The 2025 New Mexico Legislative session begins on January 21st and runs through March 22nd .
Although many people focus their attention on national politics, the decisions made by our state legislature can have more impact on our day-to-day lives. For instance, our state legislature makes most of the decisions on how NM will handle repeat offenders and crime, how our schools operate, requirements for students to graduate, upkeep of our streets and water systems, whether to fund mental health and substance abuse treatment facilities, and much more. Many people seem to have limited knowledge of our state’s legislative processes, so this is intended as a primer to help more people understand the workings of our state government.
Like the national government, the NM legislature has two chambers consisting of the House of Representatives and the Senate. New laws, called Bills, are sponsored by state representatives and senators. Once a Bill has been sponsored, it is then assigned to committees that vote in order to allow the Bill to continue to the next committee. The NM House of Representatives and Senate each have committees for education, health, taxes, judiciary, finance, etc.
Many hundreds of Bills are introduced during each year’s legislative session, far too many to even be considered. Therefore, the Chair of each committee holds great power in setting the agenda of which Bills will be considered. A large number of Bills will never be heard in committee and will thus fail without any hearing. As an example, Senator Joseph Cervantes is head of the Senate Judiciary Committee, so he gets to decide whether public safety Bills are ever given any real consideration.
As a Bill works its way through each committee, there is a chance for the public to hear from the experts who are advocating for or against the Bill, as well as to make their own comments for consideration. The legislature allows comments to be made via Zoom, so anyone in the state can participate in these hearings. The committee Chair decides how many people are allowed to speak and the length of their comments. Some committee Chairs clearly value public input and allow everyone the chance to speak; other committee Chairs are more dismissive of public comment and severely restrict speaking time or number of comments that can be made.
If a Bill makes it through the committee hearings, it can then be voted on by the full House of Representatives or Senate. As Speaker of the House, Javier Martinez will determine which Bills will be voted on in the NM House of Representatives. As President Pro Tempore, Mimi Stewart will do the same for the NM Senate. Bills that pass in either the House of Representatives or Senate must then make their way through the other chamber. Bills passed by both chambers can then be signed into law by the Governor. All of the committee hearings and legislature meetings are webcast on the nmlegis.gov website.
New Mexico is ranked among the worst in the nation for education, poverty, violent crime, and the economy. Meanwhile, the legislature often passes laws that the majority of people would disagree with. For instance, in 2024 the legislature passed HB41, which imposes fuel standards expected to raise gasoline prices in New Mexico by ~$0.50-$0.80 per gallon. Another controversial law was HB7 , under which schools can be fined $5,000 per instance if teachers or nurses “interfere” with access to care by talking to children's parents about their transgender or abortion procedures. That law has no requirement for parental notification or age restrictions for children to access those procedures.
Most New Mexicans did not know these laws were being considered until it was too late to make their voices heard. Legislators often don’t talk about such laws until they have already voted (if at all), so people who want to be informed need to either monitor the legislative website or get connected with organizations who will do so. For instance, at the New Mexico Freedoms Alliance, we notify people when laws are being considered that may impact fundamental rights such as public safety, the right to bear arms, parents’ rights to be involved in their children’s healthcare or educations, taxation, women’s rights to single-sex athletics and bathrooms, etc. We all need to pay attention and get involved now if we want New Mexico to have a better future.
Bio: Sarah Smith is co-leader of the New Mexico Freedoms Alliance (non-partisan statewide grassroots coalition) and Vice Chair of the Coalition of Conservatives in Action in Las Cruces. Sarah is also a homeschooling mother of two teens, natural healthcare practitioner, and former NASA aerospace engineer.
