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Sherry Robinson/ All She Wrote 3/9/26

Healthcare supporters enjoyed some wins but don’t get too comfortable

By Sherry Robinson

All She Wrote

Sometimes I’m happy to be wrong.

Before the legislative session began I didn’t have much faith that lawmakers would deliver on healthcare needs and told readers as much. But in the 30-day sprint we call governing, legislators pushed through a couple of the landmark bills, along with several important but less known measures.

And they showed some overdue love and respect to our dwindling number of doctors.

It’s a good beginning, but those of you who contacted your legislators, wrote letters to the editor or posted online should stay vigilant. The people who brought us this disaster are still in place.

There’s a lot of good news: Medical malpractice reform and a compact allowing interstate licensing of physicians passed. Democrats kept premiums affordable for some 46,000 self-employed workers, small business owners and others who depend on the Affordable Care Act.

Lawmakers eliminated facility fees for such services as outpatient care, vaccinations and telehealth services starting in 2027. These surprise charges added to the cost of routine care.

And we have in the budget: $300 million to double the size and enrollment of the UNM medical school, $24 million for rural residencies and rotations of doctors in training, $2 million for increased salaries for medical residents and fellows, and $3 million to recruit and retain medical educators. Plus, they expanded the Health Professional Loan Repayment Fund to $300,000 for doctors in return for four years of service in underserved areas of the state.

Now the bad news: Eight other compacts died in the Senate, six of them in the Senate Judiciary Committee. Of course. Chairman Joe Cervantes, D-Las Cruces, whined that they didn’t have time to thoroughly vet the bills, and yet the House moved them in a few days. In this bottleneck we lost greater access to health professionals we really need: physician assistants, audiologists and speech language pathologists, physical and occupational therapists, dentists and dental hygienists, emergency medical technicians, counselors, and psychologists.

Rural areas rely on their EMTs, and yet New Mexico is short about 2,500 of them, according to national benchmarks.

Compacts allow licensed healthcare providers in other states to serve patients in New Mexico and streamline the licensing process for providers moving here. Proponents have said compacts are the easiest way to improve healthcare access in the state.

Some Senate Democrats claimed that the state Regulation and Licensing Department “doesn’t have the capacity to administer them all, even though the department disputes that,” reported Think New Mexico, a nonpartisan think tank that has championed the compact bills. The group also noted that dozens of groups supported the bills while the only opposition came from the New Mexico Trial Lawyers Association.

Two other disappointments: The tax package that passed didn’t include a repeal of the state’s gross receipts tax on medical services, the only tax of its kind in the country. And a bill to create a pathway to licensure for physicians trained in other countries failed in the Senate. Eighteen other states have such laws.

After the session, House Democrats and House Republicans each took credit for the successes and ignored contributions of the opposing party.

Said House Dems: “We expanded access by joining interstate healthcare compacts, lowered costs by strengthening the state’s Health Care Affordability Fund and invested in student repayments for medical providers … We made smart, targeted changes to address concerns we heard from both patients and providers about our state’s medical malpractice laws.”

Said House Minority Leader Gail Armstrong: “For more than six years, New Mexico has been losing doctors… Nothing changed until Republicans made ending the status quo a priority ... Republicans kept introducing legislation, demanding hearings and pressing progressive leadership to take the issue seriously… That persistence, backed by strong public support, finally paid off with the passage of meaningful medical malpractice reform.”

It’s politics. It’s also dishonest. Rep. Christine Chandler, D-Los Alamos, deserves our thanks for shepherding the medical malpractice bill, but without Republican support it would have died because too many Democrats still listen more to trial lawyers than to their constituents. The eight failed compacts had Dem opposition.

We celebrated when the governor signed the medical malpractice reform bill and the doctor compact, but let’s not kid ourselves. The same people who killed those bills last year and tried to kill malpractice again this year – and nearly succeeded – are still in office. The Senate is turning a blind eye to conflicts of interest when the Legislature’s trial lawyers who sue doctors can hold up bills.

I wish I was wrong about this.

State’s legislative schedule and structure are locked in the past

By Sherry Robinson

All She Wrote

In my time covering the Legislature, I watched thoughtful deliberations for the first few weeks of a session. After that the pace picked up, the days grew longer, and hearings stretched into the wee hours and filled weekends. In the final week, hoarse, exhausted legislators were still trying to move legislation, but many a good bill – maybe one you cared about – died because the clock ran out.

This is no way to run a railroad, I thought year after year.

New Mexico’s Legislature is locked in an outdated schedule and structure. Sessions are 60 days in odd-numbered years and 30 days in even-numbered years. Short sessions are devoted to the budget and whatever governors choose to add. It takes reforms and solutions years to lumber through such a system. And our “citizen legislators” are unpaid except for a per diem of $202 a day.

I believe it’s one reason New Mexico remains poor.

It’s been this way since 1964, when the length was changed from 60 days every other year to the current system. Meanwhile, other states extended their sessions and paid their legislators. By 2023 New Mexico had the nation’s only unpaid legislature.

In a stab at modernizing, lawmakers this year passed a bill to pay themselves, but they failed again to lengthen sessions. Both steps are necessary.

House Joint Resolution (HJR) 5 allows voters to decide in November whether to approve a salary of $64,140 beginning in 2029. The amount is the median income in New Mexico in 2024. That’s not an average but a midpoint between lowest and highest. The cost would be about $7.6 million a year.

New Mexico’s payment would be on the high side. The average salary for state legislators in 2025 was $47,904 a year, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL).

Rep. Cristina Parajón, D-Albuquerque, and other young, female sponsors talked about how difficult it was to balance jobs, family, student loans and legislative duties. Republicans and a few Democrats opposed HJR 5 in both chambers. Some feared that candidates would run for the paycheck and not to serve the public, while others just didn’t think it was a good use of taxpayer dollars.

HJR 5 is based on Alabama’s system. Nobody would say Alabama is governed by free-spending liberals, but that state pays its legislators $62,212 a year for a session that’s three and a half months long – more than twice the length of ours. Arizona sessions are six months, Colorado’s are four, and Texas meets four and a-half months, according to NCSL.

While the salary would help out current legislators, the question we should be asking is: How do we get better decision making? The answer is more time to hear and study bills.

But that half of the reform failed again. In HJR 6 Rep. Matthew McQueen, D-Galisteo, made his fourth try to get yearly sessions of 45 days. (Attempts by others to get yearly 60-day sessions have also failed.) McQueen also wanted legislators to be able to introduce their bills without governors setting limits on short sessions. An analysis by New Mexico In Depth showed that nearly half of this year’s bills didn’t make the cut.

“If I don’t get a bill passed in a 60-day session, I’m effectively done for two years, because I can’t automatically run it in a 30-day session unless I get permission from the governor,” McQueen told KUNM radio last year. “I’m in my 11th year in the Legislature. I’ve worked under two governors from different parties, and I’ve never received (permission) from a governor.”

Forty-five days is still way too short, but even this small change met defeat. The bill sailed through the House and died in the Senate, which is exactly what happened to his measure last year.

Republicans understand that our short calendars are bad for them. In 2021 Rep. Rod Montoya, R-Farmington, carried a bill like HJR 6, and he was a co-sponsor this year with McQueen.

What we’re talking about here is a more professional legislature that spends significantly more time in session. If our citizen legislators are honest, many would admit that they have merged the sessions with their personal and work lives and really don’t want to spend more time in Santa Fe on the people’s business.

McQueen has said New Mexico isn’t doing as well as it should because issues facing the Legislature are really complicated, and “you’re not going to solve these complicated issues in 60 days.”

Medical malpractice bill exposed willful ignorance and conflicts of interest

By Sherry Robinson

All She Wrote

Sen. Joe Cervantes was litigating House Bill 99, the medical malpractice reform bill, on the Senate floor, and he had plenty to say.

Two days earlier, Cervantes, a trial lawyer and Las Cruces Democrat, had defanged HB 99 with amendments in the Senate Judiciary Committee, which he chairs. Now, in a floor fight, he was grilling Sen. Crystal Brantley, R-Elephant Butte, who was trying to strip the Cervantes amendments and restore HB 99 to its original language. Cervantes droned on about legal points in what Brantley, who is not a lawyer, characterized as “a back-and-forth, condescending debate.”

Cervantes said, “I don’t mean to embarrass you.”

Brantley responded: “You can’t embarrass me. I represent seven rural counties that don’t have good access to healthcare.”

HB 99, by Rep. Christine Chandler, D-Los Alamos, attempts to right a wrong by reforming a medical malpractice law passed in 2021 that has spiked doctors’ insurance premiums, multiplied malpractice lawsuits, amped up awards and settlements, and driven doctors from the state. With no limit on punitive damages, New Mexico has enriched trial lawyers as it threatens doctors with financial ruin.

Brantley’s amendment prevailed 25 to 17 with all the Republicans and a handful of Democrats voting in favor. The bill itself passed 40 to 2, and the governor has promised to sign.

It’s a victory for doctors and patients, but it came perilously close to failing. Democrats who opposed the bill tried repeatedly to ambush it. The most strident were Cervantes and his fellow trial lawyers Sen. Katy Duhigg, D-Albuquerque, and Senate Majority Leader Peter Wirth of Santa Fe.

HB 99 not only exposed a lot of willful ignorance right up to the final vote, it spotlighted conflicts of interest.

Throughout the process, journalists have pointed out that Cervantes, Duhigg and Wirth make money suing doctors, but legislators were curiously silent on this conflict of interest.

Recently, Ed Williams of Searchlight New Mexico reported that Wirth had introduced House Bill 35 to fund an additional judge in the First Judicial District, where wrongful death and medical malpractice cases have proliferated in the last five years, according to a bill analysis. Many of the cases originate outside Santa Fe, but lawyers are venue shopping for a court more likely to award big judgements. Lawyers can receive up to 40% of a verdict or settlement.

Wirth has been working with Cervantes to bring wrongful death cases in Santa Fe, Williams wrote. “In other words, the senator who introduced a measure to help clear more cases through the First Judicial District is himself contributing to the extra lawsuits making that bill necessary.”

On the Senate floor, Wirth said it was “preposterous” that he could benefit from the bill. He represents estates and is paid hourly regardless of outcome – unless the malpractice bill discourages the number of cases.

After that story ran in The Santa Fe New Mexican, readers were outraged.

Ouida MacGregor, a former Santa Fe city councilor, berated Wirth, Cervantes and Duhigg for mixing business and legislation and for killing malpractice reform last year. “In my opinion, Wirth and Cervantes have tarnished the legislative process, the legal profession and bamboozled the voters who believed they were honorable. Both men should resign.”

Columnist Milan Simonich wrote: “Both senators should have excused themselves from every debate and all votes on a bill to cap punitive damages that juries can award in malpractice cases… Between the two of them, leadership was nowhere to be found.”

He called for their resignations and said the Senate should choose new leaders.

Wirth’s courthouse bill died, but the controversy prompted the New Mexico Ethics Commission to opine that there is no legal basis to keep attorneys from voting on bills that affect their law practice. It’s up to the Senate and House to come up with rules.

According to Senate rules, “The members shall not use their offices for private gain and shall at all times maintain the integrity and discharge ethically the high responsibilities of their legislative positions. Full disclosure of real or potential conflicts of interest shall be a guiding principle for determining appropriate conduct of the members.”

In other words, senators decide for themselves if they have a conflict of interest. Do you trust these guardians of the chicken coop?

One-sided Clear Horizons Act failed in Senate

By Sherry Robinson

All She Wrote

The Clear Horizons Act was another of those bills we’ve seen so often in New Mexico that balances the environment against the economy. In a floor vote, the Senate chose the economy.

Senate Bill 18 was a marquis bills that got a lot of attention before and during the session. Senate President Mimi Stewart, D-Albuquerque, revamped the bill she carried last year. It would help reduce natural disasters driven by climate change if legislators could cement greenhouse gas reductions in state law, supporters believed.

I’m not a climate-change denier, but I do pay attention when chambers of commerce, agriculture, dairy, utilities, tribes, construction, restaurants, mining, and oil and gas line up shoulder to shoulder in staunch opposition.

This year’s version would have made the governor’s 2019 executive order a law that mandated reducing greenhouse gas emissions 45% by 2030, 75% by 2040 and 100% by 2050. (The executive order remains in place, but when the governor’s term ends this year, a new governor could rescind the order.) And it would have set new methane emission limits for the oil and gas industry. Stewart tried to sweeten the bill by targeting the largest emitters and by allowing carbon offset programs for smaller oil and gas companies or those operating on tribal lands. The business sector wasn’t mollified.

Proponents and opponents spent heavily on advertising, not that you could learn much. Most of the ads predicted the sky would fall but didn’t explain what, exactly, the bill would do. After some searching I could see an outline of the arguments.

It begins with very big numbers. Keep in mind that New Mexico ranks second in oil production, behind Texas, and that the oil and gas industry generates about 35% of the state’s general fund revenue. In broad brushstrokes, the governor, Stewart and environmentalists figured that costs of the Clear Horizon Act would peel off a fraction of revenues, like sipping from a firehose. Stewart argued that we don’t have to choose between economic development and clean air. Industry countered that even a small percentage would be a big dent.

A similar law enacted in Colorado reduced production by 2%. That doesn’t sound like much, but in New Mexico a 2% reduction would diminish the state’s general fund by $53 million in 2030, according to calculations provided to the New Mexico Oil and Gas Association by the New Mexico Tax Research Institute. Also in 2030, it would ding the permanent fund by $183 million, and local governments would lose $48 million. The hits for 2050 are nearly $2 billion to the general fund, $1 billion to the permanent fund and $270 million for local governments.

Such a law in California reduced production by 6%.

That’s just the state revenue side. Representatives from agriculture, oil and gas, construction, rural electric utilities and conservation districts all testified that SB 18 would raise costs of energy, goods and services for consumers and lead to business failures .

Mind you, opponents don’t oppose a transition to cleaner energy. “These investments are good and necessary, but the timeline and mandates in SB 18 are too aggressive for our customers,” said Matthew Stackpole, speaking for the Greater Albuquerque Chamber of Commerce.

Supporters of Project Jupiter, the data center going up in Santa Teresa, also complained about costs to consumers, along with the strong potential for litigation.

Ultimately, Republicans and seven Democrats shot it down 23 to 19 on fears that it would strangle the state’s economy. Environmentalists are mad at the seven, but bills like these separate the moderates from the progressives. It’s telling that one thumbs down came from Senate Finance Committee Chairman George Muñoz, of Gallup, a businessman who has a better understanding of the state’s revenues than most people in the Roundhouse. Others were: Bobby Gonzales of Taos; Shannon Pinto of Tohatchi, Benny Shendo of Jemez Pueblo, Joe Cervantes of Las Cruces, and Martin Hickey and Moe Maestas, both of Albuquerque.

Republican Gabriel Ramos, of Silver City, said: “I do believe we do need clean air (and) we need clean water. I mean, it’s something that we all want, but I think we’re not at a point to be so drastic.”

Sponsors, no doubt, will be back with the bill next year, but between now and then they should have some serious conversations with business and industry. Clearly, that didn’t happen this year.

It’s been a long road to involuntary mental health treatment

By Sherry Robinson

All She Wrote

He was sprawled across the exit lane of a busy shopping center as I was trying to leave. I stopped my car and ran over to do something, but what? Two other good Samaritans joined me. We dragged him out of traffic and called 911. He told me he was having a seizure, but it seemed more likely that he was wasting away from years of substance abuse. The fire department arrived in minutes, and the senior officer greeted the man by name.

“We see this guy ALL the time,” the firefighter said.

I knew the police have to contend repeatedly with the same folks and their mental demons and addictions, but until that moment I didn’t know fire departments were frustrated too. Which is why both testified in favor of a bill to expand involuntary mental health treatment.

Senate Bill 3 changes two definitions used to decide if people can be ordered into mental health treatment against their will, a legal process called involuntary civil commitment. The goal is to treat and provide services to more people and clarify current laws, Sen. Moe Maestas, D-Albuquerque, explained on Feb. 4 to the House Judiciary Committee. “It’s a wonderful first step in assisting practitioners and courts in getting people treatment.”

For years mentally ill people have been in and out of courts, jails and hospitals. Current law requires them to actively commit to getting well and getting sober, but they may be incapable of taking that step, so nothing happens and they continue downhill until they’re in imminent danger. SB 3 allows earlier intervention.

SB 3 asks the court to look at behavior in the recent past. Does the person have the “decisional capacity” to care for themselves – to make decisions about food, medical treatment, shelter and safety? Has the person recently tried to hurt someone or themselves and are they likely to do it again? The bill would allow doctors, law enforcement and family members to petition the courts earlier for assisted outpatient treatment. It would not expand confinement or reduce due process.

The governor has been trying to get a law like this on the books for a couple of years, and SB 3 is one her priority bills.

In her final State of the State speech in January, the governor said: “Earlier this year, my office got a letter from Elizabeth, whose 42-year-old son is struggling with addiction and mental illness. She worries every day that he could critically injure himself or someone else. He’s living on the streets, sometimes beaten and bruised, and in and out of jail. She fears any day could be his last. And just as heartbreaking he could hurt somebody else.”

She said she’d heard such stories too often. “It’s the result of a system that confuses compassion with neglect. When someone is a danger to themselves or others because of mental illness, addiction — or far too often both — we need the legal tools to keep communities safe and get New Mexicans the help they need… We must take action, instead of just watching and waiting for tragedy to strike.”

Last year Maestas carried a similar bill that passed the Senate but died in the House on objections from disability and civil rights advocates who see potential for abuse in involuntary treatment.

To their credit, lawmakers in 2025 passed and the governor signed bipartisan bills to improve behavioral health services in the state and reform criminal competency laws. And they made serious investments in the behavioral healthcare system by creating a behavioral health trust fund to provide long-term financing.

With those building blocks, the bipartisan SB 3 through the process, passing two committees unanimously, the Senate by 37 to 3 and the House by 58 to 10. It’s headed for the governor’s desk.

Cops like the bill, saying it gives them better, clearer choices. One officer said he had arrested one woman more than 200 times, and all he could do was take her to jail. Another said it would “remove uncertainty for officers in the field.”

A firefighter testified, “Our only choice is to take them to the hospital, but that floods the healthcare system, and then they’re back on the street. This allows first responders to remain first responders.”

Disability advocates and the ACLU still don’t like the idea of involuntary treatment. Given our recent abuses of guardianships, they’re not wrong. Maestas believes SB 3 has protections built in.

The revamped bill still leaves out a man I’ve seen for months now at a nearby intersection. He paces in his stocking feet, talking to the voices in his head. He may not be dangerous, but I know how this ends. I would ask the advocates, is it his right to die on the street? © 2026 NEW MEXICO

NEWS SERVICES 2/3/26

Medical malpractice reform stumbles in first legislative hearing

By Sherry Robinson

All She Wrote

Before explaining her medical malpractice reform bill, Rep. Christine Chandler complained about the “noise” surrounding New Mexico’s doctor shortage – angry rhetoric about trial lawyers on one side and corporate healthcare on the other. The Los Alamos Democrat was hoping to cut a middle path through a thorny field with her bipartisan House Bill 99.

But during a long, intense hearing before the House Health and Human Services Committee, the angry rhetoric about corporate-owned hospitals won. Committee Democrats crippled HB 99 with an amendment.

HB 99 responds to a medical malpractice climate in New Mexico that’s spiking insurance premiums for providers and driving doctors away. We have no limit on punitive damages, creating a field day for trial lawyers and threatening doctors with financial ruin. The bill would cap punitive damages at $900,000 for doctors, $1 million for outpatient healthcare facilities and $6 million for hospitals. It would also pay plaintiffs’ medical costs as they’re incurred rather than in a lump sum and increase the standard of proof needed to award damages.

Chandler told the committee that last summer she decided to “move beyond the rhetoric” and look at what was going on with medical malpractice by studying laws in other states. Her conclusion: “We are very much out of alignment with how other states handle malpractice. As a result, it places us at a disadvantage for recruiting and retaining physicians and other healthcare providers.”

The bill’s co-sponsor, House Minority Leader Gail Armstrong of Magdalena, said HB 99 “sends a strong signal that New Mexico values its doctors.”

Chandler, a lawyer, focused primarily on punitive damages. Not only do we allow far higher punitive damages than other states, we allow them in the initial lawsuit and not later in the proceeding as other states do, so they become a weapon against doctors in settlement talks. Also, individual providers are lumped in with large organizations.

Committee Chair Liz Thomson, who has long been hostile to malpractice reform, lobbed an unfriendly amendment denying the $6 million cap to corporate-owned hospital systems. It would leave out most of the state’s hospitals, such as Presbyterian Health Services and Lovelace Health System, and protect only a few.

Thomson, an Albuquerque Democrat, said she wanted to protect individual providers and local hospitals but not the biggest players, accusing them of sacrificing medical care to the bottom line.

Questioned by House Minority Whip Alan Martinez, R-Bernalillo, Thomson floundered. She wanted to “tease out different groups,” she said, especially “huge multi-billion-dollar corporations,” but she couldn’t name any of them.

“We promised our constituents we would fix medical malpractice,” Martinez said. “Now we’re starting to carve out people because we have an itch against corporate hospitals. You have taken a good negotiated bill and poisoned it with this amendment.”

Rep. Jenifer Jones, a nurse from Deming, cut to the chase: “You said you would protect locally owned hospitals. This protects four… I have one hospital in my district that 29,000 people depend on for care. My hospital is owned by a corporation. If it’s not covered, it’s not good for New Mexicans. My hospital is still at risk.”

With one poorly written amendment, Thomson exploded a delicate nonpartisan deal.

Committee Republicans argued that the amendment defeats the purpose of HB 99 and leaves most of the state’s healthcare facilities vulnerable.

Committee Democrats (Thomson, Pamelya Herndon, Marianna Anaya, Joanne Ferrary, Eleanor Chavez and Kathleen Cates), repeated trial-lawyer talking points and ranted about multi-billion-dollar corporations, apparently unaware that without these corporate operators large swaths of the state would have no healthcare at all. I want to invite each one of them for coffee and explain how business actually works.

For example, a doctor from Presbyterian’s hospital in Española testified that in 2025 his facility’s medical malpractice insurance premiums cost an additional $3.7 million, which was about the same amount as the MRI equipment they hoped to buy but couldn’t.

The offending amendment and the gutted bill passed the committee.

As the hearing ended and Armstrong saw months of work evaporate, she said, “I will not keep my name on this bill if it becomes a band-aid.”

But tomorrow is another day.

HB 99 now moves to the House Judiciary Committee, which Chandler chairs, so she can repair the bill. Strangely, it’s even possible that Thomson did us a favor by damaging HB 99 enough to make it palatable to the committee’s brainwashed Dems. Without the amendment, it probably would have failed.

Minnesota’s immigration violence drives NM legislation

By Sherry Robinson

All She Wrote

Watching the horror show in Minneapolis, I’ve been thinking about a woman I once met who told me she could trace her family back 20 generations in New Mexico. I’m wondering what would happen if she met ICE agents prowling for Hispanic people. Could she explain her genealogy before being yanked out of her car and handcuffed? Do ICE’s poorly trained, undisciplined “personnel” even know that Spanish-surnamed people lived here long before there was a United States?

We’ve seen the answer for Native Americans, whose ancestors built civilizations here a thousand years before Europeans wondered what was across the sea. ICE arrested Lakota people in the Twin Cities. In Arizona, they threw Peter Yazzie to the ground, zip-tied his hands, detained him and told him they would get his kids next; the Navajo man had a driver’s license, birth certificate and certificate of Indian blood.

We’re different here. New Mexico’s history is longer than that of the United States itself. We’re also a minority majority state. Little Liam Ramos in his blue bunny hat could be any kid in any New Mexico town. When I look at the people around me in public places, I fear for them when ICE expands its campaign here.

In this backdrop of violence, fear and rage, legislators are moving immigration bills.

ICE’s street execution of Renee Good was fresh in mind as Rep. Eleanor Chavez, D-Albuquerque, introduced the Immigration Rights Act. House Bill 9 would bar local governments from contracting with the federal government to detain people for alleged immigration violations. Six other states have similar laws. It wouldn’t affect private CoreCivic operations in Cibola and Torrance counties that contract directly with ICE, but it would shut down the Otero County Processing Center. In November the three jails held more than 1,500 people, according to TRACreports.org; the Otero facility accounted for more than half.

During a long, emotional debate Chavez argued that it was wrong for New Mexico to make money from immigrant detention. "We have the power to stand up against this campaign of terror and intimidation," she said. Her co-sponsor, Rep. Angelica Rubio, D-Las Cruces, derided “an economy built on cages.” Rubio has tried for years to pass such a bill, and this year national events will probably push the bill across the finish line.

Rep. John Block, an Alamogordo Republican, put up such a strenuous fight against the bill that would cost 300 jobs in his district that the committee chair accused him of harassing the bill’s sponsors and expert witnesses.

Fellow Republican Rep. Stefani Lord worried about the impact on CoreCivic in Torrance County in her district. She questioned whether sponsors only care about inmates as long as they’re in New Mexico. Otero County Attorney R.B. Nichols testified that the bill would hurt three counties’ economies but not "address the issue that is trying to be stopped” because detainees would still be processed somewhere.

To that point, SourceNM reported that dozens of immigrants unlawfully detained in Minneapolis have found themselves in the Torrance County Detention Facility, far from family and the legal help they need to defend themselves.

HB 9, blessed by the governor, passed its first committee 4 to 2 on a party-line vote.

That moved Sen. James Townsend, R-Artesia, to appeal to U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi to intervene because HB 9 “raises serious constitutional concerns.” It’s similar, he argues, to a CoreCivic lawsuit against New Jersey over a law that would have prevented the company from renewing a contract with ICE. A federal Court of Appeals ruled against the state. However, HB 9 and the New Jersey law are different, according to SourceNM. Testimony makes it clear the bill won’t affect CoreCivic.

When Townsend posted his letter to Facebook, he got hundreds of likes from people who hope the move can save Otero County jobs. Not posting: the hospitality industry, the construction industry, the home maintenance industry, agriculture and any other sector that needs those workers.

Townsend has given an administration itching to beat up Democratic governors and mayors another reason to send its storm troopers to New Mexico – unless somebody’s paying attention to recent New York Times-Sienna polling that finds 63% of Americans disapprove of how ICE is doing its job. This was before ICE murdered VA nurse Alex Pretti.

Democrats planned to fast track HB 9 and other immigration bills. With Pretti’s bloody death, they’re now on a rocket sled to the governor’s desk.

Legislators brush aside water management as crises loom

By Sherry Robinson

All She Wrote

“Water overuse is rampant and unaddressed by the state.”

Norm Gaume, one of the state’s foremost water experts, doesn’t mince words when he talks about New Mexico water.

“The Legislature treats water as if it’s a chronic issue that’s never going to be solved, but it’s an acute issue that’s eating our lunch,” he told New Mexico Press Women recently.

Gaume is president of the nonprofit New Mexico Water Advocates, former director of the New Mexico Interstate Stream Commission, and engineer-adviser to the New Mexico Commissioner for the Rio Grande Compact.

He sees two crises.

Crisis #1: For decades, the Middle Rio Grande (basically, the Albuquerque metro area) and Elephant Butte Irrigation District have overused water and delivered less than Texas is entitled to under the Rio Grande Compact. The multi-year Texas lawsuit is about to settle, and New Mexico will pay the piper. If you think this doesn’t affect you, think again.

New Mexico will have to substantially reduce its groundwater pumping, keep the groundwater table high enough to allow the river to function, and deliver water required by the compact despite a hotter, dryer climate. It means buying and retiring thousands of acre-feet of groundwater.

“New Mexico is on the cusp of new violations due to overuse in the Middle Rio Grande,” Gaume said. “The state of New Mexico will violate the compact again in 2026, and the state will hit taxpayers again.” And Texas will sue again.

Crisis #2: The state’s two water agencies, the Office of the State Engineer (OSE) and the Interstate Stream Commission, are not doing their jobs, Gaume wrote recently on nmwateradvocates.org – in part because they don’t have personnel and resources and in part because they’ve grown “tentative and cautious,” he wrote. “They are slow to make decisions, take initiative, and effectively manage projects to timely completion.”

“The results of this neglect are huge taxpayer burdens, legal jeopardy for the state, danger for water users, and disregard for the river and species who depend on it.”

We don’t lack water laws, he says, we lack enforcement. Laws passed with fanfare over the years remain unfunded and unimplemented.

Remember that State Engineer John D'Antonio, one of the most capable men to hold the job, resigned in 2021 because he was fed up with lousy financial support and unfunded mandates. Two senior attorneys left with him. At the time OSE had 67 fewer employees than it did ten years earlier. For three years D’Antonio had asked for more money to stand up the state’s 50-year water plan, and for three years the governor and Legislature looked the other way.

Political will is a bigger challenge than money, Gaume says. Other than a recent flutter of interest in produced and brackish water, optimistically called “new water,” the governor and Legislature simply aren’t interested in effective water management. And the Legislature no longer has a water champion, like Joe Stell, of Carlsbad, or Melanie Stansbury, who went on to become a Congresswoman.

Recently Gaume was so concerned by OSE’s vague and timid funding requests presented to the Legislative Finance Committee that he filed an Inspection of Public Records Act request to obtain the original proposal to the Governor’s Office. He learned that OSE and ISC originally asked for 17 more positions and $3.5 million more in recurring spending.

That proposal “reads as an institutional warning and a cry for help,” Gaume wrote. It’s an admission that the two water agencies don’t have capacity to manage the state’s water. The tone of the narratives reflected “an operating environment defined by an overwhelming workload, deadlines, penalties, and diminishing discretion.”

In his talk, Gaume added, “OSE didn’t tell legislators what they needed because they didn’t have the governor’s permission.”

Presently, the executive and legislative funding proposals are close, and neither includes new jobs.

I’ve been writing about water since the heady days when we believed we had endless lakes underground. Scientists have disabused us of that idea, and yet I think we cling to an irrational notion that there’s water to be had, or, as I’ve often heard, “water runs uphill to money.” We also assume the water agencies are, somehow, minding the store. Gaume wants you to know they are not.

He and other water experts I’ve quoted aren’t all doom and gloom. We have water, they say, but it’s finite and it must be managed. Otherwise, we’re pumping our future away.

Democrats blame everyone but themselves as doctors leave the state

By Sherry Robinson

All She Wrote

Something I’m hearing lately is, “That’s medicine in New Mexico,” spoken by weary doctors trying to explain a two-month waiting list for a physical therapist or a delayed procedure.

Every doctor I’ve seen this year is tired. Their staffs are tired. The surly nurse practitioner who treats me at one office has become too tired to be surly. This is because doctors leaving the state or retiring early throw more work on those who remain, and that safety net was already thin.

Tired, stretched healthcare workers make more mistakes and become ever more vulnerable to New Mexico’s predatory medical malpractice lawyers.

Heading into the legislative session that begins Jan. 20, we know a lot about our doctor shortage, but if you’re expecting the Legislature to do something, don’t expect much. Lawmakers owned by the New Mexico Trial Lawyers Association are twisting themselves into knots making nonsensical arguments about why you don’t have medical care.

Here’s what we know going into the session:

· There is a national doctor shortage, but it’s far worse in New Mexico. Between 2019 and 2024 we lost 248 doctors, or 8.1% of working physicians. In the same period the number of doctors nationally increased.

· New Mexico has the oldest cadre of working doctors in the country, with 37% likely to retire by 2030. That includes my own beloved primary doctor.

· In rural areas, some clinics are one retirement away from closing. Many communities have lost so many services that patients, including pregnant women, must drive long distances to get basic care.

In 2021, when hospitals were slammed by the pandemic, Rep. Daymon Ely, a former president of the Trial Lawyers Association, rewrote the Medical Malpractice Act without any input from doctors. Legislators raised the caps on malpractice liability for individual providers from $600,000 to $750,000. They jacked up caps for hospitals from $600,000 to $6 million over five years, one of the highest caps in the country. They allowed the plaintiff to go after multiple defendants for the same large amounts. And they didn’t cap attorney fees or punitive damages.

The new law hit New Mexico in a double tsunami of lawsuits and malpractice premiums. But it’s been a bonanza for trial lawyers.

With spiking lawsuits came eye-popping payouts. Nearly all these lawsuits include punitive damages, which aren’t covered by malpractice insurance.

Dr. Mark Epstein, a former emergency doctor, wrote recently: “(O)ne of the most urgent concerns among physicians today (is) the ever-present threat of uncapped punitive damages.” Because one lawsuit can threaten a physician’s home, savings and future, “many physicians settle claims even when their care may have been appropriate. They settle quickly because the risk of losing everything is simply too great.”

New Mexico’s malpractice premiums are now double that of other states.

Dr. Todd Goldblum, a pediatric ophthalmologist, wrote recently: “The income I generate from surgery barely covers the insurance cost… In effect, I’m working to pay for protection from lawsuits rather than caring for patients.”

He has chosen to retire early.

Also retiring early is Dr. Debbie Vigil, an OB-GYN. Her first medical malpractice bill after the 2021 legislative session was double that of the previous year, even though she’d never had a malpractice judgement. After losing money in 2022 and 2023, she hoped for legislative relief, but lawmakers did nothing. She closed her practice in July 2023.

New Mexico has become the place nobody wants to practice. Physician recruiting and retention are increasingly difficult, even for large organizations.

The Democrats who created this sinkhole attack the messenger, the nonprofit Think New Mexico, but never explain why everything changed after 2021.

To Rep. Liz Thomson, chair of the Health and Human Services Committee, it’s all a “phantom” problem and “political theater.” Rep. Thomson, why not call it a hoax? That’s working pretty well in Washington.

A doctor told me that she took a day from her inhumanly busy practice to testify before Thomson’s committee, only to have Thomson call the doctors before her liars. Thomson has claimed that reformers “point fingers at patient advocates’ and “propose solutions that harm a patient’s access to justice.” They have not.

Sen. Katy Duhigg, who, with Sen. Judiciary Committee Chairman Joseph Cervantes, torched the lone bill that could quickly increase providers in the last session, claims she’s helped craft a new, improved bill. Duhigg, a trial lawyer, papers over our doctor shortage by saying all states have a doctor shortage. Cervantes, like Thomson and Duhigg, carps about “the ‘trial lawyer’ narrative that is being used these days to raise money.”

Is anyone getting tired of politicians telling us our experience isn’t real? That doctors are making it all up?

Democrats and their trial-lawyer handlers created this mess. Only they can fix it.

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