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Freshman Republican state Sen. Crystal Diamond praised her colleagues on both sides of the aisle and in both chambers for their work during the past session, even though she felt that far-left progressives capitalized on limited public input because of the pandemic.
At times, Diamond said, legislators were “passing laws behind locked doors in the dead of night” because state public health orders restricted public access to the State Capitol in Santa Fe and caused some legislators to attend hearings and sessions entirely by Zoom.
The Capitol lockdown made it impossible for legislators to properly consider all the bills that came before them, Diamond said, and was a disservice to New Mexico and to the people she represents in Sierra, Luna, Hidalgo and Doña Ana counties.
“The people’s home should be open,” Diamond said about the State Capitol.
She is, however, hopeful the Legislature will continue to make live committee hearings accessible on Zoom, which “allows my rural constituents to participate,” Diamond said.
The 2021 session was the first for Diamond, an Elephant Butte rancher and New Mexico State University graduate who defeated Neomi O. Martinez-Parra of Lordsburg in the November 2020 general election to win the District 35 state Senate seat that had been held for 32 years by John Arthur Smith of Deming.
Diamond said she spent the entire session at the State Capitol.
“Locked in the building for 60 days straight,” Diamond said she developed good relationships with other legislators. “We were breaking bread and working,” she said.
In particular, Diamond said she has “very high regard for Joseph Cervantes,” a Las Cruces Democrat who serves with her in the state Senate. Cervantes, she said, “conducts himself very well in the chamber, and embodies what Senate decorum should be.”
Diamond said she has also enjoyed getting to know fellow freshman state Sen. Carrie Hamblen, another Las Cruces Democrat, whom Diamond sat next to in the Senate chamber during floor sessions.
Diamond said she also worked closely with House members Nathan Small of Las Cruces, Micaela Lara Cadena of Mesilla, Rebecca Dow of Truth or Consequences, Candie Sweetser of Deming and Luis Terrazas of Santa Clara. Small, Cadena and Sweetser are Democrats; Dow and Terrazas are Republicans.
Diamond, a member of the powerful Senate Finance Committee, praised committee Chair George Muñoz, a Gallup Democrat, as “reasonable” and “a good chair,” and said House Appropriations and Finance Committee Chair Patty Lundstrom, also a Gallup Democrat, is “a very balanced chair.”
Diamond said she meets regularly at La Fonda Restaurant in Deming with Smith, the former Senate Finance Committee chair who lost in the 2020 Democratic primary.
During the session, Diamond said she often found that she had more in common with “Democrats who represent areas like mine than urban Republicans.”
Diamond said she also found “bipartisan support of good policies” during the session.
“I’ve tried to be very reasonable with the other side, and that’s all I would ask for,” she said.
Diamond partnered with state Sen. Siah Correa Hemphill, D-Grant, Catron and Socorro, in sponsoring a bill that creates a “rural equity ombudsman” in the New Mexico Department of Finance and Administration to “work on issues of concern to rural and frontier communities” with state and federal agencies, counties and municipalities and nonprofits.
The bill, which Diamond said will provide a stronger voice for rural New Mexico and ensure that rural areas get an equitable share of state and federal funds, was signed into law by Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, a Democrat, in April.
“I appreciate her support for us,” Diamond said.
At the same time, Diamond said the public health orders Lujan Grisham signed in response to Covid-19 represent an abuse of power, as do decisions she has made without legislative input on how to spend federal Covid relief funds coming to the state.
“That makes the legislative branch completely irrelevant,” Diamond said. “That’s not fair to New Mexico.”
Redistricting
Diamond said the Legislature is expected to meet in special session after Thanksgiving to consider redistricting of local, state and congressional district boundaries based on results of the 2020 Census. She credited both chambers of the state Legislature for their “good-faith effort” to create a nonpartisan commission to draft redistricting proposals to be considered by the Legislature and governor.
“We have to forget where the lines are,” she said, and redraw districts that “put the interests of New Mexico … before politics.” Adequate representation for small, rural communities should be a strong consideration in redrawing legislative district lines, she said.
2022 legislative session
Diamond said the Legislature will have a lot of money to spend during the 2022 legislative session.
It will be important for legislators “to be good stewards,” she said, and put the money “to good use” during the 30-day session, which is restricted to budget matters and the governor’s call.
Diamond said public schools are well funded, but, with a sharp rise in child-abuse cases, the state Children, Youth and Families Department “clearly needs our help.”
“We haven’t stopped the bleeding,” she said about fraud allegations and overspending in the New Mexico Workforce Solutions Department.
Capital outlay
Diamond said she allocated a portion of the capital outlay funding she received during the session to protective equipment for law enforcement in her district. She noted that New Mexico State Police officer Darian Jarrott was killed in her district in February, and she is part of an effort erect a memorial in his honor.
The governor
Diamond said she is concerned that Lujan Grisham has replaced so many cabinet secretaries during her first two years in office because their work is “so micro-managed by the governor’s office.”
Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham allocated $5 million earlier this month to create a wage supplement program for the state chile industry “amid concerns about a labor shortage that could impact the 2021 production” of chile in New Mexico, a news release from the governor’s office said.
About 10 days before the announcement, Lujan-Grisham received a letter from state Sen. Crystal Diamond R-Sierra, Luna, Hidalgo and Doña Ana, and Republican state Reps. Rebecca Dow, R-Grant, Hidalgo and Sierra, and Luis Terrazas, R-Grant, Sierra and Doña Ana, asking her to address the labor shortage.
With funds from New Mexico’s share of the federal American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), the pilot Chile Labor Incentive Program “will provide funding to chile growers, labor contractors and processors … to supplement the wages of existing and prospective workers as well as incentivize hiring and retention,” the news release said. Money can be used to raise wages for laborers to a maximum of $19.50 an hour.
“The New Mexico Chile Association reports the average wage paid to laborers currently is approximately $15 an hour,” the news release said.
The program will be administered by the New Mexico Department of Agriculture in Las Cruces.
