SANTA FE, N.M. — The 2025 legislative session came to an end Saturday afternoon.

New Mexico’s state lawmakers brought more than a thousand bills to the Roundhouse this year and roughly 200 made it up to the governor’s desk. While there are certainly big initiatives to celebrate, including CYFD Oversight, Universal Free Child Care and Behavioral Health Reform, there was a dark shadow looming over state lawmakers.

“They promised a lot more in this session on public safety, and that includes, or certainly should the crisis of juvenile crime,” Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham said. “They did not.”

The Governor is not holding back her frustrations with state lawmakers over the lack of juvenile justice reform during the 60-day session.

“There was not a single productive debate on reducing juvenile crime, not one,” Lujan Grisham said.

Republican leaders share her frustrations, blaming Democratic lawmakers for not doing more after getting a bipartisan public safety package across the finish line.

“They merely wanted to deceive New Mexicans that they took action to address public safety without actually holding repeat criminals and violent juveniles accountable,” Sen. Bill Sharer said.

But Democratic lawmakers are firing back at Republicans for killing a juvenile crime-focused bill at the last minute.

“And quite frankly, I was surprised that the minority party messaged the need to do juvenile crime and then all voted against the bill that was there as a first step,” said Senate Floor Majority Leader Peter Wirth.

Democratic leaders argued their CYFD reform bills are one way of addressing juvenile crime.

“You cannot talk about juvenile crime without ensuring that this state steps up and shows up for those children who are in situations where they are struggling,” said Speaker of the House Javier Martinez.

But it seems that won’t cut it.

The Governor told lawmakers in a statement to expect a special legislative session to address juvenile crime, and Republican Lawmakers sent her a letter demanding one.

“The longer we wait the more victims we have,” she said. “How is anyone putting up with that? I don’t know how you don’t expect it.”

Republican lawmakers believe a special session is also needed to address the lack of medical malpractice reform this year, something experts said is still driving doctors away from New Mexico.

“That’s the ultimate problem,” said House Minority Floor Leader Gail Armstrong. “We can address bringing more doctors here. They’re not going to come as long as we don’t address medical malpractice.”

Democratic leaders, who call a lot of the shots in the Roundhouse, said the work on juvenile crime and medical malpractice will continue in the interim session, and suggested calls for a special session are premature.

“Special sessions don’t work if there’s not a whole lot of pre-work done, and the special session last summer showed that,” Martinez said.

“I would hope that once we all have a little time to decompress and take a deep breath, we can figure out how to move forward collaboratively,” Wirth said.