New Mexico and 22 other states sue to block Trump's federal funding freeze - By Nash Jones, KUNM News
New Mexico joined 22 other states in filing a lawsuit Tuesday against the Trump administration for its plan to freeze federal funds for state-administered programs.
New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez confirmed the funding pause disrupted essential services in New Mexico, “including healthcare, law enforcement, education, infrastructure and community development.” Torrez called the move “not only unlawful,” but “reckless.”
NPR reports a U.S. District Court judge in Washington, D.C., has temporarily blocked the funding freeze for existing programs until Monday in a separate suit brought by the National Council of Nonprofits.
Torrez says the states’ suit seeks to get funding flowing again in the immediate, “while the broader legal challenge proceeds.”
The memo released yesterday by the Office of Management and Budget has caused widespread confusion over what the freeze applies to. In an effort to understand the scope of its impact in New Mexico, the state Department of Justice is asking anyone who experienced funding disruptions to fill out a form on its website.
Deb Haaland made history as Interior secretary. Now she's running for governor of New Mexico - By Morgan Lee And Susan Montoya Bryan Associated Press
Deb Haaland, who championed conservation and clean energy during her tenure as Interior secretary, is running for the Democratic nomination for governor in New Mexico, the nation's No. 2 oil production state.
Haaland, a member of Laguna Pueblo and the nation's first Native American cabinet secretary under President Joe Biden, could be the first Native American woman to serve as governor of any state. New Mexico has 23 federally recognized tribes, including large portions of the Navajo Nation, as well as land holdings of the Fort Sill Apache.
She is the first to begin assembling her machine for what will be a lengthy campaign — Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham terms out of office at the end of 2026. Democratic U.S. Sen. Martin Heinrich ruled himself out of the governor's race last week, and no Republican candidates have initiated a run.
Scott Forrester confirmed his hiring as campaign manager on Monday. While a team of veteran political strategists and others is being assembled, formal paperwork still has to be filed with the secretary of state.
The governor's office in New Mexico has flipped between Democratic and Republican control since the 1980s. President Donald Trump has gained popularity in New Mexico while still losing three elections in the heavily Hispanic and Native American border state.
But Democrats have consolidated control over every elected statewide office and all congressional and U.S. Senate seats, and now have broad majorities in the state House and Senate.
Winning the top state office would put Haaland — a former congresswoman, state party chairwoman and backroads political canvasser for President Barack Obama — at the helm of a state enjoying a financial windfall from the nation's fastest growing zone for oil production, the Permian Basin that overlaps portions of New Mexico and western Texas.
Haaland hasn't been shy about voicing opposition to unfettered oil and gas development and support for the Green New Deal, the sweeping proposals meant to move the United States rapidly to low-carbon energy. At the same time, oil and gas leasing and production reached record levels during the Biden administration, with the U.S. now producing more fossil fuels than ever before.
Haaland noted in her last interview as Interior Secretary with The Associated Press that this fossil fuels boom was made possible even as other federal land was protected from development.
"As it turns out, you don't have to lease millions and millions of acres," Haaland said. "We really worked at zeroing in on where these leases should happen so that we can ensure that other land is open to conservation."
Whether she would bring this sense of balance to New Mexico is yet to be seen, but it's sure to be a campaign issue given the importance of oil and gas revenues.
Democratic lawmakers in New Mexico have carved out a progressive framework for investing and redistributing the state's fiscal windfall to help underwrite everything from free meals at all public schools, to zero-tuition college and trade schools, to discount childcare and tax incentives geared toward families with children.
The Republican nominee for governor in 2022 — former television meteorologist Mark Ronchetti — proposed a different approach to spending these revenues: individual rebates along with educational stipends for families aimed at improving early literacy. He lost to Lujan Grisham by a 6-point margin.
Republicans hope voters will break with one-party governance in 2026, said state GOP Chair Amy Barela.
"We believe a Republican governor will bring the positive change our state deserves through balanced leadership after years of one-party rule," said Barela, also an elected Otero County commissioner, in an email.
New Mexico's annual oil production recently surpassed that of North Dakota, the home of Trump's nominee to succeed Haaland in leading the Interior Department, Doug Burgum.
Another APD officer resigns after being connected to alleged DWI scheme — By Daniel Montaño, KUNM News
Another Albuquerque police officer chose to leave the force after being connected to an investigation within the DWI unit.
Lieutenant Kyle Curtis was placed on administrative leave on Friday and informed Tuesday he would have to report for an interview with a task force investigating several current and former DWI officers, according to a news release.
Curtis turned in his retirement paperwork Tuesday before facing the interview.
The Albuquerque Police Department’s Internal Affairs Task Force has been investigating the DWI unit in connection to an alleged scandal involving a local attorney wherein officers didn’t show up to certain court cases.
Curtis is the 10th of 12 officers placed on administrative leave in connection to the investigation to resign, retire or be terminated.
APD’s administrative investigation started after the FBI raided Attorney Thomas Clear’s office and home a little more than a year ago. The bureau is conducting its own criminal investigation into the allegations of illegal conduct, but no officers have yet been charged. Clear's private investigator Ricardo "Rick" Mendez pleaded guilty Friday to racketeering, bribery, extortion and conspiracy charges.
U.S. Attorney Alexander Uballez says the investigation will continue even if he is removed from office by the Trump Administration, according to the Albuquerque Journal.
Federal officials are asking witnesses to come forward if they have information on the investigation.
Deputy charged with murder in fatal shooting of Mescalero teen seeks dismissal - Olivier Uyttebrouck, Albuquerque Journal
An Otero County Sheriff’s deputy charged in the fatal shooting of a boy outside Mescalero in June waived his first appearance Monday in District Court in Alamogordo and is seeking dismissal of the case.
Jacob Diaz-Austin, 28, of Las Cruces filed a motion Monday seeking dismissal of the first-degree murder charge on grounds that prosecutors filed a criminal complaint that failed to list witnesses to the shooting.
Bernalillo County District Attorney Sam Bregman earlier this month charged Diaz-Austin in the June 25 death of 17-year-old Elijah Hadley in a highway median near Mescalero. Austin-Diaz was placed on paid administrative leave.
Diaz-Austin will remain employed by the agency unless he is convicted, said Otero County Sheriff David Black in a phone interview with the Journal Monday. Until then, his employment will not change, Black said.
Hadley was holding an air-powered pellet gun when Diaz-Austin arrived at the scene and fired multiple gunshots, fatally injuring the teenager, according to a June 27 New Mexico State Police news release.
Hadley, a Mescalero Apache Tribe member, was holding “what appeared to be a firearm” when the deputy fired, the news release said. “Agents later learned the object that Hadley presented at the deputy was an airsoft gun,” or replica pellet gun.
A CBS News report aired in November estimated that at least 320 people in the U.S. have been shot and killed by police while holding replica air and pellet guns, which often resemble real firearms. Some 12 million such guns were purchased in the U.S. in 2023, CBS reported.
Prosecutors in the 12th Judicial District handed off the case to Bregman’s office to avoid a conflict of interest, 2nd Judicial District Attorney spokeswoman Nancy Laflin said this month.
Diaz-Austin waived his right to a first appearance Monday in 12th Judicial District Court before Judge John P. Sugg, court records show.
His attorney, Charles McElhinney, filed a motion Monday seeking dismissal arguing that prosecutors filed a criminal information “completely devoid of identification of any witnesses” as required by state law.
McElhinney did not immediately respond Monday to a request for comment.
Diaz-Austin responded at 10:45 p.m. June 25 to a call for a welfare check about a teenager walking in the median of U.S. Hwy. 70 west of Mescalero.
Video captured by a patrol vehicle’s dash camera and widely viewed on TikTok showed that the gun left Hadley’s hands before the deputy fired his service weapon. The video shows that Hadley repeatedly shouted “It’s just a BB gun” after he was shot and fell to the ground.
State lawmaker proposes bill to create cultural schools to preserve Native languages - Leah Romero, Source New Mexico
Proposed legislation this session would allow Native governments in New Mexico to create cultural schools in an effort to immerse students in their culture and preserve their language.
“If kids are fluent in their language, they have a much better sense of who they are, where they come from, where they belong and what they’re about. And that gives them the confidence to move out into the world,” Sen. Benny Shendo, a Democrat from Jemez Pueblo and the bill’s sponsor, told Source NM.
Senate Bill 13, known as the State-Tribal Education Compact Schools Act, would give Indian nations, tribes and pueblos the option of creating an agreement with the New Mexico Public Education Department to establish “language immersion or culture schools,” and would exempt the schools from curriculum oversight by the Public Education Department. Tribal councils or other governing bodies would determine how to evaluate students.
Shendo said he imagines these schools would cater largely to children from preschool to late elementary age and be a way for tribes to revitalize their languages before they are lost. Students would then transition over to a typical public school.
“Jemez was my primary language,” Shendo said, explaining that he was fully immersed in his culture as a child. And by high school “I was fluent so I’ll never forget it.”
According to the Legislative Education Study Committee bill analysis, SB 13 does not require an appropriation of state funds but would make the cultural schools eligible for state funding. The analysis also points to similar state-tribal education compact laws established in Washington and Alaska as examples for New Mexico.
Shendo said he is aware that the Pueblo of Jemez and the Navajo Nation are at least two out of the 23 federally recognized tribes in the state that have shown interest in establishing cultural schools.
When asked if the bill had any connection to the Yazzie-Martinez lawsuit, which found that the state was not providing equitable educational opportunities to at-risk students, including Native students, Shendo said it was not a motivating factor.
“This is all to do with giving the tribes the right to be able to educate their kids in the language that they choose to do,” Shendo said. “The strength of our tribes, our languages, our ceremonies, our culture and everything that we’re about here in New Mexico will be strengthened by the fact that these languages will still be fluent, will be prosperous.”
Melissa Candelaria, director of education at the NM Center on Law and Poverty, who represents the plaintiffs in the Yazzie-Martinez case, told Source NM in a statement she supports SB 13.
“Six years ago, the Yazzie/Martinez case ruled that Native American students have a constitutional right to a sufficient education, one that ‘prepares them for both college and career opportunities, but also for various meaningful roles within their tribal communities and tribal governments,’” the statement reads. “SB 13 is a critical step in fulfilling this promise, ensuring that Native students receive a culturally and linguistically relevant education and opportunities for a brighter future.”
Senate Bill 13 is currently scheduled to be heard by the Senate Education Committee on Jan. 29.
Paid parental, medical leave program passes first committee - By Megan Gleason, Albuquerque Journal
The Paid Family and Medical Leave Act on Monday passed its first legislative hurdle, much to the relief — and dismay — of different parents present at its first committee hearing.
It took more than two hours of discussion and public comment in the House Health and Human Services Committee before the bill was approved on a party-line 6-4 vote, with Democrats voting in favor and Republicans in opposition.
Now, the bill has just under eight weeks to make it through the rest of the Roundhouse. It failed last year to pass the House floor by two votes.
By implementing new fees, the legislation would allow employees to take up to 12 paid weeks off for parental leave and up to nine weeks off paid for medical or military exigency purposes. It would also allow nine weeks paid time-off for instances of domestic violence, stalking, sexual assault or abuse, for the employee or an employee's family member.
Under the program, employees would pay 0.005% of their wages into the fund — $5 for every $1,000 — and employers with five or more employees would pay 0.004% of wages into the fund — $4 for every $1,000.
Businesses that already offer a similar or broader paid leave program could apply for exemption waivers.
The bill, House Bill 11, heads to the House Commerce and Economic Development Committee next.
THE DEBATE
Bill sponsor Rep. Linda Serrato, D-Santa Fe, was in the past pregnant while serving in the House and had to return to work within six weeks, she said during Monday's hearing.
“That's all that my nonprofit could afford to give me, even though they wanted to do more. This is an insurance policy that allows them to do more,” Serrato said.
Meanwhile, new Rep. Elaine Sena Cortez, R-Hobbs, who had a baby two years ago, said this program would be New Mexico's largest proposed tax increase ever — something committee chair Rep. Liz Thomson, D-Albuquerque, said is inflammatory language and without evidence.
“We already pay federal tax. We already pay income tax,” Cortez said. “Many people are struggling just to buy groceries. ... Credit card use is at an all-time high. So now we are asking New Mexicans that are already struggling to pay an additional tax; is that correct?"
The bill sponsors disagreed. The Democratic legislators didn't agree with Republicans' defining the program fees as a tax.
In response to a question from Rep. Pamelya Herndon, D-Albuquerque, bill sponsor Rep. Christine Chandler, D-Los Alamos, said the goal is to ensure a "healthy, happy, productive workforce, which also protects the employer."
"Whenever the employee is successful, the employer is successful," Herndon said. "And so what we want to do is to make sure that they are able to take care of themselves when they need to, and that they're able to take care of their families when they need to. So this is a guaranteed savings plan to help make sure that there is funds to take care of them."
A slew of parents attended the committee meeting, including Abby O'Connor, marketing director with the New Mexico Cattle Growers’ Association.
As a pregnant mother with a young child at home, she said, she understands where “the hearts are of the sponsors and the supporters as well as anybody. But I also understand that, as a small business owner and a fifth-generation rancher from this state, that this will kill small businesses."
“Who do we expect to pick cherries, milk cows and go out and harvest hard crops when our employees are out on leave?” she added.
But for mother Deborah Condit, having a paid leave program could’ve prevented her from needing to go on food stamps. Condit, owner of Albuquerque’s Books on the Bosque, said her employer of four years didn’t provide paid leave when she had her daughter.
Now, as a business owner, she faces a similar situation where she can’t afford to give her employees the paid time off she wants.
“If there's a way for me as a small business owner to be able to provide that, sign me up,” Condit said.
Many people who spoke in opposition, including lawmakers, said they support the spirit of the bill but it’s just not economically feasible for employers, especially those in rural America, to replace workers for 9-12 weeks.
And, many of the same businesses and trade associations that opposed the bill last year again don't support it, like the New Mexico Chamber of Commerce and the New Mexico Restaurant Association. Business leaders noted the bill hasn't changed much since its 2024 failure on the House floor.
A narrower version of the bill introduced last year by Rep. Marian Matthews, D-Albuquerque, died in its first committee. It's unclear if Matthews will introduce an alternative bill again this year.
A POSSIBLE COMPROMISE?
At a breakfast at the La Fonda hotel hosted by the New Mexico Chamber of Commerce last week, Senate Majority Leader Peter Wirth, D-Santa Fe, encouraged business leaders to "stay at the table."
"We're going to try and find a compromise," he said. "It doesn't mean everyone's going to be happy, but I think that it's important that we listen and hear the concerns and the input that you all have and try and get ourselves a place where we can move forward."
Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham's office didn't respond to a Journal inquiry as to whether the governor supports the bill or not.
House Minority Whip Alan Martinez, R-Bernalillo, questioned the bill sponsors on how the bill would work and how it’s changed since 2019 to make it more amenable to business leaders.
In response to a question from Martinez, Department of Workforce Solutions Secretary Sarita Nair said her agency would need 219 employees to run the program and currently has a 17% vacancy rate — or 100 employees.
Though the committee hearing maintained a cordial climate, glimpses of tension appeared at different times.
Thomson didn’t pass out a non-validated survey on business responses to PFML, Martinez said, after which he asked validation for because “these numbers are important for the committee.” He said more than 80% of businesses in his district — though the survey methods aren’t clear — found issues with the proposed program.
About 15 minutes into Martinez’s line of questioning, and after repeated back-and-forth between him and Chandler about characterizations of the bill, Thomson said the lawmakers already “agreed to disagree” and asked them to move on.
The House committee members were excused from the floor session for this debate, which was expected to be lengthy. Rep. Jenifer Jones, R-Deming, questioned bill sponsors for nearly an hour, digging into the legislation page by page.
Future of the fairgrounds up for debate at BernCo Commission meeting - By Rodd Cayton, City Desk ABQ
Bernalillo County commissioners Tuesday will consider initial steps toward possible redevelopment of the New Mexico state fairgrounds.
The state government is asking county officials to create a tax increment development district centered on the fairgrounds. The county could issue bonds to pay for infrastructure improvements and a portion of gross receipts taxes or property taxes collected within the district would be used to pay off the bond debt.
Those improvements could include roads, drainage systems and water treatment.
New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham last month announced the state would seek proposals for a master plan to redevelop the 236-acre midtown Albuquerque site. She said the site could include housing or a new arena suitable for hosting large-scale concerts and special events.
Commissioners on Tuesday are expected to vote on whether to authorize the publication of notices of a public hearing regarding the proposed formation of the special district. If they approve, the hearing will take place in 30 to 60 days.
Commissioner Barbara Baca has proposed a resolution that calls for county administration to develop a plan for establishing a “housing development services” division.
The division would oversee the identification, acquisition, funding, construction and related aspects of affordable housing in Bernalillo County. County Manager Cindy Chavez would be asked to bring recommendations to the board at the Feb. 25 meeting.
One aspect of the resolution is a decision to either increase staffing or solicit professional services for addressing the housing crisis. Housing New Mexico, formerly the New Mexico Mortgage Authority, predicts the county will need 28,000 additional housing units by 2035 to meet its demand, including 4,900 units of affordable housing.
Commissioners will also conduct a public hearing on whether to adopt a low-income property tax rebate.
If the legislation is adopted, a taxpayer (or married couple) with a modified gross income of $24,000 or less would be eligible for a rebate of up to $350. The board will vote on introducing an ordinance to adopt the rebate. If it approves, the matter will be brought back for adoption at the Feb. 11 meeting.