EDITORIAL: New Mexico Democrats appear to care more about the criminals than their victims

Originally published July 21, 2024

Lawmakers demonstrated last week why they are the only unsalaried Legislature in the nation. For good reason. They are perhaps the most donor-beholden Legislature in the country.

House Democratic leaders say they “engaged with the governor in good faith.”

“We are committed to continuing the public debate of these critical issues,” House Democratic leaders wrote in an op-ed in the July 21 Sunday Journal. “We must also ensure legislation that we pass does not do more harm than good.”

The Democratic governor doesn’t see it that way, and neither do we.

How hard is it 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?

How hard is it to pass a law prohibiting loitering on a median no wider than 36 inches in areas where the speed limit is 30 mph or higher?

How hard is to increase the crime of felon in possession of a firearm from a fourth-degree felony to a second-degree felony?

Instead, lawmakers funded their daily per diems of $231 apiece, took the unusual step of attaching $100 million of money for Ruidoso wildfire relief in the feed bill to ensure the governor doesn’t veto their per diem payments, and hit the road in only five hours without a single committee hearing on any of the governor’s five public safety bills.

Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham is embarrassed, we’re embarrassed, and New Mexicans across the state are embarrassed at the inaction of our state lawmakers. We don’t ever want to hear them whine again about not making professional-level annual salaries — or their lack of full-time staffs, district offices, or anything else.

On Thursday, New Mexicans saw who is holding this state back: the special interest groups who had advocated against the governor's proposals and who had called on her to cancel the special session.

So that we all know, here are those 41 special interest groups and individuals: American Civil Liberties Union of New Mexico; Albuquerque Healthcare for the Homeless; Blue Bird Healing; Bold Futures New Mexico; Casa de Salud; Center for Civic Policy; Coalition for a Safer Albuquerque; Common Cause NM; (De)serving Life; Disability Rights New Mexico; Health Equity Council; Equality New Mexico; Gold Standard Forensics; Indivisible Albuquerque; Julie M. Brovko; La Familia Health; Kathryn Lenberg — UNM Hospital; Lutheran Advocacy Ministry-New Mexico; Naeva; National Association of Social Workers-NM; New Mexico Center on Law and Poverty; New Mexico Coalition of Sexual Assault Programs; New Mexico Coalition to End Homelessness; New Mexico Conference of Churches; New Mexico Criminal Defense Lawyers Association; New Mexico Dream Team; New Mexico Immigrant Law Center; New Mexico Solutions; New Mexico Working Families Party; NMCAN; Meridian Behavioral Health; Mesilla Valley Community of Hope; Molly Adler; Older Rainbow Community of Albuquerque; OLÉ; Reboot our Democracy; Santa Fe Recovery Center; Southwest Women’s Law Center; Stop the War Machine; Transgender Resource Center of New Mexico; and Dr. Wendy Johnson.

“As experts dedicated to advancing equity, justice, health, and community safety in New Mexico, we are ready to come to the table and collaborate,” they wrote the governor on July 9. “We ask that you halt the special legislative session and engage further with community experts in advance of the 2025 60-day legislative session.”

OK, so who are crime victims supposed to call until then? May they call the National Association of Social Workers-NM or the New Mexico Coalition to End Homelessness next time a homeless person is crapping on the sidewalk in front of their business in broad daylight?

Who should we call for car break-ins? Can the New Mexico Criminal Defense Lawyers Association or the Coalition for a Safer Albuquerque send out an investigator?

How about a violent crime? Will Common Cause NM, OLÉ or the ACLU of New Mexico send out a paramedic?

Doubtful. Many of these groups are from the "Defund the Police" movement that rightfully so has gone morally bankrupt.

Groups like the ACLU serve a good purpose for many people. But their concerns are not more important than the concerns of the taxpaying public. Giving the unhoused an opportunity to panhandle is not more important than keeping the public safe.

Why should the public suffer and continue to live in danger because lawmakers need an apparent decade to do their homework?

The governor gave them a paint-by-numbers list of bills that would have immediately made New Mexico safer. But lawmakers refused to connect the dots. In her packet, that could have just as easily been labeled “How to Make New Mexico Safer For Dummies,” she laid out five common sense bills that would have actually made a measurable dent in crime.

The bills she proposed could have reduced the number of crime victims in New Mexico by thousands. More than 3,200 people charged with crimes since 2017 have been released back into the community after being found incompetent to stand trial. That’s 3,200 families who might have been able to avoid a crime by a habitual criminal in recent years.

Competency is a huge loophole in New Mexico’s criminal law, forming the basis of our revolving justice system. The system is being gamed by repeat offenders because misdemeanor cases are automatically dismissed when a defendant is found incompetent to stand trial. 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.

Keep that in mind as you continue to see the headlines and newscasts over the next few months about crime across the state. And keep the inaction of those lawmakers in mind when you head to the polls in a few months.

Make no mistake, Democratic lawmakers sold you out. They chose status quo, they took the easy way out. Their petty political feuds, their rush to raise funds for their reelection campaigns and their lack of action should infuriate you.

Republicans were actually ready and willing to debate the governor's public safety bills, and actually willing to take sponsorship of them, while tossing in a few ideas of their own.

But House Democrats, followed by Senate Democrats later in the afternoon on Thursday, used their super majorities in both chambers to vote along party lines for adjournment and to go home without doing anything on crime.

This was never a Democrat vs. Republican issue, or an MLG vs. the party issue. This was a test of effort. As we saw Thursday, many lawmakers gave no effort at all.

Change is hard, we get it. But change is necessary to move civilization forward. We deserve better. Our children deserve better. Our state deserves better.

You’ll hear a lot of spin in the coming months about all the reasons lawmakers couldn’t pass any bills on public safety. Don’t you believe it.

If they’ve lived in New Mexico for any amount of time, then they had time to consider how we might make our state safer. If they asked for your vote, they had time to consider what was important to you. If they point a finger at someone else for their inaction – ask yourself, is that the kind of person you want representing you, spending your tax dollars, planning the future for your family?

The collapse of the special session is shameful.

Sadly, it looks like all the citizenry can do for now is Remember in November.