Gov. Lujan Grisham Weighs in on the Special Session

The governor and Legislature are co-equal branches of the state government. So, they don’t always see eye-to-eye, which in terms of their roles of checking and balancing one another isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Unlike last year’s special legislative session on public safety, where legislative Democrats adjourned in the matter of hours as a means of rebuffing Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s proposals, the Dems in both branches were mostly on the same page in last week’s two-day session.
 
State House Speaker Javier Martinez (D-Albuquerque) called the cooperation between his caucus and the executive ahead of the session a “great partnership,” clearly getting the proposals that passed pretty well baked before he gaveled the session in.  

The Legislature passed five Democratic bills that Lujan Grisham had called for, all of which she’s now signed. All six bills the Republicans filed sat unheard, though some of them aligned with the governor’s priorities that Democrats didn’t take up, such as reforming criminal competency and medical malpractice, and joining an interstate physician licensure compact. 

Because the House went late into the afternoon airing grievances, Lujan Grisham didn’t have time to deliver her customary reflection on the session in a press event. So, we tracked her down in her Santa Fe office this week to get her thoughts and share them with you.  

She agreed with Speaker Martinez that her office and legislative Democrats worked well together. 

“The most valuable thing, in addition to solving problems, that we could do is for the vast majority of us to be on the same page… So we agreed well in advance what would be on the agenda,” she said.  

The bulk of the bills aimed to fill emerging federal funding gaps from the GOP reconciliation bill (the so-called “One Big Beautiful Bill.”) I asked her how long New Mexico can prop up these programs with state dollars.  

While the money socked away in the state’s reserve accounts is plentiful, unlike many other states staring down federal cuts, how it can be spent is tightly restricted. If it weren’t, she said, “If we wanted to cover every lost federal fund, we could frankly do it for a couple of years.”  

But, “that’s not a sustainable practice,” Lujan Grisham said. “There is no state in America that can shore up their health care system without Congress coming to its senses.”  

Following a postmortem of the special session, we dug into the work left to do. The regular, 30-day session coming up in January will be the last for the two-term governor. So, I asked what she needs to see taken up in that session before she leaves office.  

“Expect more public safety, expect more targeted behavioral health, expect more accountability for all populations, and penalties… There are plenty more things that just didn’t get enough attention in the 60-day,” she said.  

“When you’re in a 10-mile hole, and I got us to only three miles — I’m (actually) going to use one mile — we’re one mile from the surface, and the feds do us no favors,” she said, “stay the course.”

Hear more from Lujan Grisham in our exclusive interview with the governor tonight at 7 p.m. on NMPBS and the PBS app. Find an extended version on the NMiF YouTube channel.  

-Nash Jones, Host