle points affecting rural areas of New Mexico, together with obstacles to financial and academic alternatives, venture funding, tax insurance policies, and entry to primary infrastructure.
Well being Care
SB 317: No Behavioral Well being Value Sharing
Sponsored by Senators Martin Hickey (D-Albuquerque) and Jeff Steinborn (D-Las Cruces), and Rep. Deborah Armstrong (D – Albuquerque)
- Lowers well being care premiums and deductibles, and broaden protection to an estimated
23,000 uninsured New Mexicans, by establishing a Well being Care Affordability Fund and bringing in over $115 million in income by changing the federal medical health insurance premium surtax that was just lately repealed with a state surtax on the identical insurance coverage firms who obtained the tax break. The invoice additionally prohibits the imposition of cost-sharing by well being insurers on behavioral well being providers coated by a person or group medical health insurance coverage, well being care plan, or certificates of medical health insurance.
SB 10: Repeal Abortion Ban
Led by sponsors Senate Majority Whip Linda Lopez (D-Albuquerque) and Senate Majority Chief Peter Wirth (D-Santa Fe), and Rep. Micaela Lara Cadena (D-Mesilla), Rep. Joanne Ferrary (D-Las Cruces), Speaker of the Home Brian Egolf (D-Santa Fe), Rep. Deborah Armstrong (D-Albuquerque) and Rep. Georgene Louis (D-Albuquerque)
- Repeals the antiquated ban on abortions that was in state regulation and unenforceable because of Roe v. Wade, preserving reproductive well being care protected and authorized in our state it doesn’t matter what occurs in Washington. These private and sophisticated selections ought to stay between a girl, her household, and her physician.
HB 47: Finish-of-Life Choices
Sponsored by Rep. Debbie Armstrong (D-Albuquerque), Senator Elizabeth “Liz” Stefanics (D-Cerrillos), Senator Invoice O’Neill (D-Albuquerque), Rep. Dayan Hochman-Vigil (D-Albuquerque), and Rep. Patricia Roybal Caballero (D-Albuquerque)
- Offers terminally unwell, mentally competent adults in New Mexico, who’re given six or fewer months to dwell, with the choice to acquire medicine permitting them to go away peacefully. The invoice incorporates strict eligibility necessities and intensive safeguards to guard sufferers and regulate the observe.
HB 112: Well being Advantages for Sure Non-Residents
Sponsored by Javier Martínez (D-Albuquerque)
- Requires hospitals offering indigent care to deal with all non-citizens equally no matter immigration standing, prohibiting discrimination based mostly on immigration standing to make sure everybody can obtain entry to very important well being care.
HB 23: Med College Licensure Necessities
Sponsored by Home Democratic Majority Whip Rep. Doreen Gallegos (D-Las Cruces)
- Implements wanted reforms to the state’s medical faculty licensure system, constructing high quality residency applications inside the state, in order that homegrown docs can full their coaching and start their careers serving our communities in New Mexico.
Training
HJR 1: Early Childhood Everlasting Fund
Led by sponsors Reps. Antonio “Moe” Maestas (D-Albuquerque), Javier Martínez (D-Albuquerque), Elizabeth “Liz” Thomson (D-Albuquerque), and Georgene Louis (D-Albuquerque), and Senator Pete Campos (D-Las Vegas)
- HJR 1 is a transformative funding within the training and assist of New Mexico’s youngest. It supplies thousands and thousands in sustained funding for early childhood training and care applications, in addition to Ok-12 training, by tapping 1.25% of the state’s Land Grant Everlasting Fund, presently valued at roughly $22 million. Bettering applications for youth throughout their most adolescence is an funding in the way forward for our state. The measure now goes to voters for approval.
HB 6: State Equalization Assure Distributions, Correcting Influence Help Distributions
Sponsored by Rep. Patty Lundstrom (D-Gallup), Speaker of the Home Brian Egolf (D-Santa Fe), Rep. Harry Garcia (D-Grants), and Rep. D. Wonda Johnson (D-Church Rock)
- HB 6 corrects a long time of improper training funding distribution that has disadvantaged Native faculties and different traditionally underserved communities. Tens of millions of {dollars} in Federal Influence Help funding is meant to succeed in these faculties, however is presently diverted to the State Equalization Assure, which distributes the funding to all faculties within the state. This invoice would right that discrepancy, lastly distributing this training funding to its meant recipients. It is a key step to addressing the deficiencies highlighted within the Yazzie/Martinez lawsuit.
HB 128: College Personnel Background & Coaching
Sponsored by Reps. Debra M. Sariñana (D-Albuquerque), Christine Trujillo (D-Albuquerque), Susan Herrera (D-Embudo), Pleasure Garratt (D-Albuquerque), and Rep. Marian Matthews (D-Albuquerque)
- Protects college students in New Mexico from sexual and moral misconduct by academics and college workers by enacting an intensive set of each preventative and responsive measures to handle moral and sexual misconduct. At the moment, public faculty workers who commit these heinous acts are capable of transfer from faculty to highschool with out disclosing their background. HB 128 closes this loophole, and implements different coaching and reporting insurance policies to guard our kids.
HB 43: Black Training Act
Sponsored by Home Majority Flooring Chief Rep. Sheryl Williams Stapleton (D-Albuquerque) and Senator Harold Pope, Jr. (D-Albuquerque)
- Addresses instructional gaps and seeks to enhance instructional outcomes and experiences for Black college students in New Mexico by establishing a Black Training Advisory Council and Black Training Liaison, tasked with implementing applications associated to the training of Black college students and incorporating Black tradition and anti-racism into curricula. The invoice additionally requires anti-racism, racial consciousness, and sensitivity coaching by all faculty personnel, and creation of a hotline for reporting racially-charged incidents.
HB 22: Develop Your Personal Lecturers Act Growth
Sponsored by Rep. Pleasure Garratt (D-Albuquerque), Sen. Michael Padilla (D-Albuquerque), Rep. Raymundo “Ray” Lara (D-Chamberino), and Rep. Natalie Figueroa (D-Albuquerque)
- Addresses the state’s trainer scarcity by increasing the Develop Your Personal Lecturers Act, which presently awards scholarships for instructional assistants to pursue instructing levels. This invoice’s growth would make these scholarships obtainable to any faculty worker who has labored with college students for at the very least two years.
Civil Rights
HB 4: Civil Rights Act
Sponsored by Rep. Georgene Louis (D-Albuquerque), Speaker of the Home Brian Egolf (D-Santa Fe), and Senator Joseph Cervantes (D-Las Cruces)
- Makes the New Mexico Invoice of Rights a dwelling doc. Proper now, if a New Mexican has their civil rights violated by a authorities actor, they’re unable to hunt justice in our state courts. And in Federal court docket, there are such a lot of obstacles to bringing a profitable case, victims virtually by no means obtain justice. This invoice permits New Mexicans to convey a authorities physique to court docket and pursue justice. If we’re going to rebuild belief between authorities companies and the communities they serve, we’d like accountability.
HB 29: The CROWN Act
Sponsored by Home Majority Flooring Chief Rep. Sheryl Williams Stapleton (D-Albuquerque) and Rep. Patricia Roybal Caballero (D-Albuquerque)
- Prevents faculties from punishing or in any other case discriminating in opposition to college students for his or her coiffure or headdress. New Mexico ought to at all times have fun the variety of cultures and religions in our state.
HB 234: Strengthen Guardianship Supplier Oversight
Sponsored by Rep. Marian Matthews (D-Albuquerque)
- Creates new oversight over skilled guardians and conservators. Skilled guardians are trusted with unbelievable energy over the one that they change into answerable for, but proper now there is no such thing as a strategy to monitor their exercise outdoors of court docket. With out correct oversight, severe monetary and elder abuse can happen. This laws requires guardians to get a license from the state and it creates an oversight board the place complaints in opposition to guardians might be heard and investigated.
HB 231: Native Polling Place Protections
Sponsored by Reps. Georgene Louis (D-Albuquerque), D. Wonda Johnson (D-Church Rock), Derrick Lente (D-Sandia Pueblo), and Anthony Allison (D-Fruitland), and Sen. Benny Shendo (D-Jemez Pueblo)
- Enacts new rules defending the voting rights of Native Individuals in New Mexico, following current points surrounding poll entry through the pandemic and recognizing the historic suppression of Native voters. The invoice specifies {that a} polling place positioned on an Indian nation, tribal land, or pueblo land can’t be eradicated or consolidated with different polling places with out the written settlement of the tribal authorities, requires at the very least one polling location inside every Indian nation, tribe, or pueblo, and permits tribes and pueblos to request further polling places as much as 100 days earlier than an election.
Vitality and Setting
HB 51: The Environmental Database Act
Sponsored by Rep. Joanne J. Ferrary (D-Las Cruces), Rep. Georgene Louis (D-Albuquerque), Rep. Debbie Armstrong (D-Albuquerque), Rep. Eliseo Alcon (D-Milan) and Sen. Linda Lopez (D-Albuquerque)
- Creates a strong environmental useful resource map that may enable the general public, authorities companies, and business to make good and knowledgeable selections relating to water and land utilization. As we work to higher handle and defend our state’s surroundings and pure magnificence, having this information simply accessible in a single consolidated location shall be key. The database will embody places and information on parks, pure sources, waterways, plant and wildlife, vitality tasks, and public well being information.
HB 15: Sustainable Constructing Tax Credit score
Sponsored by Reps. Kristina Ortez (D-Taos), Tara Lujan (D-Santa Fe), Javier Martínez (D-Albuquerque), and Linda Serrato (D-Santa Fe), and Senator Martin Hickey (D-Albuquerque)
- Expands the tax credit score obtainable for sustainable constructing and retrofitting to encourage the usage of vitality environment friendly practices and merchandise, and make these adjustments extra reasonably priced for on a regular basis households and owners, in addition to landlords and builders. This can handle the constructing inefficiencies that closely contribute to vitality utilization and carbon air pollution and assist New Mexico hit our carbon discount targets,
HB 57: Prescribed Burning
Rep. Matthew McQueen (D-Galisteo), Rep. Gail Armstrong (R-Magdalena), Sen. Peter Wirth (D-Santa Fe) and Sen. Pat Woods (R-Broadview)
- Deal with the excessive danger of wildfire by permitting non-public landowners to conduct prescribed forest burns. Managed burns have traditionally been a key a part of forest administration, however present regulation has discouraged landowners from pursuing this method. HB 57 reinstates these burns as a software to maintain our forests and rangelands wholesome and defend the hundreds of acres of forest presently prone to extreme wildfires.
SB 8: Native Authorities Air High quality Laws
Sponsored by Senate Majority Chief Peter Wirth (D-Santa Fe) and Linda Lopez (D-Albuquerque), and Reps. Nathan Small (D-Las Cruces) and Christine Chandler (D-Los Alamos)
- Offers the state and native governments the liberty to undertake extra bold environmental requirements extra stringent than federal rules, in the event that they so select, to chop down on dangerous pollution and greenhouse gasses. These adjustments are vital to mitigating regional and statewide air air pollution, engaging in the emission reductions required by the governor’s Govt Order, implementing rules in a well timed method as wants come up.
SB 32: Wildlife Conservation & Public Security Act, often known as “Roxy’s Regulation”
Sponsored by Senators Bobby Gonzales, (D-Ranchos de Taos) and Brenda McKenna (D-Corrales), and Reps. Matthew McQueen (D-Galisteo) and Christine Chandler (D-Los Alamos)
- Prohibits the usage of traps, snares, or wildlife poison on public land, defending endangered species, home animals, public security, and out of doors tourism, whereas guaranteeing wild animals aren’t subjected to pointless cruelty.
SB 84: Group Photo voltaic Act
Led by sponsors Senators Elizabeth “Liz” Stefanics (D-Cerrillos) and Linda Lopez (D-Albuquerque), and Rep. Patricia Roybal Caballero (D-Albuquerque)
- Offers for the event and operation of group photo voltaic amenities. This can broaden entry to this renewable vitality supply for companies and people who can’t set up their very own photo voltaic panels, and work towards New Mexico’s clear vitality targets.
