Governor calls Legislature into special session

It’s on. 

Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham called New Mexico legislative leaders’ bluff, signing a proclamation Wednesday afternoon to demand state lawmakers return to Santa Fe for a mid-year special legislative session scheduled to begin noon Thursday.

Lujan Grisham signed the proclamation during a state capitol press conference in Santa Fe surrounded by a phalanx of public officials that included Albuquerque Mayor Tim Keller, leaders from Farmington, Las Cruces and other communities, and three Pueblo governors. 

The officials showed up en masse to support the governor in her call for state lawmakers to tackle several public safety measures she says cannot wait until January, when lawmakers are scheduled to regularly return to Santa Fe. 

Her chances of success are anybody’s guess, especially during an election year when lawmakers would prefer to be home, particularly those running for re-election. When they’re in session, lawmakers cannot solicit campaign contributions, although they can accept them. 

State House and Senate leaders have told Lujan Grisham that their fellow lawmakers haven’t reached a consensus on her legislative priorities. Governors have the power to call special sessions, but doing so without an agreement forged with leaders during negotiations prior to the session is risky — and rare.

Reaction was swift Wednesday afternoon from progressive organizations who have publicly expressed their concern about the governor’s agenda. In an email, Bold Futures, Equality New Mexico, the ACLU of New Mexico, and the New Mexico Coalition to End Homelessness denounced her decision to move ahead while ignoring community members and experts who said the governor’s measures will harm vulnerable populations. 

Special sessions are usually short and narrow in scope. Fourteen of the 25 special legislative sessions held since 1990 have lasted six days or fewer. And of the seven that lasted 10 days or more, four of them involved lawmakers’ once-a-decade responsibility of redrawing lines for legislative and congressional districts, which generally take much longer than other special sessions.

Without an agreement in place, this week’s special session could drag on for days. Or state lawmakers could gavel themselves out of session.

A simple majority of lawmakers in each chamber could vote to do that. 

Or one chamber could work while the other is adjourned, which happened when Gov. Bill Richardson was in office and the Senate adjourned while the House stayed in special session. As was the case with the state Senate that year, the adjourned chamber must come back every three days to gavel itself back into session and then adjourn — unless the other chamber says it is OK to be out for longer than three days.

Sundays do not count toward the three days.

Here is the governor’s agenda according to the proclamation sent out by her office Wednesday afternoon:

(1) amending certain procedures and requirements relating to criminal competency laws;

(2) amending the definitions of “harm to self” and “harm to others” in the Mental Health and Developmental Disabilities Code and the Assisted Outpatient Treatment Act;

(3) requiring local law enforcement agencies to submit reports on crime incidents, ballistics information, and other relevant information to the Department of Public Safety on a monthly basis;

(4) enacting the Unsafe Use of Public Highways and Medians Act to ensure safe use of medians and roadways by pedestrians; 

(5) increasing the penalties for felons and serious violent felons found in possession of a firearm;

(6) amending the Racketeering Act to add various predicate offenses, expand the definition of “enterprise,” and add various crimes relating to racketeering activity;

(7) increasing the basic sentence for crimes involving the possession or trafficking of fentanyl;

(8) appropriating funds to Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Public Assistance eligible applicants that have been approved for FEMA public assistance funding for projects to replace or repair public infrastructure damaged by fire, flooding, or debris flows that were addressed as part of Major Disaster Declaration DR-4795-NM;

(9) and appropriating funds for the expenses of the Fifty-Sixth Legislature, First Special Session, 2024.