SANTA FE, N.M. – Legislative leaders promised to power through some big public safety and behavioral health bills in the first 30 days of this session. 

House lawmakers pushed a new public safety package to the House floor earlier this week. Now, there’s a complimentary behavioral health package that officially crossed the halfway point.

The state Senate approved a trio of bills designed to expand the state’s behavioral health resources while also implementing new guardrails and accountability measures.

Those three bills would first establish new regional behavioral health districts throughout the state. The courts would oversee those districts and how state funding is distributed to providers.

The second bill would invest another $140 million towards immediate infrastructure needs, and the third would create a new behavioral health trust fund to make sure this new system is resilient.

“Unlike what we’re doing now as a rudderless ship, putting a billion dollars into this, and we don’t know where we’re going, and certainly we’re not getting there. This puts the rudder on the ship. This doesn’t yet fix all of the problems. It gives us the framework to fix the problems which we have never had before,” said state Sen. William Sharer. 

The Senate approved the regional districts bill with strong bipartisan support, and we’re expecting a similar vote on the other two bills. 

Legislative leaders wanted to get this done in the first 30 days, and we’re only about 20 days in. So there is plenty of time for this behavioral health package to fly through the House.

That wasn’t the only special thing that happened in the Roundhouse. A lot of lawmakers wore pink and red Friday. While it is Valentine’s Day, this was a celebration of the first female-majority Legislature in New Mexico history.

Women hold 60 out of the 112 seats in the Roundhouse, giving New Mexico’s Legislature the largest female majority in the country.

“When I came in, and until, I believe 2016 we didn’t have a ladies room in the House lounge So, and it when, when I came in with a group of there were six of us that came in as freshmen women and we kind of shook the place up because they didn’t know what to think of us,” said state Rep. Liz Thomson. “But this year we have the largest female majority ever in a Legislature in the United States. So we are celebrating women. I’m also a breast cancer survivor, so that doesn’t hurt, but we’re celebrating our majority women and how much good work we’re getting done.” 

While the Legislature is celebrating this milestone, lawmakers say this is a real victory for New Mexico voters.