NEW MEXICO (KRQE) – We’re just past the halfway mark of the 60-day legislative session, with a record number of proposed bills. Lawmakers are now fighting to get their bills heard and across the finish line. Legislative leaders discussed the current state of the session and what’s ahead in the coming weeks.
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“We got so much done in the first 30 days. It feels like a complete legislative session already ended,” said Senate Majority Whip Michael Padilla (D-Albuquerque).
Lawmakers introduced a record number of bills, more than 1,000, this legislative session. They said the first half of the session was highly productive. “We’ve had some real serious battles and fights over issues that normally it takes us two weeks or three weeks to get wound up and get into these,” said Senate Minority Floor Leader William Sharer (R-Farmington).
An early win for both sides of the aisle was on behavioral health, “a bipartisan behavioral health package that included funding and a permanent fund to continue to fund it in the future and guardrails to guide us because we’ve been wandering aimlessly in the behavioral health field for a decade,” said Sen. Sharer.
Lawmakers also passed a major crime package focusing on criminal competency. “We simply can’t, you know, jail ourselves or put so many people in jail, this and that. We need to treat them as well, especially where addiction is concerned or behavioral health issues,” said Sen. Padilla.
While bipartisan in nature, Republicans still think it didn’t go far enough. “I voted for it, and it has some good things in it, but it didn’t get where we needed to go,” said Sen. Sharer.
Another hotly debated issue? How legislation would address oil and gas production. “So, oil and gas is paying 50% of the bills right now,” said Sen. Sharer.
But Democrats say the industry has hit a plateau, “We’re not going to be as reliant on oil and gas anymore. We’ve taken that one-time money invested it so New Mexico will have investment returns that will now exceed oil and gas by 2030,” said Sen. George Muñoz (D) Gallup.
The state’s $10.8 billion budget has already crossed over to the Senate which lawmakers said is earlier than usual. And while the record-high bills may seem daunting, lawmakers say the pieces will start to fall into place, “You’re going to see some consolidation of bills,” said Sen. Padilla.
And while items will be debated and challenged, “The vast majority, I’d say over 90% of most of the issues that we deal with, we actually agree on things on both sides of the aisle. It’s simply a matter of how do we get that done,” said Sen. Padilla.
Senate Republicans claimed a victory this session by winning over some Democrats to kill the Clear Horizons Act in committee which in part aimed to eliminate greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. But Democrats said the fight is not over and are including similar proposals in other bills.