New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham signs Senate Bill 3, which seeks to rebuild the state’s behavioral health system, during a signing ceremony at the New Mexico Legislature on Feb. 27, 2025. (Photo by Austin Fisher / Source NM)
New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham signed three pieces of legislation on Thursday that she called a “monumental achievement” and a thoughtful effort to address crime, “the most serious issue our state is facing.”
At a packed signing ceremony and news conference on the Roundhouse’s fourth floor on Thursday morning, Lujan Grisham signed into law House Bill 8, known as the crime package, along with Senate Bill 1 and Senate Bill 3, known as the behavioral health package.
Lujan Grisham said the new laws come as the result of atypical cooperative legislative work, where lawmakers in both the House and Senate committed to making them the first priority for the 60-day session.
The new laws follow a failed and contentious special session on public safety last summer, after which the governor embarked on a statewide tour of town halls, gathering public support for her agenda.
House Speaker Javier Martínez (D-Albuquerque) said lawmakers promised last summer to listen to various interests, and worked with both parties and both chambers to come up with “the best path possible” to care for the most vulnerable and keep communities safe.
“I’m not one of the older dudes in the room, but from what I understand from my Senate colleagues, this is the first time that this level of cooperation has happened,” Martínez said. “And keep in mind: it happened over the course of 30 days on a set of very, very difficult issues.”
Senate Majority Floor Leader Peter Wirth (D-Santa Fe) said the new laws are the commitment lawmakers made when the special session in 2024 “did not go the way I know the governor wanted it to go.”
“With Senate Bill 3, the stars really aligned when you take on something this big, doing it in any session would be challenging, but doing on an expedited basis was something that I am very proud of,” Wirth said. “This is a little different. I guess I am the old dude on this.”
The governor on Thursday did not sign Senate Bill 2, which would give $140 million to 13 state agencies for grants and improvements from housing service providers to reading clinics and paying for treatment, because the money proposed in that bill was included in House Bill 2, the state budget for the upcoming fiscal year, Wirth said.
House Judiciary Chair Rep. Christine Chandler (D-Los Alamos) said House Bill 8 contains vetted approaches to deter crime worked on for hundreds of hours, and she is particularly proud of the provisions dealing with competency, which Lujan Grisham “really elevated for us.”
Chandler said the new law creates two pathways: one for people who are seriously ill and potentially dangerous, and the other for those who may get treatment and have their issues addressed more appropriately than in the past.
Senate Bill 3 makes the state court system responsible for making plans for what the specific behavioral health needs are in each region, and for providing case management. With the bill signed into law, New Mexico Supreme Court Chief Justice David Thomson said the judicial branch will immediately start implementing it.
“Both the Supreme Court and the Administrative Office of the Courts are committed to doing that,” Thomson said. “The government works when the branches come together.”
Lujan Grisham also outlined her priorities for the remainder of the session, including pretrial detention, civil commitment, changes to the Children’s Code and gun violence.
“I don’t know if I’m willing to say it’s like a step on the moon but we’re in a rocket,” she said. “Now I need us to land and do more stuff.”
Future special session would depend on federal action
The U.S. House GOP’s budget resolution, which President Donald Trump has endorsed, calls for the federal House Energy and Commerce Committee, which oversees the Medicaid and Medicare health programs, to find at least $880 billion in cost savings to aid Republicans in paying for other parts of the bill.
Congressional Democrats have argued that Medicaid would bear the brunt of those cuts because there’s no other way to find those savings.
Lujan Grisham said at an event in Albuquerque on Wednesday she is likely to call a special session in October, depending on whether the federal government cuts Medicaid.
When asked on Thursday how she envisions what New Mexico could do about possible federal budget cuts, she said she would expect a “great deal of agreement” if New Mexico needs to adjust its budget before a federal budget would take effect.
“I’m not worried about the willingness of this body to protect New Mexicans from draconian, unfair federal changes,” she said.
Medicaid is how most New Mexican children get health care, she said, and cuts to the program would be catastrophic.
“You take out Medicaid, it all collapses,” she said. “Every hospital, every behavioral health clinic, every federally qualified health center.”
She said she and legislative leaders have New Mexicans’ backs “to the highest degree that we can.”
“We have to wait and see what that is, when that is, where that is,” she said. “Special sessions, right now, are for emergencies. These are very serious issues that the federal government is creating, that we would attend to.”
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