OPINION: I have a target on my back for opposing a flawed PFML bill

I did the unthinkable.

I voted against a bill – Senate Bill 3, Paid Family Medical Leave, the far-left progressive wing of my party considered perfect.

Twice.

A Democratic hero, Hubert Humphrey, believed: “The moral test of government is how it treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the aged; and those who are in the shadows of life - the sick, the needy, and the handicapped.”

The New Mexico Legislature has often failed this “moral test” and passage of SB 3 would have been yet another failure. SB 3 would have left many New Mexicans “who are in the shadows of life” with reduced or no services.

Here’s why: Caregivers — those who provide services to at least 70,000 of the most vulnerable New Mexicans — are legally required to pay the state minimum wage and provide required state benefits.

Unlike a bakery that can raise its prices when costs increase, caregivers often wait years to receive increases in their state contracts when the minimum wage goes up or new benefits are required. To stay solvent, they cut their workforce, which means fewer or no services to the most vulnerable.

This problem is routinely ignored by the Legislature until caregivers are about to fail. Then there’s an appropriation, but it’s never enough.

In 2023 alone, there were 20,600 critical incidents reported in some caregiver programs resulting from a lack of workforce.

The SB 3 sponsors created a task force to design PFML. Caregivers and childcare providers asked to be on the task force, but were rejected. There were no health care providers.

Rural New Mexico was underrepresented. The only small business on the task force made kitchen towels. Without input from those most affected, SB 3 had unintended consequences, questionable sustainability, and was to be administered by a barely functional state agency, among other issues.

I support a sustainable PFML bill that works for all New Mexicans. In 2024, I introduced a PFML bill. When I raised the caregiver issues with the House sponsors of SB 3, they said PFML would be insolvent if we carved out caregivers from the payroll taxes that would fund their program. So, no carveout.

PFML would be paid for on the backs of the most vulnerable.

Disregard for the most vulnerable is not new in our Legislature. As a young lawyer, I represented children with special needs in a lawsuit against the state to improve special education services. Parents pleaded with the Legislature for years without success for adequate services. It took seven years to resolve.

Now there’s Yazzi-Martinez. The state has been found to have violated the rights of low-income, minority and special education students to an adequate education.

PFML is not the only legislation that intentionally leaves the most vulnerable behind. In 2024, there was a proposal to increase the minimum wage from $12 to $16 an hour. After I voted against that increase, the House sponsor wrote that my vote “was the Most Cowardly Display of Petty-Selfishness…” he’d ever seen. This, despite the fact he admitted caregivers would not receive the increase.

In 2023, I was threatened by a powerful senator that all my bills would be killed in the Senate if I voted against the PFML bill. She and a crony tried to kill my bills, including the major criminal bill of the session, Organized Retail Crime, because I was the sponsor. They failed.

Now, I have a primary opponent, who was running for the state Senate until someone suggested it would be worth his while to run against me. Whether or not I win the election, I do not regret my votes. I don’t apologize for advocating for the most vulnerable New Mexicans. I will continue to do so.

The Democratic Party used to be the party of the "Big Tent." A raucous group arguing, disagreeing, negotiating to make a better world.

Over the years the Big Tent had positive results: improved racial, gender, LGBTQ equality; improved economic fairness: Social Security, minimum wage; improved health care: Medicare, Medicaid, Obamacare. These legislative achievements came from vigorous, contentious debates, not Group Think.

I’m running again to try once more to find a permanent solution for the caregivers and those they serve. I’m up for a raucous debate if the Woke ever wake up!

Marian Matthews represents District 27 in the New Mexico House of Representatives.