New Mexico federal workers face more uncertainty amid budget standoff

First, they faced mass layoffs.

Now, the small army of federal workers in New Mexico may face the threat of a government shutdown as Democrats and Republicans duel over the country’s budget in Washington.

The U.S. House of Representatives narrowly passed a measure — a continuing resolution, or CR, that would extend funding for six months — Wednesday to avert a shutdown on Friday, even as New Mexico’s three democratic congresspeople voted against it. Shortly after, Senate Democrats said they would not provide the votes to pass it through the Senate.

“Funding the government should be a bipartisan effort, but Republicans chose a partisan path, drafting their continuing resolution without any input — any input — from congressional Democrats,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-New York, said. “Because of that, Republicans do not have the votes in the Senate to invoke cloture on the House CR.” Cloture requires 60 votes for any bill to overcome a filibuster; Republicans have 53 Senate seats, and thus need seven Democratic votes.

Schumer also called for Congress to pass a competing measure to keep the government funded until April 11 and said his caucus was unified behind that bill.

Sen. Ben Ray Lujan, D-New Mexico, lambasted his Republican colleagues for excluding Democrats from the process.

“House Republicans right now have demonstrated that they don’t care about working with anyone for the good of the American people,” he said. “They’re going to continue marching along those lines.”

Federal employees make up anywhere from 3% to 5% of the New Mexican workforce, depending on which government agency you ask. According to the New Mexico Department of Workforce Solutions, as of December 2024, there were 29,600 federal employees in the state of the 898,600 non-farmworkers, but a cross-analysis of the American Community Survey and current employment statistics by the Economic Policy Institute found that there are closer to 44,000 federal government employees living in New Mexico as of Feb. 18. With much of the federal government allowed to remote work until recent months, the true number of federal employees living in any state has been harder to gage. The new administration required all federal workers back in the office within days of taking over. Plus, seasonal workers are also hard to count and many in New Mexico working in the forests and parks are typically seasonal workers.

One in three federal employees live paycheck-to-paycheck, according to a 2024 survey by Bankrate.

If a shutdown occurs, federal government funding will stop at midnight Friday, though functionally more agencies won’t feel any changes until Monday morning when the vast majorities of their employees are furloughed until Congress and the White House can come to an agreement on how to fund the government. Hundreds of thousands of federal workers across the U.S. deemed “nonessential” will be left in the cold, while thousands of programs and agencies that rely on annual funding appropriations will stop.

That includes funding for programs like the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program, or SNAP, which among other things hands out food stamps, and the Agriculture Department’s Women, Infants and Children’s program, which also provides food assistance. Combined, some 42 million Americans depend on these programs, according to a congressional report.

The shutdown would not halt the work of employees deemed essential, such as those in the defense, energy and agriculture jobs. But those workers will have to work without pay until the government reopens and they receive back pay.

A December 2024 report by the Congressional Research Service showed that the highest concentration of federal workers live in New Mexico’s Congressional District 3. It’s unclear how much the mass layoffs of the last two months reduced that figure.

One of the reasons for the concentration of federal workers up north is Los Alamos National Laboratory.

A LANL spokesperson told the Journal on Wednesday, “In the event of a government shutdown, Los Alamos National Laboratory has funds in place to continue operations. We will continue to focus on maintaining the safety and security of our employees and facilities.”

U.S. district and federal magistrate courts in New Mexico aren’t expected to experience an immediate impact of a government shutdown, said Heather A. Small, chief deputy of the U.S. District Court in New Mexico.

Typically, the federal judiciary continues to operate for two to three weeks using court fee balances and other funds.

“At this time, the Administrative Office of the Courts has not provided us with an exact date of when these funds would run out, but we have historically maintained a minimum of two weeks of funding to allow us to continue full operation.” Small said in an email on Wednesday.

If such funding is eventually depleted, and the shutdown isn’t resolved, the courts would reduce activities and certain staff would be furloughed. But criminal cases typically would proceed uninterrupted, she added.

Small said Chief U.S. District Judge Kenneth J. Gonzales may choose a different approach to continuing operations.