Governor considers revisiting public safety priorities in special session

SANTA FE — It may not be the end of the road for the public safety measures Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham pushed for in the 2024 legislative session but didn’t pass.

During a news conference Thursday, Lujan Grisham said a special public safety session, a chance to reconvene lawmakers to possibly pass more legislation, isn’t off the table.

“I want to just say to New Mexicans, I don’t think it’s safe out there,” Lujan Grisham said. “And I don’t think that they think it’s safe out there.”

She said she’s frustrated with the House and Senate for a lack of more progress on her priorities for the 30-day session that ended at noon Thursday.

One of the measures that could be on the table for a potential special session is a move to require behavioral health treatment for people accused of crimes. Lujan Grisham said it’s too early to commit to specific bills she’d want to bring up in a special session, but she had hoped her criminal competency legislation that would address treatment would pass this Legislature.

The criminal competency bill introduced in the 2024 session would have mandated court-ordered treatment for a defendant deemed dangerous and incompetent to stand trial. The bill never made it to the floor.

“We need a tool for folks who are repeat offenders because of these issues — substance abuse, behavioral health, mental health issues — to make sure that they can get the required treatment for more than a minute,” Lujan Grisham said.

Similarly, a bill to change the pretrial detention system was tabled in the Senate Health and Public Affairs Committee on its first hearing for the second year in a row.

The legislation, which Lujan Grisham pushed, would have allowed for prosecutors to recommend that defendants accused of certain violent crimes be held in jail before trial. The statute presumes that people charged with such crimes are too dangerous to be released.

The defense would then have a chance to “rebut” and prove that the defendant should be released. If a rebuttal isn’t brought, the defendant would automatically be jailed before trial.

A pretrial detention measure, SB271, was later resurrected via a dummy bill. However, it differed significantly from the bill that failed previously.

People released after being accused of a felony, if accused of another felony, would be held without bond. No reference to rebuttable presumption was included in the bill.

Sen. Craig Brandt, R-Rio Rancho, who carried the first bill for the governor, told the Journal the measure was a different way to achieve the same goal: “Keeping the worst of the worst behind bars.”

“I think it’s a partial step in the right direction,” Brandt said.

Lujan Grisham said the no-bond hold is a heavy thing to do, and there are risks leaning in both directions.

“This no-bond hold isn’t the provision I was trying to mirror the feds, and I still believe in that,” she said. “I think that that is just simpler to do.”

The governor also said legislation that would make it a third-degree felony for a felon to be found with a firearm would have passed the Roundhouse if it didn’t contain a mistake, though she didn’t specify what the mistake was.

Lujan Grisham also mentioned legislation during the news conference that would require people to be at least 21 years old to buy guns. It sat on the House calendar, and the floor never actually heard it. Like the other measures, it’s not clear if it would come up again in a public safety special session.

Other gun control measures that failed to pass include an assault weapons ban, changes to the Extreme Risk Protection Order and a bill intended to keep the firearm industry accountable.

Lujan Grisham said the most important gun safety bill made it to her desk, which is a waiting period on firearm purchases. Another bill, to keep guns out of polling places, also passed both chambers, with an amendment to exempt people with concealed carry licenses.

Lujan Grisham didn’t say when a special session might occur. If New Mexicans have other ideas on public safety measures, she said, she’s interested in hearing them.

“Stay tuned,” she said. “There’s another way to get at this.”