New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham on July 3, 2025 said she may call a special legislative session to address fallout from the federal Republicans’ budget bill. (Eddie Moore / Albuquerque Journal)
New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham said Thursday she may need to call a special legislative session to address the impact to the state from the Congressional Republicans’ passage of their so-called “big beautiful bill.” The GOP’s tax and spending legislation includes cuts expected to cause millions of Americans to lose health care access through Medicaid; curtail food benefits through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program; and hurt rural hospitals, among other repercussions.
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“The Republican budget bill is an abomination that abandons working families and threatens the health and well-being of New Mexicans,” Lujan Grisham said in a statement. “Their vote to slash funding for health care and child nutrition to pay for tax cuts for the ultra-rich isn’t just bad policy—it’s an outright betrayal.”
The bill, she added, “will hit New Mexico hard. From cuts to Medicaid funding that keeps our rural hospitals open, to reductions in food assistance for children, to threats against education programs that ensure our kids have a brighter future, this budget puts politics over people. It also amounts to an egregious tax hike on Americans who will pay higher prices for health care, electricity, and other services.” The governor noted she is “prepared to call a special session if necessary to protect New Mexicans from their fiscal assault.”
Earlier this week, New Mexico Health Care Authority Secretary Kari Armijo told members of a newly established federal funding stabilization committee that as many as 88,530 New Mexicans will lose their Medicaid coverage due to provisions in the bill. The bill will also likely cause 58,180 New Mexicans to lose their Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits, she said.
New Mexico House Democrats issued a statement shortly after federal passage of the bill saying that “out-of-touch” Republicans had passed “the most cruel and backwards bill we have seen in our lifetimes.” Republicans, the statement said, “are kicking folks off their healthcare, shuttering our rural hospitals, letting children and seniors go hungry, and raising costs for all working people, in order to please President Trump and line the pockets of his ultra wealthy donors. This legislation will have a devastating impact on families across our country and right here at home.”
Legislative Finance Committee Director Charles Sallee also told lawmakers this week that New Mexico interest earning record oil and gas revenues will help buffer the state from some of the cuts, which House Democrats noted in their statement.
All three Democratic New Mexico members of the U.S. House of Representatives held a joint news conference shortly after the vote in Washington, D.C., with U.S. Rep. Melanie Stansbury, who represents the state’s 1st Congressional District, referring to the tax and spending legislation as a “big, ugly abomination of a bill” and the “biggest rollback in American history, directly attacking our communities.”
Stansbury further cited the effects on New Mexicans’ health care, food security and education, saying the bill “is going to have truly catastrophic impacts for New Mexico.” Republicans, she added, are trying to downplay those impacts.
“And so our question is, then, ‘Why did they have to pass it in the dark of night in both the Senate and the House?’ It’s because they know millions of Americans are going to be hurt by it, but they don’t care. Their message to America today is: They won. America loses. They don’t care. You can lose your health care, you can lose your food assistance, you can lose your education. They don’t care.”
That being said, Stansbury added, “We don’t want New Mexicans to lose hope. We want them to use their understanding of what’s about to happen to fuel the fight. We have to take back the House.”
U.S. Rep. Gabe Vasquez, who represents the southern portion of the state in the 2nd Congressional District, described himself as “furious.”
“This is the biggest tax giveaway to the richest people in this country, and it’s being paid for on the backs of working families,” Vasquez said. “And the saddest thing is, is that it’s taking health care away from those who need it the most.”
U.S. Rep. Teresa Leger Fernández from the 3rd Congressional District, said she refers to the budget reconciliation bill as the “betrayed for billionaires” bill. Leger Fernández further contrasted and described the types of bills passed under federal Democratic leadership, such as the Affordable Health Care Act, the Inflation Reduction Act and the American Rescue Plan, which helped insure all Americans, invested in renewable energy and stimulated the economy, respectively, she said.
“It shouldn’t be that just the wealthy get the good life,” she said. “We all want the good education, a good home, good health care, a beautiful planet to live on, right? That’s the good life. But Republicans are actually, instead of …waking up thinking about the American dream…we are waking up into the American nightmare because their big, ugly bill undoes all the progress that Democrats were making.”
This post was originally authored and published by Julia Goldberg from via RSS Feed. to get your news feed on Nationwide Report®.
