EDITORIAL: Lawmakers should put the politics aside and embrace the governor's public safety agenda

When your governor’s vehicle and her security detail are chased down in Albuquerque by someone with a crow bar, or approached by someone with a raised machete, you’ve got a crime problem.

And Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham knows it.

“I am safer than every other New Mexican and that shouldn’t be the case,” the governor told the Journal Editorial Board Wednesday during an hour-and-a-half long meeting in advance of this week’s special legislative session. “(I want to) restore the constitutional right to be safe in your neighborhood.”

Since February when the governor signaled she might call for a special session to address public safety measures that didn’t pass during the 2024 regular session, lawmakers from both sides of the aisle have carped.

Some Republican lawmakers have suggested the governor call off the special session because they don’t think it will have a real impact on crime. Three Republican House leaders on Monday sent a letter to the governor criticizing her decision to tackle complex behavioral health legislation in a special session. They argue making major changes during a two- or three-day special session isn’t enough time and will result in unintended consequences.

Some Democratic lawmakers and numerous advocacy groups including the ACLU have also suggested the governor call off the special session because they don’t like the governor’s proposals, especially overhauling the state’s criminal competency statute to require court-ordered behavioral health treatment for repeat offenders accused of a serious violent offense, a felony involving the use of a firearm, or those defendants who have been found incompetent two or more times in the prior 12 months.

The bill’s intent is to prevent mentally incapacitated individuals from harming themselves or the public.

A criminal competency bill introduced in the 30-day session earlier this year never made it to the floor.

Neither did a bill that would have overhauled the pretrial detention system by allowing prosecutors to recommend that dangerous defendants accused of certain violent crimes be held in jail before trial. It was tabled in the Senate Health and Public Affairs Committee on its first hearing for the second year in a row, and replaced with a watered-down pretrial detention bill that merely holds without bond felony defendants who have been released and subsequently accused of committing another felony.

The governor is frustrated, and so are we and countless other New Mexicans who have had enough of the lawlessness, especially here in Albuquerque where the laundry detergent and batteries are likely locked up behind plexiglass due to brazen shoplifting, where many people don’t dare walk outdoors at night, and where the distinct sound of gunfire is common in neighborhoods.

The governor in early June unveiled five public safety measures for the special session that starts Thursday. They are all solid proposals, including expanding a 2016 law that allows district judges to order involuntary treatment for people with severe mental illness who are frequently jailed or hospitalized. Sadly, some people are too mentally ill to take care of themselves and keep getting into legal trouble.

The governor told us Wednesday more than 3,200 people charged with crimes since 2017 have been released back to the community after being found incompetent to stand trial. That is absolutely unacceptable and exactly what Albuquerque Police Chief Harold Medina and Bernalillo County Sheriff John Allen have been complaining about. Their departments are arresting the same people over and over again, who are back on the streets within a day or so.

Competency is a huge loophole in New Mexico’s criminal law, as Bernallio County District Attorney Sam Bregman has told us for months. If a defendant is deemed incompetent in a misdemeanor case, the case is automatically dismissed. The system is being gamed by repeat offenders who know if they are arrested, they’ll likely be back out on the streets in no time.

More than 5,350 of the 16,045 charges dismissed since 2017 due to incompetency were felonies, including charges of first-degree murder, trafficking controlled substances, kidnapping, and abuse of a child.

“Some of these have been in court up to 40 times in a year,” the governor told the Journal. “I’m trying to break that cycle.”

A third bill offered by the governor would prohibit loitering on a median no wider than 36 inches in areas where the speed limit is 30 mph or higher.

A fourth public safety bill would increase the crime of felon in possession of a firearm from a fourth-degree felony to a second-degree, and would set a new mandatory minimum term of nine years for the offense, instead of up to three years.

A fifth bill would require that law enforcement agencies in New Mexico submit monthly reports to the state Department of Public Safety on crime incidents and ballistics information.

The governor’s package of bills has been endorsed by the New Mexico Hospital Association. We’ve had enough of the naysaying. And so has the governor.

The governor needs a little help from Republicans to pass her public safety initiatives, and Republicans should lend it.

As the governor told Journal editors and reporters on Wednesday, she faces opposition from members of her own political party and from myriad far-left advocacy groups. She doesn’t need opposition from the political right, especially if that opposition is based on election-year politics or because her proposals don’t go far enough.

As the governor also told us in a moment of candor, she’s not up for reelection and won’t be again as governor, giving her more flexibility to do what needs to be done on crime. A little bipartisanship on public safety won’t hurt any lawmaker’s chance of winning in November. But they can help their constituents.

The special session should take place and begin Thursday as scheduled. Lawmakers needn’t rush. We can absorb the costs of $50,000 per day to assemble 112 legislators in Santa Fe. After all, the city of Albuquerque spends 15 times that amount on a single City Council runoff election. You can't put a price on democracy, say the runoff election supporters.

We have been critical of some of the governor’s initiatives in the past, but that’s the past and we all need to work together to move New Mexico forward in a number of areas, starting with public safety. A safe state with law and order is the foundation for everything else.

The governor has asked for our support and now we’re giving it. We’d like to see Republicans and moderate Democrats give her support as well and seize the opportunity to pass some sorely needed center-right crime legislation.

Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle should suspend their political campaigns for a few days and legislate in good faith for the good of their constituents and for their state.