Voters to decide whether New Mexico legislators should be paid a salary - Dan Boyd, Albuquerque Journal
New Mexico voters will decide in November whether state lawmakers should — starting in 2029 — shed their label as the nation's only unsalaried Legislature.
Just before midnight Tuesday, the Senate voted 23-19 to approve a proposed constitutional amendment that would remove a prohibition on legislative pay that has been in place since New Mexico became a state in 1912.
The proposal, House Joint Resolution 5, won approval in the House just four days earlier. If approved by voters, it would tie lawmakers' pay to the state's gross median annual income, with future increases connected to inflation. That amount was set at $64,140 as of 2024.
"We want all New Mexicans to be able to serve," said Sen. Cynthia Nava, D-Bernalillo, who said voters were last asked in the 1990s about whether lawmakers should be paid.
While the idea of paying state lawmakers a salary is not new, this year's push was led by a group of young female legislators who spoke openly about their experiences at the Roundhouse and struggles to balance jobs, family obligations and legislative service. New Mexico's Legislature became majority-female for the first time after the 2024 election cycle.
Sen. Angel Charley, D-Acoma Pueblo, said she put 40,000 miles on her vehicle traveling her district last year, and said serving in the Legislature is not feasible for many New Mexicans.
"Can a young leader with student debt and multiple jobs say yes to public service?" she asked rhetorically during Tuesday evening's debate.
"When representation narrows, democracy shrinks," Charley added.
However, opponents of the proposal said paying lawmakers a salary would fundamentally change the nature of the Legislature. Many lawmakers currently hold outside jobs when they are not in session in Santa Fe.
Meanwhile, critics also pointed out New Mexico's longstanding struggles with poverty, crime and low standing in national education measures.
"If this was a private sector organization with this track record, we'd all be fired," said Sen. Larry Scott, R-Hobbs. "And we'd deserve to be."
But several attempts to amend the legislation were unsuccessful, including proposal from Sen. Craig Brandt, R-Rio Rancho, to connect term limits of no more than 16 years in office to the salary plan.
The vote ultimately broke down largely along party lines, with four Democrats — Sens. Pete Campos of Las Vegas, Joseph Cervantes of Las Cruces, George Muñoz of Gallup and Shannon Pinto of Tohatchi — joining most Republicans in opposing the measure.
Sen. Joshua Sanchez of Bosque was the lone Republican to vote in support of the plan, which would allow lawmakers who don't wish to be paid a salary to opt out.
New Mexico is currently the only state that does not pay its legislators a salary, though lawmakers do receive a per diem payment — currently set at $202 per day — for food and lodging expenses. They can also qualify for a legislative pension plan.
Legislative salary levels in other states range from $100 per year in New Hampshire to $142,000 per year in New York, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
"I think we need to stop being the outlier," said Sen. Katy Duhigg, D-Albuquerque, during Tuesday's debate.
The idea of paying New Mexico legislators a salary is one of several modernization proposals that have gathered momentum in recent years. The Legislature has expanded webcasting of all floor sessions and committee hearings, and recently began allowing all lawmakers to have a paid legislative aid.
But previous attempts to allow lawmakers to be paid a salary fell short at the Roundhouse, prompting advocates to shift their strategy this year.
Instead of proposing an outside commission be created to decide how much lawmakers should be paid, this year's plan ditched an outside body in favor of the market-driven approach.
The retooled strategy might have paid off at the Roundhouse, but backers will still have to convince statewide voters to follow suit.
Trump is recruiting thousands of local officers to aid immigration efforts. Some states are saying no - By David A. Lieb and Brian Witte, Associated Press
Over the past 18 years, officers at Maryland's Frederick County jail have asked thousands of inmates two standard questions: What country are you a citizen of? And where were you born?
If the answer was anything other than the United States, local officers deputized with special federal authority launched an investigation into whether the person was in the country illegally. Since 2008, Frederick County has turned over 1,884 people to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Sheriff Charles Jenkins said.
But that is coming to an immediate halt under a law signed Tuesday by Democratic Gov. Wes Moore that prohibits immigration enforcement agreements with the federal government.
The new Maryland law highlights the extent to which Democratic-led states are pushing back against President Donald Trump's immigration crackdown. Ten states — all led by Democrats — now have statewide policies prohibiting law enforcement officers from cooperating in one of the primary programs Trump is using to carry out his agenda of mass deportations.
Laws banning cooperative agreements with ICE were signed earlier this month in New Mexico and took effect last month in Maine. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul also is backing legislation that would ban local law officers from being deputized by ICE. And Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger recently terminated state ICE agreements signed under her Republican predecessor, though her order didn't cancel existing arrangements with local sheriffs.
Democratic resistance has increased as the Trump administration faces mounting scrutiny over its large-scale immigration enforcement efforts in several cities and the fatal shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti by federal agents in Minnesota.
"There needs to be accountability for this organization, because right now the Trump-Vance ICE operation is not moving with proper accountability measures," Moore told reporters after signing the new restrictions.
The longtime Republican sheriff of Frederick County contends the termination of a cooperative agreement with ICE will force him to let some people out of jail who may later commit more crimes.
"I'm extremely disappointed with the legislation," Jenkins said, "because really and truly, it's going to put the public at risk in a lot of ways."
ICE agreements rise tenfold under Trump
Upon taking office last year, Trump revived a decades-old program that trains local law officers to interrogate and detain people suspected of being in the U.S. illegally.
The 287(g) program — named for a section of the 1996 law that created it — had been used during President Joe Biden's administration only for immigrants already jailed or imprisoned on charges. But Trump expanded it to include local task forces that can make arrests on the streets, resurrecting a model that former President Barack Obama had discontinued amid concerns about racial profiling.
Participation in the program has exploded, from 135 agreements in 20 states before Trump took office to more than 1,400 current agreements in a total of 41 states and territories. Some local agencies have multiple agreements covering different immigration enforcement functions.
About 800 entities have task force pacts, granting the most expansive authority. As an incentive, ICE offers local agencies that sign task force agreements $100,000 for new vehicles. And for each trained task force officer, ICE covers the salary, benefits and $7,500 for equipment.
Arkansas, Florida, Georgia and Texas — all led by Republicans — require local jails to participate in the program. Those states account for half of all 287(g) agreements.
The growth in ICE agreements has come alongside a surge in federal immigration enforcement funding. A big tax-cut law Trump signed last year allots $150 billion for immigration enforcement, including more than $46 billion to hire 10,000 ICE agents and $45 billion to expand immigrant detention centers.
Less cooperation could mean more ICE agents, some say
Nine Maryland counties with Republican sheriffs have cooperative agreements with ICE. Those pacts must end under the new law, which passed overwhelmingly in the Democratic-led General Assembly.
Maryland House Speaker Joseline Peña-Melnyk, who immigrated from the Dominican Republic when she was 8, said the bill shows that Maryland values civil rights.
"We value empathy," she said. "We value peoples' contribution. We value the Constitution. We value and support and protect civil rights."
But banning cooperative agreements could lead ICE to send more of its own officers to the state, some Republican sheriffs and lawmakers said.
"I think what you'll see is more immigrant enforcement, not less," said Harford County Sheriff Jeffrey Gahler, whose agency has turned over about 430 inmates to ICE for over the past nine years. "Our program was the safest way and the best way to identify people" in the U.S. illegally.
The Department of Homeland Security said the new law "will make Maryland less safe" and increase its workload there.
"When politicians bar local law enforcement from working with DHS, our law enforcement officers have to have a more visible presence so that we can find and apprehend the criminals let out of jails and back into communities," the department said in a statement.
New ICE limits are mirroring public pushback
About 6 in 10 U.S. adults say Trump has "gone too far" in sending federal immigration agents into U.S. cities, according to an AP-NORC poll that suggests political independents are increasingly uncomfortable with his tactics.
"The growing public pushback against Trump's immigration enforcement – especially in more Democratic-leaning states – has created political pressure and a political opening to pass laws like the one in Maryland," said Nayna Gupta, policy director at the nonprofit American Immigration Council.
On Tuesday, the Virginia Senate passed a bill on party lines that would place hefty guardrails on any proposed 287(g) agreements. That bill now goes to the House, which previously passed a similar version.
"I'm seeking to give some comfort to thousands of men, women and children in the Commonwealth who are living in fear that federal agents might send them or their family members to a country they fled, or a country they have never been to," said Democratic state Sen. Saddam Azlan Salim, who put forward the bill.
Lawmakers in New Mexico also cited the intense immigration enforcement efforts in Minnesota as a reason to limit cooperation with ICE. The New Mexico measure prohibits state and local government contracts for ICE detention facilities and bars agreements that allow local law officers to carry out federal immigration functions.
Curry County, a rural area about 100 miles (161 kilometers) southwest of Amarillo, Texas, is the only New Mexico jurisdiction with a 287(g) agreement. Sheriff Michael Brockett said the arrangement has provided a secure way to transfer people to ICE custody, "rather than federal agents searching for released prisoners on the streets and in neighborhoods of our community."
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Associated Press writer Olivia Diaz contributed to this report.
Senate Judiciary Committee passes New Mexico medical malpractice overhaul 8-1 - Patrick Lohmann, Source New Mexico
The New Mexico Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday advanced House Bill 99, a medical malpractice overhaul, with Republicans and all but one Democrat voting in favor of the measure.
The 8-1 vote came at the end of a contentious three-hour hearing in which some Democratic committee members pushed sponsor Rep. Christine Chandler (D-Los Alamos) and committee members to support a series of 11 amendments to key aspects of the bill.
Many of the amendments failed on 5-4 votes, requiring two Democrats to vote along with three committee Republicans to kill suggested changes.
The committee did, however, approve three amendments over Chandler’s objections. The amended bill now heads to the Senate floor.
Chandler told Source NM after the meeting that at least two of the amendments could be tough for fellow House members to accept. If the bill as currently amended passes the Senate floor, House lawmakers will have to agree to the changes before sending the bill to the governor.
During a floor vote, the Senate could vote to eliminate the Senate Judiciary Committee’s amendments or add new ones. That hearing had not been scheduled as of Tuesday afternoon.
House lawmakers have touted HB 99 as a compromise and the Legislature’s only chance in the final days of the session to reform the state’s medical malpractice law. Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham has also urged lawmakers to pass the bill, which she said will help reduce a statewide doctor shortage.
Among other changes, the bill imposes caps on punitive damages providers can face in civil lawsuits, with higher caps for corporately owned hospitals than independent providers. It also raises the standard of evidence plaintiffs’ lawyers must prove for juries to award those damages, which are meant to punish egregious misconduct.
Before Tuesday’s hearing began, four Democratic senators on the committee issued disclosures about their day jobs as plaintiffs’ attorneys, including Senate Judiciary Chair Sen. Joseph Cervantes (D-Las Cruces), Sen. Katy Duhigg (D-Albuquerque), Senate Majority Leader Sen. Peter Wirth (D-Santa Fe) and Sen. Antonio “Moe” Maestas (D-Albuquerque).
All four opted against recusing themselves from the vote, however, and said they would not personally financially benefit from any changes on which they were voting. Medical malpractice reform advocates, including advocacy group Think New Mexico, have repeatedly made note of Democratic senators who work as trial lawyers and serve on the Senate Judiciary.
Two of them, Cervantes and Duhigg, each presented five amendments that sought to change or remove key aspects of the bill. Duhigg was the lone “no” vote on sending the bill to the Senate.
The three amendments that the committee voted to include came from Cervantes.
One amendment changes definitions about what counts as a medical injury subject to litigation; another requires that medical costs awarded to an injured patient are based on how much the patient was billed instead of how much the patient actually paid.
The third change omits language that enabled New Mexico-owned hospitals to have a lower cap on punitive damages.
Even without the language, the bill still allows smaller hospitals to have lower caps, including a half-dozen rural New Mexico hospitals, according to lawmakers on the committee.
The Tuesday vote marked the second time in less than 24 hours that the Senate Judiciary Committee met to discuss House Bill 99. The committee debated for approximately six hours in total.
New Mexico’s Jeffrey Epstein ‘truth commission’ gets off the ground - Joshua Bowling, Source New Mexico
The four members of New Mexico’s Jeffrey Epstein “truth commission” held their first meeting Tuesday morning. In the coming months, members said, the commission will publish a public-facing website, a live tip-line and an investigative report.
The state House of Representatives unanimously voted to form the House investigatory subcommittee on Monday. Commission Chair Rep. Andrea Romero (D-Santa Fe) said she wants to assemble a full picture of local and state law enforcement’s actions or inactions during Epstein’s time in New Mexico, where he was not required to register as a sex offender even though he pleaded guilty in Florida to soliciting a minor for sex. She said the commission has already heard from survivors who were abused at Epstein’s Zorro ranch near Stanley in Santa Fe County, which sold in 2023.
Epstein purchased the sprawling property from former New Mexico Gov. Bruce King in 1993.
“This truth commission will finally fill in the gaps for what we need to know as the public…so we can learn from them and prevent these atrocities from taking place ever again in this state,” Romero said in a Tuesday news conference ahead of her committee’s first meeting.
The commission will operate with a $2 million budget. Romero said efforts are underway to hire investigators, legal experts and support staff. She and other members said they plan to coordinate their efforts with the New Mexico Department of Justice. The commission will meet publicly on an as-needed basis and post documents to a public website when all four commissioners agree to post them, Romero said.
The commissioners themselves bring relevant experience to such an investigation. Romero is an attorney; Rep. William “Bill” Hall (R-Aztec) is a former Federal Bureau of Investigation agent; Rep. Andrea Reeb (R-Clovis) is an attorney who has prosecuted crimes against children; Rep. Marianna Anaya (D-Albuquerque) is a former deputy director for the progressive organization ProgressNow New Mexico and an advocate for abuse survivors.
The commission’s makeup of two Republicans and two Democrats is no accident. As Epstein’s sex trafficking scandal has become increasingly polarized nationally, commissioners said, they hope to cut through the noise.
“Keep the politics out of it,” Romero said. “Everyone wants to pull us into a direction about politics, but this is really, truly about getting the truth on the record and we take that very seriously.”
At the heart of their investigation is the question of who knew what and when they knew it. Commissioners said they will scrutinize the role local law enforcement played during Epstein and Maxwell’s time in the state.
Former New Mexico Attorney General Hector Balderas in a Tuesday email to Source NM said that his office investigated Epstein’s and Ghislaine Maxwell’s actions at Zorro ranch before federal officials asked him to shelve the query.
“Our office investigated activity that occurred in New Mexico that was still viable for prosecution, including contact with multiple victims,” he wrote.
“During that time, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in New York asked that we pause any further state investigation or prosecution of activity related to Epstein, as they communicated to us that they were leading an active multi-jurisdictional prosecution. We provided all of our reports and interviews to them to ensure that they had all investigative leads and to pause from further parallel investigation. We did not close [the] matter, and continued to offer our resources to the DOJ and forwarded evidence to the U.S. Attorney for prosecution. Our office requested that the U.S. DOJ use any asset forfeiture tools at their disposal to seize the ranch and that any proceeds from activity there be used to provide compensation to victims.”
Romero’s work begins as the U.S. Department of Justice uploads troves of documents to its public “Epstein Library.” To some leaders, this local work is something the federal government should have done long ago.
U.S. Rep. Melanie Stansbury (D-N.M.), who serves on the federal committee that has released documents from the 2019 federal sex trafficking case against Epstein, said state leaders are stepping up in an area where the federal government has overwhelmingly failed to act.
“New Mexico is taking action where the federal government has thus far failed to follow up,” she said during a Tuesday news conference preceding the new commission’s first meeting. “It is a structured process through which survivors can come forward, witnesses can come forward, we can uncover a full picture of what happened and why the justice system has failed survivors in our state…This is what the U.S. DOJ should be doing in every single case at the federal level.”
Source NM reporter Danielle Prokop contributed to this story.