New Mexico’s Most Dangerous 30 days of 2020
By Mary LeQuieu –
I always get nervous when the state legislature opens. In New Mexico that date is Tuesday, January 21. There is good and bad news in 2020. The good news: this is a short session. The bad news: this is a short session.
It is supposed to be about the finances of the state. But anything can happen with the Governor’s permission. Yep, she controls what legislation actually goes into this limited session. Last summer she pledged to bring back some of her pet proposals that did not make it through the 2019 session.
As you may know, states are rushing to create laws either prohibiting or allowing abortion should the Supreme Court overturn Roe V Wade. NM’s governor has sworn to bring back a proposal that would make NM an abortion zone at any age, for any reason, anywhere.
Last year the bill she supported would have forced medical professionals to perform or refer for abortion. We can expect the same again this year.
Another one of her pet projects was, well, let’s call it what it is: assisted suicide. There were so many problems with this bill that the sponsors withdrew it. But we can expect to see a modified version return.
I have checked the pre-filed legislation and her list is not there yet. One of the tactics for sponsors of bills that are anticipated to be controversial is to wait till the last possible filing date. Done in hopes that their opponents will be kept in the dark. Another is to bury offensive clauses in seemly innocent legislation. All this means is we must stay on top of all the bills.
How to do that? Type NM Legislature into your search engine. Look for the 2020 legislature home page. Select the legislation button and then the “legislation by key word”. Have a list of keywords related to your area of concern and enter each one (individually) then hit search. You will get a listing of bills that contain that word. For those you are interested in, click on the bill number. Tedious, but I have discovered bills that needed to be thwarted in this manner.
In the pre filed legislative proposals there are some good proposals and some suspicious ones. So far this is what I have found: HRJ 2 and HB 132 would protect parent’s rights. More on that later. I have suspicions about HB 68. This bill is about nurse staffing. However, in Section 7 it has nothing to protect nurses from refusing an assignment based on their moral or religious beliefs. HB 58 and SB 65 seem deliberately vague and open to objectionable practices and abuse.
Stay vigilant.