In final hours, House overrides governor’s education bill veto

SANTA FE — For the first time in Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s tenure, a New Mexico legislative chamber voted Saturday to override one of her bill vetoes.

While the Senate did not follow the House in voting to override the governor’s veto of a bill dealing with a state school day mandate, a top GOP senator suggested that could still happen next year.

The drama played out during the final hours of the 60-day legislative session that ended Saturday, which also featured Republicans calling for a special session to deal with public safety and health care access.

Over the last several years, Democrats and Republicans have largely stood together to oppose the Lujan Grisham administration’s attempts to require at least 180 days in a school year.

Many lawmakers have argued for more local control and flexibility, while the governor’s administration has maintained more school days would better the state’s poor educational outcomes. And with just hours left in the 2025 session Saturday, the House voted 64-0 to override a veto from the governor about instructional days in a school year.

House Bill 65 would’ve codified a court ruling from earlier this year nullifying a Public Education Department policy mandating 180 days of instruction at all schools. It passed through the Legislature without a single “no” vote in both chambers’ committee and floor votes.

“And that was a message to the governor,” said House Minority Leader Gail Armstrong, R-Magdalena, in a post-session news conference.

But since the Senate didn’t join the House to override the veto, the governor’s action stands.

Senate Pro Tem Mimi Stewart, D-Albuquerque, said the chamber just didn’t have time to get to a veto override motion, working right up until 10 minutes to noon.

“The timing was really bad,” she said at a news conference, though she later told the Journal she didn’t support the local control initiative anyway.

The House overrode the veto with about an hour left in the session, quickly and without debate.

This isn’t the first time the Legislature has opposed the educational measure. Last year, Lujan Grisham line-item vetoed a clause legislators included in the budget that would’ve barred PED from implementing the 180-day rule.

Since taking office in 2019, Lujan Grisham has directly vetoed around four dozen bills, including two so far from this year’s session.

The Legislature could still decide in 2026 to override the veto during the 30-day session, which Armstrong hinted at. It takes a two-thirds vote from both chambers to get it through.

Health care crisis

Legislators weren’t as aligned on other issues, including the correct way to solve New Mexico’s health care professional shortage.

Despite a slew of different initiatives introduced in the session, from changes to medical malpractice statute to better staffing-to-patient ratios to interstate compacts, few actually made it to the governor’s desk.

It drew ire from Republicans, who wrote a letter to the governor Saturday asking for a special session to address health care issues as well as crime. GOP leadership said the Legislature’s inability to lower medical malpractice premiums and provide health care incentives is unacceptable.

“We had several comprehensive bills which had support input from medical professionals that Democrats refused to consider or simply killed. They seemed to side with the trial lawyers over New Mexico health care providers,” said Senate Minority Whip Pat Woods, R-Broadview.

The governor, in her own news conference, said she doesn’t disagree with the Republicans’ sentiments on malpractice and the doctor shortage. Lujan Grisham said more time is needed to move legislators in a “uniform fashion” with regard to changes to medical malpractice law.

“We could have done much more here,” Lujan Grisham added.

Fred Nathan, founder and executive director of think tank Think New Mexico, acknowledged work the Legislature accomplished with its Medicaid funding — which Democrats said adds up to $15 billion between the state and federal government — and reduced taxes on practitioners via future tax commitments. But he agreed that trial lawyers stood in the way of other efforts, specifically mentioning interstate medical compact bills that failed.

He told the Journal it “demonstrates the remarkable power of the trial lawyer lobby to bottle up a bill that would have increased access to health care for hundreds of thousands of New Mexico patients.”

Senate Majority Leader Peter Wirth, D-Santa Fe, in the Democrats’ post-session news conference, referenced medical malpractice compromise efforts in 2021 and 2023, when the Legislature changed the Medical Malpractice Act to raise the cap on damages, but said agreements fell apart afterward. Everyone needs to be at the table, he said.

“If there’s things that we can do and make it better, I think we’re open to that. But again, we need to do that with the time to get it right,” Wirth said.