New Mexico officials say 89,000 residents may lose coverage under Medicaid work requirements
—Patrick Lohmann, Source New Mexico
Upcoming work requirements contained in the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” could mean that roughly one-tenth of all New Mexico Medicaid recipients lose their coverage, leaders of state agencies said in a virtual news conference Monday.
Beginning in January, the new law requires that some Medicaid recipients aged 19 to 64 work, volunteer or attend school or job training 80 hours a month to continue receiving coverage.
To raise awareness about the change, more than 230,000 New Mexicans will soon receive turquoise envelopes in the mail that lay out the new requirements, as well as connect Medicaid recipients to state resources designed to help them stay covered, state leaders said.
Still, Health Care Authority officials predict that roughly89,000 Medicaid recipientswill lose coverage due to those requirements.
Department of Workforce Solutions Secretary Sarita Nair said the state offers an array of services to job seekers. She pointed to the 24 America’s Jobs centers across the state, as well as theNew Mexico Jobs website, as resources available to those who risk losing coverage.
“You don’t have to navigate that process alone. You don’t have to know exactly what career you’re looking for before you walk through our doors,” Nair said. “That’s what we’re here for — to help you figure that out and to provide you with the tools to succeed.”
More than 825,000 New Mexicans receive Medicaid in New Mexico, according to the Health Care Authority.
Even if they met the work requirements, roughly 2,300 immigrants may lose eligibility due to changes in the law impacting some categories of immigrants. Moreover, the number of residents losing coverage could grow to more than 100,000 due to a new requirement that recipients affirm eligibility every six months versus annually.
Calculating the total number of Medicaid recipients projected to lose coverage is difficult, officials said, because the recipients may lose eligibility for two or more of the above reasons.
Still, Health Care Authority Kari Armijo said that the agency is doing all it can to prevent those coverage reductions and urged recipients to open the turquoise envelopes and reach out to her office. She stressed that simply receiving the letter does not mean that a recipient lost coverage.
“We do recognize, after having gone through all of those complicated changes, that these federal changes are really complex,” she said. “We’re not expecting our customers to figure this out on their own.”
Downwinders advocate Tina Cordova calls for nuclear disarmament in United Nations speech
—Patrick Lohmann, Source New Mexico
Tina Cordova, founder of the Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium, addressed the United Nations General Assembly on Monday in hopes of convincing global leaders to stop nuclear weapons tests like the one that sickened generations of her family in New Mexico.
The United Nations commemorated the International Day against Nuclear Tests, which is Aug. 31, with a series of speeches decrying the human and environmental impacts of nuclear weapons testing.
Cordova spoke at the UN headquarters in New York City on the invitation of UN General Assembly President Annalena Baerbock. Baerbock said in a news release that she invited Cordova to “raise awareness about the effects of nuclear weapons tests explosions or any other nuclear explosions and the need for their cessation as one of the means of achieving the goal of a nuclear-weapon-free world.”
Cordova, in her speech, recounted the 1945 Trinity Test that she said marked “the beginning of the end for tens of thousands of people that we’ve documented, including babies that died in record numbers in the year after Trinity.”
Cordova, who founded the consortium more than 20 years ago to advocate for compensation for New Mexico’s downwinders, did not immediately respond to Source NM’s request for comment Monday morning. But, in a news release Aug. 27, she called the speech before global leaders “an honor of a lifetime.”
In her speech, she referenced the2025 congressional expansion of the Radiation and Exposure Compensation Act, which included downwinders and some New Mexico uranium miners, as the first-ever acknowledgement of New Mexicans’ “sacrifice and their suffering.” Members of Congress are currently working on legislation that would further expand RECA to cover additional groups and radiation-linked cancers.
But Cordova said compensation for past harms is not enough, and urged the leaders to remember the Trinity Test 81 years ago as reason to fully abolish nuclear weapons.
“It’s time we set our families, our children and our grandchildren free from nuclear threat,” she said. “We must commit ourselves to a world without nuclear testing, a world without nuclear weapons.”
APD places 6 officers on leave in DWI scandal
—Nakayla McLelland, Albuquerque Journal
Six officers with the Albuquerque Police Department have been placed on leave as part of an ongoing investigation into a decades-long scheme involving a defense attorney paying law enforcement officers in an effort to get DWI cases dismissed.
Gilbert Gallegos, spokesperson for APD, said Monday that the agency is doing an internal investigation into the six officers, who were not named Monday afternoon.
“We are not releasing the names at this time,” Gallegos said in an email to the Journal. “The overall investigation is still ongoing. These six officers have not yet been interviewed.”
APD created an Internal Affairs Task Force in January 2024 to investigate alleged misconduct by former or current officers. Fourteen officers have since been fired, resigned or retired during the internal investigation, Gallegos said.
The FBI is leading a separate investigation into allegations of illegal conduct. The six officers have not been charged in that case.
Since the scandal came to light, more than a dozen law enforcement officers have been fired or placed on leave, including nine APD officers who have pleaded guilty in the FBI’s investigation.
At least three APD officers’ homes were raided by the FBI during the investigation.
Two lawyers, a paralegal, an officer with the New Mexico State Police and deputies with the Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Office, have also been implicated.
Officers worked with Albuquerque attorney Thomas Clear III in a criminal racketeering enterprise that paid off officers to help get DWI cases dismissed, according to previous Journal reporting.
Police officers would intentionally fail to appear at required court hearings, withhold evidence or fail to file court paperwork for DWI offenders — some of whom were aware of the scheme and others who were not — who hired Clear.
Clear said during in his plea agreement that the scheme dated back to 1995.
“Under this scheme, I would then appear at the (Motor Vehicle Division) administrative hearings and the criminal case settings on behalf of the DWI offender and would move to dismiss the proceedings,” Clear wrote in the plea agreement.
Prior Journal reporting also states that the 2nd Judicial District Attorney’s Office has dismissed more than 260 DWI cases linked to the federal cases.
Clear and his paralegal and co-conspirator Ricardo Mendez entered guilty pleas on charges of racketeering, among other federal charges.
Clear faces 130 years in prison but no one who has pleaded guilty in the case has been sentenced.
Shiprock alumnus, first Navajo to sign NFL contract, is free agent
—KJZZ and KUNM staff reports
Football fans across the Southwest are wondering where Shiprock High School alumnus Shiyazh Pete might play this season.
Pete is a rookie offensive lineman. He was the first member of the Navajo Nation ever to sign a National Football League contract.
Pete enjoyed some nationwide attention a couple of weeks ago following the Dallas Cowboys’ August 22nd preseason game against the Arizona Cardinals. Thousands of fans from Navajo country made the trip to Glendale, Arizona, to cheer for Pete, who was playing for Dallas. After the game, Pete gave a rousing locker room speech to his teammates that went viral on social media.
But Dallas cut Pete from the team on Sunday. The next couple of weeks should determine whether Pete finds a spot with another NFL team. Pete, who is of Dine and Salish ancestry, played college football at New Mexico State before transferring to Kentucky for his senior year.
Journal Poll: Haaland leads Hull by closer-than-expected margin in New Mexico’s race for governor - Dan Boyd, Albuquerque Journal
With just over two months until Election Day, Democrat Deb Haaland holds a lead — but not an overwhelming one — over Republican Gregg Hull in New Mexico’s open race for governor, a new Journal Poll found.
The poll found 49% of likely voters surveyed said they plan to vote for Haaland, who is seeking to become the first Native American woman elected governor in the nation’s history.
Meanwhile, 43% of voters said they plan to vote for Hull, the former Rio Rancho mayor who would be the first Republican to win a statewide race in New Mexico since 2016.
The remaining 8% of voters surveyed said they had not yet decided on who they would support in the November general election.
“It’s narrower than many people expected, including me,” said Brian Sanderoff, the president of Albuquerque-based Research & Polling Inc., which conducted the poll.
But he said Haaland is still well-positioned to win in November, citing a national political mood that favors Democrats and the Democratic nominee’s strong support among women and highly educated voters.
“Despite the fact the race is closer than expected, Gregg Hull still faces an uphill battle,” Sanderoff said.
Haaland, the former U.S. Interior secretary under President Joe Biden and a former congresswoman, launched her campaign for governor in February 2025.
As of July, she had raised more than $13.8 million in her bid to succeed outgoing Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, with thousands of donations from around the country.
“Yes, I have a lot of $5 and $10 donations from across the country, but I have more contributions within the state of New Mexico than any of my opponents, Democrat or Republican,” she said in an interview before the June primary election.
While Hull has lagged behind his Democratic opponent in terms of fundraising, he has proven adept at capitalizing on a network of connections forged during his 12 years as Rio Rancho’s mayor.
Hull defeated two GOP opponents in the primary election — Doug Turner and Duke Rodriguez — despite being outspent in the race. In the process, he emerged largely unscathed by negative attacks.
“Gregg Hull has avoided being labeled as an ideologue, and he has portrayed himself as a bipartisan pragmatist,” Sanderoff said.
If elected, Hull says he would seek to make New Mexico more economically attractive by reducing tax rates, among other proposals.
For her part, Haaland has touted affordability as among her campaign priorities, while vowing to build more affordable housing for New Mexicans and expand tax breaks for low-income families.
A gender gap – and regional swings
While Haaland’s lead in the Journal Poll can be attributed to several factors, strong support among female voters could be the most pivotal.
The Democratic nominee received the support of 54% of women surveyed, compared to 37% who said they planned to vote for Hull.
In contrast, male voters preferred the Republican nominee, though they were more evenly split.
If elected, Haaland would be the third consecutive woman to serve as New Mexico’s governor, as Lujan Grisham was preceded in office by Republican Susana Martinez. Before Martinez, no woman had been elected to the state’s highest office.
Meanwhile, both Haaland and Hull received strong support from voters of their own parties, as 89% of Republicans said they would vote for Hull and 86% of Democrats said they planned to vote for Haaland.
That could make election turnout a key factor, as Sanderoff pointed out that Republicans have voted at a higher clip in recent elections when President Donald Trump is on the ballot.
Among independents, who have seen their ranks swell and now make up more than one-quarter of registered New Mexico voters, Haaland was outpacing her GOP rival. But 19% of independent voters said they had not yet decided who to support.
As in other recent polls, there was also a notable difference among surveyed voters by education level, as voters with a college or graduate degree were far more likely to express support for Haaland than for Hull.
Looking at the race by region, Haaland held a significant advantage over Hull in the Albuquerque metro area and in north central New Mexico, a traditional Democratic stronghold.
But Hull had a lead in other, less populated parts of the state, including in northwest and southern New Mexico, along with the state’s usually conservative east side.
Interestingly, the overall 6-point margin separating Haaland and Hull in the Journal Poll mirrors the final margin of New Mexico’s 2022 gubernatorial race between Lujan Grisham and Republican Mark Ronchetti.
Lujan Grisham won that race but will step down at the end of this year after eight years in office.
Methodology
The Journal Poll was conducted from Aug. 21 through Aug. 28. It is based on a statewide random sample of 516 voters who cast ballots in the 2022 and/or 2024 general elections, and a sample of adults who registered to vote since January 2025 and who said they are likely to vote in the upcoming election.
The total sample of 516 voters has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.3 percentage points. The margin of error grows for subsamples.
The sample was stratified by race/ethnicity and county and weighted by party affiliation, gender and education level based on traditional voting patterns in New Mexico general elections, to ensure a more representative sample.
All interviews were conducted by live, professional interviewers based in Albuquerque, with multiple callbacks to households that did not initially answer the phone.
Both cellphone numbers (96%) and landlines (4%) of likely general election voters were used.
New Mexico Forward Party makes its case for ballot access before a federal judge - Joshua Bowling, Source New Mexico
Attorneys for the New Mexico Forward Party on Friday told a federal judge that New Mexico Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver held minor party candidates to an unfairly burdensome standard to qualify for the upcoming Nov. 3 general election ballot.
Even though the state Forward Party officially qualified as a minor party in New Mexico earlier this year, its small voter base has meant that its statewide candidates — such as Party Chair Bob Perls, a former state lawmaker who filed to run for U.S. Senate this year — had to collect as many signatures as independent candidates: more than 14,000. By comparison, Democrats and Republicans seeking statewide office have to collect 2,500 and 2,350, respectively.
In June, Perls failed to make the ballot in the race against incumbent U.S. Sen. Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.) and Forward Party candidate Michael Vigil failed to qualify as a challenger to State Auditor Joseph Maestas.
Perls filed his lawsuit against Toulouse Oliver in U.S. District Court in July.
“New Mexico’s political status quo has been frozen,” Oliver Hall, an attorney and executive director of the Washington, D.C., Center for Competitive Democracy representing Perls, argued in court Friday. He added that he believes New Mexico has the most stringent requirements in the nation for minor party candidates.
Attorneys for Toulouse Oliver responded that the Forward Party’s local candidates successfully qualified for the general election, and that the current signature requirements for statewide candidates are meant to keep “frivolous” candidates off the ballot.
They called on Lindsey Bachman, the Secretary of State’s communications, legislative and executive affairs director, to testify remotely via Zoom. Perls’ attorneys alleged that he and other Forward Party candidates did not have the proper access to the state’s online voter signature portal for a portion of the summer and argued that it put them at a significant disadvantage compared to candidates who could gather signatures electronically.
Bachman responded that nothing was stopping them from continuing to gather voter signatures with a pen and paper.
“We continue to receive petition filings that include paper and online (signatures),” she said, adding that there “likely is an ease” to gathering signatures digitally, but has had “candidates tell me they don’t like using the online form.”
U.S. District Court Judge Margaret Strickland told attorneys on both sides that she would issue a written ruling “quickly.”
After Strickland left the courtroom, Perls told reporters he thought much of Friday’s hearing focused on the minutiae of Bachman’s testimony and not his lawsuit’s allegations of First and Fourteenth Amendment violations.
As for the assertion that higher signature requirements keep “frivolous” candidates off the ballot, Perls noted that New Mexico typically suffers from “empty ballots,” pointing to the lack of contested primary races for the state Legislature and beyond. The Republican nominee for Luján’s U.S. Senate seat, for example, ran unopposed as a write-in candidate in the June primary.
“All we want to do as the Forward Party is bring competition, bring choice to voters, in some small way solve the problem of lack of choice,” he said.
New Mexico downwinder to address United Nations - Isabella Campbell, Albuquerque Journal
New Mexico’s Tina Cordova will take the stage at the United Nations on Monday to expose what she describes as the global human toll of nuclear testing and call for recognition of the world’s forgotten downwinders.
“I’m there to be the voice for all the people whose voices were silenced,” Cordova said.
Downwinders are people who lived in areas exposed to radioactive fallout from nuclear weapons testing.
The downwinder community in New Mexico traces its roots to the Trinity Test, the world’s first detonation of a nuclear weapon, which took place in 1945 in the Tularosa Basin.
For Cordova, the cause is personal. Five generations of her family, including herself, have been diagnosed with cancer, she said.
She recalled how cancer affected her family, beginning with the generation she says was exposed to radiation from the Trinity Test.
“In 1955, both my great-grandfathers died. They were given morphine and sent home to die, and they suffered, and they died. They didn’t have treatment or anything (back then),” Cordova said.
Her family, she said, is not unique.
“We have documented thousands of families like mine,” Cordova said.
Cordova is co-founder of the Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium, an organization that seeks justice for people affected by nuclear testing and raises awareness of health concerns among New Mexico downwinders.
In her speech, Cordova said she will represent people whose lives were affected by the Trinity Test, including children who died in the months that followed.
“There’s a part of the speech where I talk about how I’m there to represent the voices of the people who have been silenced, the babies that died that summer after Trinity,” she said. “I’m there to be the voice for all the people whose voices were silenced.”
Cordova said her message extends far beyond New Mexico.
“There are downwinders, not just in New Mexico. We have downwinders all over the United States. We have downwinders in Tahiti, the French Polynesian islands. We have downwinders in Kazakhstan. We have downwinders in Australia that were all created when we were testing nuclear devices,” she said.
Cordova knows representing those communities is an enormous responsibility, but she feels ready.
“It will be an honor of a lifetime to tell the history of the sacrifice and suffering of the people of New Mexico after having been overexposed to radiation from atomic and nuclear testing to the U.N. General Assembly,” she said.
She hopes her speech will encourage world leaders to recognize the history of communities affected by nuclear testing and commit to a permanent ban on nuclear testing.
Her speech is scheduled for 10 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time, 8 a.m. MDT, Monday and can be viewed on the United Nations website.
Colorado River plan to cut water amid drought brings uncertainty for cities and farmers - By Wufei Yu and Dorany Pineda, Associated Press
On the outskirts of Phoenix, a small town with a huge reliance on the Colorado River has capped growth, revived old wells and struck water deals.
But Cave Creek Mayor Robert Morris can't shake the real possibility that it's not enough to keep the desert community of about 5,000 people afloat well into the future. And a recent federal plan to address a deepening crisis in the river basin won't help.
Cave Creek gets nearly all of its water from the river, which serves 40 million people across the U.S. West and has been dwindling because of climate change, demand and overuse. The town already was forced to make cuts this year and it stands to lose more under a new federal plan.
Morris likened the situation to planning for a meteor strike.
"You can see it coming, but you can't get out of the way and you don't know what the damage is going to be," he said.
The uncertainty stretches across seven U.S. states, tribal nations and Mexico. Farmers are deciding which crops are worth the investment. Phoenix could lose some municipal and industrial water for the first time and turn to backup supplies. And residents could face even more costly water.
Nevada raised the stakes this week by suing the Interior Department and the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, saying basic needs in the Las Vegas region will go unmet if the area has to absorb planned reductions of up to 70% of its Colorado River water in the next decade.
The bureau said Thursday it does not comment on litigation.
"The uncertainty is going to continue to build in the wrong direction," said Tom Buschatzke, director of the Arizona Department of Water Resources.
Western reservoirs see record lows
In the U.S. West, water is stored primarily in reservoirs, aquifers and snowpacks. But a record snow drought means there's far less water to recharge those sources.
The two largest reservoirs in the country serve as barometers of health for the Colorado River system: Lake Mead and Lake Powell. Both hit record lows this month.
Eight other reservoirs operated by the Bureau of Reclamation recently recorded the lowest levels in at least the last 30 years. Among them is Elephant Butte Lake in New Mexico that's critical for supplying water for crops in southern New Mexico, Texas and Mexico. The Green Mountain Reservoir serves the western part of Colorado, and the Guernsey Reservoir in Wyoming funnels water to farmers in the eastern part of the state and western Nebraska.
Under the Bureau of Reclamation's plan, California, Nevada and Arizona will collectively reduce water use by 1.25 million acre-feet (about 1.54 billion cubic meters) — enough to fill over 600,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools — annually in the next two years, with the possibility of larger cuts depending on conditions. Colorado, Utah, Wyoming and New Mexico are not required to make cuts for now but could voluntarily reduce water.
While El Niño could bring intense moisture to the northern Rockies and the Southwest in the coming months, it won't erase decades of drought.
"Drought is a slow-moving phenomena and it can take some time to come into it and also come out of it," said David Mocko, senior research scientist who authored a recent U.S. Drought Monitor map.
Farmers are reluctant to plant
John Boelts grows vegetables, melons, durum wheat and other crops in Yuma, Arizona — a region that produces about 90% of leafy greens eaten in North America during the winter.
Farmers there have high-priority rights and may avoid cuts to their Colorado River supply over the next two years but, Boelts said, the reprieve isn't enough to make longer-term plans. That makes farmers reluctant to plant new acreage.
Citrus, date and other orchard crops that thrive in the region take years to become commercially productive, he said.
"There's no food that we grow in a hurry," said Boelts, the Arizona Farm Bureau president. "Beef takes years to produce. The lettuce you eat today? A farmer was working on how they would grow that crop six plus months ago."
Ray Martinez grows alfalfa on a reservation that's home to the Colorado River Indian Tribes. The tribe holds some of the river's oldest rights, and while its Arizona allocation is huge, an old irrigation system and the lack of infrastructure have kept much of the water out of reach.
Martinez and the water department are concerned about having enough water to finish this growing season. He has left some fields unplanted for years to help prop up Lake Mead. If the reservoir keeps dropping, he said, surface water coming to him and neighboring farms will be further limited.
"Unfortunately, Mother Nature has its own way of doing things, and we have no control of that," he added.
___
Pineda reported from Los Angeles.
New Mexico Democrats push to place 2 state House candidates on November ballot after withdrawals- Joshua Bowling, Source New Mexico
New Mexico Democrats are pushing to place two new candidates for the state House of Representatives on the Nov. 3 ballot after the nominees dropped out of the race.
Democratic challenger Elise Falanga Taylor announced on Aug. 16 that she was dropping out of the race for House District 23, a seat that’s currently held by House Minority Whip Alan T. Martinez (R-Rio Rancho). Democratic incumbent Joseph Franklin Hernandez (D-Shiprock) announced his withdrawal from the District 4 race Tuesday amid news reports that police investigated him over allegations of public nudity during a recent trip to Chicago.
In both districts, county Democratic Party officials selected replacements: Matthew Herman, of Rio Rancho for HD23, and former state Rep. Anthony Allison of Fruitland, who previously held Hernandez’s seat, for HD4.
However, in both cases county clerks argued that the local Democratic Party officials had waited too long to nominate replacements.
Tuesday marked the final day for nominees to drop out of the general election race. It was also the deadline for candidates to file the proper paperwork to replace candidates who withdrew.
Herman in a lawsuit filed Tuesday argued that local Democrats appointed him as the replacement on Aug. 23. Allison, in a lawsuit filed Thursday, argued his local party chose him on Tuesday.
Thirteenth Judicial District Judge James A. Noel on Thursday ordered Sandoval County Clerk Anne Brady-Romero to replace Falanga Taylor with Herman on the general election ballot and gave her until Sept. 2 to comply or explain why she hadn’t at an in-person hearing.
Late Friday, Brady-Romero announced she had complied with that order, but said her office would nonetheless defend its original position at the hearing Noel set for Sept. 2. “At that time, the County will argue that the law is clear and that no replacement candidatecould be submitted because of statutory deadlines,” a news release from Brady-Romero’s office stated.
Allison’s lawsuit, filed in the 11th Judicial District, argues that San Juan County Clerk Alyssa Kuhn has “refused” to place his name on the general election ballot to face off with Republican challenger Heather Scott Ellison, even though the Central Committee of the Democratic Party of San Juan County voted to nominate Allison the same day Hernandez dropped out.
Kuhn on Friday filed a motion asking Judge Curtis Gurley to dismiss the lawsuit. As of Friday morning, Gurley had yet to issue an order or schedule a hearing.
“The New Mexico Constitution and the state Election Code are clear in their recognition of the fundamental rights of voters to have choices on the ballot for their elected representatives,” Kate Ferlic, an attorney representing both Herman and Allison, said in a statement. “The Democratic Parties of Sandoval and San Juan Counties acted to fill the vacancies within the statutory deadline, and the Election Code clearly provides a path for their nominees to appear on the general election ballot.”
In a statement, New Mexico House Speaker Javier Martínez (D-Albuquerque) agreed.
“Our state courts have long defended the sanctity of our elections, and we fully expect them to do so here,” he said.
This story was updated following publication after the Sandoval County clerk announced she had complied with a judicial order to place Matthew Wayne Herman on the ballot for New Mexico House District 23.
Federal judge rules against New Mexico’s 7-day waiting period for gun purchases- Patrick Lohmann, Source New Mexico
A federal judge on Thursday ruled against a 2024 New Mexico law that imposed a seven-day waiting period for gun purchases, but a spokesperson for Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham told Source NM on Friday that her office will almost certainly appeal the ruling.
Citing a sharp uptick in gun violence, the Legislature approvedHouse Bill 129 during the 2024 legislative session, and Lujan Grisham signed it soon afterward. The law imposes a “cooling off” period of a week for gun purchases, except for law enforcement, those with concealed carry permits and those who sell guns to immediate family members.
The waiting-period law has been tied up in litigation for much of its existence. Two New Mexico residents, Paul Ortega and Rebecca Scott, both of whom say they were forced to wait for their gun purchases despite quickly passing background checks, sued Lujan Grisham and Attorney General Raúl Torrez over the law on the day it took effect: May 15, 2024.
Their suit, backed by the National Rifle Association and other pro-gun organizations, contends the law is unconstitutional under the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, as made applicable to the states by the Fourteenth Amendment.
A federal district judge in July of 2024 denied plaintiffs’ request for a preliminary injunction against the law while the lawsuit proceeded. Last August,the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed that decision, paused the law, and sent the case back to the lower court.
With the case before U.S. District Court James O. Browning, New Mexico defendants argued that the waiting-period law does not violate the Second Amendment. In an April filing, they argued the U.S. Constitution “protects the right to ‘keep’ and ‘bear’ arms — not the right to obtain new firearms instantaneously—and a short delay on a commercial transfer does not meaningfully constrain conduct protected by the Second Amendment’s plain text.”
Browning issued a final judgment Thursday that dismisses the case and orders the governor and attorney general not to require Ortega and Scott to wait seven days before purchasing a gun. His three-page ruling did not lay out why he ruled against the law.
Officials from the NRA hailed the ruling insocial media posts Friday morning as a “MASSIVE WIN.” John Commerford, executive director of the NRA’s Institute for Legislative Action, also issued a statement lauding the ruling Friday morning.
“A right delayed is a right denied, and the court correctly held that forcing law-abiding citizens to wait after passing a background check cannot be squared with the Second Amendment,” he said.
Michael Coleman, the governor’s communications director, told Source NM in an emailed statement Friday that the governor’s office “is assessing our options but can say with almost complete certainty that we will appeal the ruling.”
He went on to defend the law as constitutional and necessary to stem the tide of gun violence and particularly suicides by creating “space between the decision to buy the gun and the moment of impulse.”
“This is a targeted fix for a specific problem: checks that don’t finish in time and purchases made in a moment of crisis,” he said. “In the meantime, the order only states that the two named plaintiffs are able to purchase firearms without having to go through the waiting period. The law remains in effect otherwise.”
A spokesperson for Torrez did not immediately respond to Source NM’s request for comment Friday morning. Carter Harrison, a New Mexico-based lawyer who joined the suit seeking to nullify the law, also did not immediately return a phone call seeking comment Friday.
