State lawmakers focus on public safety plan this legislative session
SANTA FE, N.M. – Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham is putting serious pressure on New Mexico’s state lawmakers to fix public safety issues during this legislative session.
Democrats, Republicans, law enforcement officials, and all sorts of other state leaders are on the same page. But wanting to improve public safety and actually doing it are two different things.
Consequences, intervention and prevention are the three big areas the governor and legislative leaders want to tackle at the same time. They know the clock is ticking even during this long 60-day session.
That’s why House lawmakers got to work on two key public safety proposals Tuesday. One would expand New Mexico’s red flag law to make it easier for law enforcement officers to use, and another to rework the state’s criminal competency laws.
That second one is arguably the most complicated proposal in the Roundhouse this year. It would essentially give the courts more options when suspects are deemed incompetent to stand trial.
A lot of those suspects are simply released back on the streets, and this proposal could make it easier to get those suspects into behavioral health treatment programs – something the governor says they just aren’t doing on their own.
“I have yet to see that occur in any community in the state. In fact, the data suggests, pretty unequivocally, rarely, if ever, do they get the help or stay in a treatment program so that they can be fairly supported and get out of this revolving door crisis,” said Lujan Grisham.
The goal is to close the so-called revolving door, and the Democratic state lawmakers behind the bill say they spent extra time making sure their proposal doesn’t violate New Mexican’s civil liberties.
But the governor and law enforcement leaders know that’s only part of the public safety problem in New Mexico.
The governor is also backing efforts to increase the punishments for fentanyl trafficking, human trafficking, shooting from a motor vehicle, possessing a stolen gun and for convicted felons caught with guns.
There’s also a bi-partisan push to rewrite New Mexico’s juvenile justice laws to make sure violent teen suspects are held accountable.
“Juveniles without consequences who later commit murder or violent crimes happens every single week in Bernalillo County,” said Bernalillo County District Attorney Sam Bregman. “We have to do some things so they learn when they first enter the criminal justice system that their conduct of violating certain laws and norms cannot continue without a consequence. Therefore, they learn it, because we’re not at the end of the day.”
KOB 4 asked the governor’s office for a full list of the public safety bills she’s backing this year, and we’re still waiting on that.
While it is promising to see a few key bills take big steps forward so early, there’s still a long way to go and a lot of hurdles left to clear.
The governor has faced pushback from lawmakers in her own party for her public safety ideas before. Could that be a factor this year?
It absolutely could. All of these bills will have to survive the Senate Judiciary Committee, where we’ve seen Democrats shoot down several public safety bills over constitutional concerns before. But the governor suggested lawmakers should consider lumping a lot of these proposals into one massive public safety bill.
“Maybe the benefit of those debates for those years, allows New Mexico not to nibble again at the edges and do one or another, but an omnibus package, which we haven’t done, I don’t think in decades. You know what? I’ll take that 1,000% of the time, because that will erode this crisis and do something about it faster than one or two pieces of legislation at a time,” said Lujan Grisham.
Legislative leaders have confirmed they plan to get through the major public safety proposals in the first 30 days of this session. So far, it seems they are hitting the ground running, but they have not hinted at an omnibus package.