Senator Craig Brandt Issues Statement After Democrats Kill ‘Revolving Door’ Bill
January 29, 2024
SANTA FE—Today, Senate Republican Whip, Senator Craig Brandt (R- Rio Rancho) presented Senate Bill 122 before the Senate Health and Public Affairs Committee. Despite support from top law enforcement officials and prosecutors, Democrats on the committee tabled the bill on a 5-4 vote. The bill would have changed the law to allow for the holding of violent offenders pending trial to ensure they do not commit further crimes.
Following the tabling of the bill, Senator Brandt issued the following statement:
“Make no mistake—the reason the executive, criminal prosecutors, and law enforcement all supported this measure is because there is consensus that career criminals are aided and abetted by this weakness in our bail system. By voting down this measure, progressive Democrats from Albuquerque stood on the side of criminals and left the safety and security of our communities in jeopardy.”
“These legislators say they are committed to addressing New Mexico’s crime crisis, but votes like this expose their words are nothing more than lip service. The people of our state deserve better, and moving forward, I hope the people will demand better from those they elect to office.”
Senator Craig Brandt Applauds Advancement of Law Enforcement Recruitment Bills
January 29, 2024
SANTA FE—Senate Republican Whip, Senator Craig Brandt (R- Rio Rancho), today applauded the advancement of two law enforcement recruitment bills through the Senate Health and Public Affairs Committee. Senate Bill 87 would allow retired law enforcement officers and first responders to return to work while collecting their retirement. Senate Bill 124, meanwhile, would allow law enforcement officers from other states or those with federal law enforcement service to buy up to five years of service in the state’s retirement system.
Senator Brandt issued the following statement regarding the advancement of these bills:
“To see a safer New Mexico, we must retain, recruit, and support our law enforcement officers. Our first responders stand in the divide between a depraved criminal world and our families. Thank you to our officers who work daily to protect our families and their leadership who helped us craft these bills.”
Senate Bill 87 and Senate Bill 124 will now be referred to the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Senator Craig Brandt Issues Statement Following Advancement of Racketeering Bill
January 29, 2024
SANTA FE—On Friday, Senate Bill 102 advanced through the Senate Health and Public Affairs Committee with unanimous, bipartisan support. The bill aims to strengthen the state’s racketeering law to give prosecutors an additional tool to go after modern criminal organizations.
Senate Republican Whip, Senator Craig Brandt (R-Rio Rancho), the bill’s sponsor, issued the following statement regarding the bill:
“After having conversations with top prosecutors and law enforcement, one thing is clear—it is career criminals who underpin the criminal enterprise fueling our state’s crime crisis. This bill is a key tool in the toolbelt of prosecutors, allowing them to attack and prosecute modern criminal organizations at every link in the chain. I’m thankful to the committee for their endorsement of this essential crimefighting legislation.”
Senate Republicans Respond to Advancement of 14-Day Waiting Period for Firearms Purchases
Bill would mandate the longest waiting period to buy a firearm in the nation
January 26, 2024
SANTA FE – Today, Senate Bill 69 advanced through the Senate Health and Public Affairs Committee on a vote of 5-3, with all Senate Republicans voting against the measure. The bill would mandate the longest waiting period to buy a firearm in the nation at 14 days. During testimony, the sponsor acknowledged that current litigation regarding similar measures in other states may overturn this legislation.
The Senate Republican members of the Senate Health and Public Affairs Committee, Senator Gregg Schmedes (R-Tijeras), Senator Greg Nibert (R-Roswell), and Senator Steven McCutcheon (R-Carlsbad), all voted against the measure and released the following statements:
“The sponsor of the bill failed to provide me with a single example of constitutionality for his proposed law,” said Senator Schmedes. “Rather, he called the recent SCOTUS opinion in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc. v. Bruen ‘absurd’ and predicts they will change their minds on the issue. So let’s call this what it really is—an attempt to curb and constrain the lawful purchase of firearms by law-abiding citizens.“
“The New Mexico Constitution is clear: ‘No law shall abridge the right of the citizen to keep and bear arms for security and defense, for lawful hunting and recreational use and for other lawful purposes,’” added Senator McCutcheon. “Clearly, this would abridge the constitutionally guaranteed rights of the people of New Mexico, and I hope the legislators who swore an oath to abide by the Constitution will vote against it.”
OP-ED: Democrats’ Backroom Bargaining Blemish Covered Up with Deception and Deflection
By: State Representative Rod Montoya (R-Farmington)
Just when you think progress is being made with regards to good government and legislative transparency, something happens that restores the public distrust and skepticism that has plagued public office holders for generations.
Last year, Democrats in the New Mexico Legislature laid the groundwork for what today can only be described as legislative malfeasance by attempting to fund, under the cover of darkness, hundreds of legislative staffers for House and Senate members. It was contentious to say the least as Republicans have vocally opposed this concept from the beginning. In short, Republicans believe funding legislative staff would be akin to taxpayer funded campaign staff. The effort last year failed, but Democrats were successful in appropriating millions of dollars to study the idea.
Fast forward to this legislative session. After the study was finalized last year and presented to a single committee, Democrats in both the House and Senate went quiet. There were no more discussions of legislator staff - not in committee, not during weeks of budget discussions, not in public forums and not in the media - and rightfully so. Probably because Democrats knew that the public is skeptical at best and worried their hard-earned money was going to go to what would effectively be campaign workers for individual legislators.
The silence continued up until this last Friday in the House Appropriations and Finance Committee, during a process called “catch up clean up,” when members of the committee were informed by the Chair that $6 million dollars had been added to the budget overnight for legislative staff.
The Chair shared no details, no guardrails, and no statutory language with committee members about how the new staffers are supposed to operate, and most importantly, no discussion or debate from those pushing this funding proposal. In fact, nobody even knows who made the decision to add the money in the first place. It was as if $6 million dollars magically appeared out of thin air, keeping clean the hands of those members who have been clamoring for campaign staff for years.
This at best is legislative misconduct and at worst is a violation of the public’s trust. It is also a reflection of how things were done in the old days before webcasts and accountability were something we as elected officials took pride in.
There is a reason Republicans have opposed this concept from the beginning; we simply cannot stomach the thought of hundreds of legislative staffers running around the state with no oversight, likely using taxpayer funds to engage in campaign activity. We know now why Democrats have snuck millions of dollars into the budget at the last minute and with zero discussion from elected members of the legislature; they too know the public does not want this either.
Sign These Petitions
Via Better Together New Mexico:
Gun Control Legislation
HB 127 CTA Under 21 Gun and Ammo Ban
https://oneclickpolitics.global.ssl.fastly.net/messages/edit?promo_id=21729
SB 5 Polling Place Gun Ban
https://oneclickpolitics.global.ssl.fastly.net/messages/edit?promo_id=21597
HB 114 Gun Store Liability Bill
https://oneclickpolitics.global.ssl.fastly.net/messages/edit?promo_id=21596
HB 129 14-Day Firearm Waiting Period
https://oneclickpolitics.global.ssl.fastly.net/messages/edit?promo_id=21594
HB 27 Red Flag Law Changes
https://oneclickpolitics.global.ssl.fastly.net/messages/edit?promo_id=21756
SB 90 Gun and Ammo Tax
https://oneclickpolitics.global.ssl.fastly.net/messages/edit?promo_id=21753
HB 137 GAS-OPERATED SEMIAUTO FIREARMS EXCLUSION ACT
https://oneclickpolitics.global.ssl.fastly.net/messages/edit?promo_id=21757
Energy Legislation
HB 133 Oil & Gas Act Changes
https://oneclickpolitics.global.ssl.fastly.net/messages/edit?promo_id=21739
HB 41 CLEAN TRANSPORTATION FUEL STANDARDS
https://oneclickpolitics.global.ssl.fastly.net/messages/edit?promo_id=21743
Environmental Legislation
2024 HJR 4 Environment Rights Constitutional Amendment
https://oneclickpolitics.global.ssl.fastly.net/messages/edit?promo_id=21733
Economic Legislation
Paid Family Medical Leave Act.
https://oneclickpolitics.global.ssl.fastly.net/messages/edit?promo_id=21642
HB125 PUBLIC BANKING ACT
https://oneclickpolitics.global.ssl.fastly.net/messages/edit?promo_id=21746
SB 110 PUBLIC BANKING ACT
https://oneclickpolitics.global.ssl.fastly.net/messages/edit?promo_id=21752
Crime Legislation
Denial of Bail
https://oneclickpolitics.global.ssl.fastly.net/messages/edit?promo_id=21755
GOP Bill to Watch
HB 51 - Gross receipts tax cut.
HB 111 - Funding for the completion of New Mexico’s border wall.
HB 121 - Requiring assessments and investigation into CYFD failures to provide plan of care.
HB 53 - Smokey Bear License & Plate
HB - 82 - Appropriation for the enhancement, expansion & continuing implementation of the New Mexico historic women marker program.
HB 110 - Instills penalties for abortion providers who kill a fetus with a detectable heartbeat. Requires they inform the mother of the fetus’ heartbeat.
HB 124 - Creates a bipartisan committee of legislators from both the House and Senate to ensure sufficient checks and balances are applied to administrative rules. This bipartisan committee will prevent current and future governors and their unelected appointees from abusing the administrative rule process to seize law and mandate-making ability without the approval of the elected legislature.
HB 167 - Requiring medical care for all infants who are born alive.
HM 3 - Requesting the secretary of health to convene a task force to study the prevalence, effects and lifetime fiscal impacts of prenatal substance exposure and adverse neonatal outcomes; requesting that the final results of the study be reported to the legislature.
HM111 - Requesting PED create a work group to study ways to help schools with absent children.
HJR 8 - Limit the governor’s emergency powers to 90 days unless she gets a 3/5 approval vote from the legislature.
HR 1 - Articles of impeachment against Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham.
SB 26 - (bipartisan) Makes an appropriation to the board of regents of NMSU for the NM Dept of Agriculture's existing livestock Mexican wolf compensation program.
SB 27 - Appropriation to the NM Department of Agriculture to fund and provide rootstock or vines for new vineyards in NM.
SB 37 - (bipartisan) Authorizing the NM livestock board to conduct meat inspections to ensure the safety and quality of meat for human consumption.
SB 51 - Authorizing the creation of a state meat inspection program to ensure the safety and quality of meat for human consumption.
SB 52 - Provide emergency funding to rural and frontier hospitals with fewer than thirty-five beds.
SB 83 - Requiring CYFD to conduct assessments and provide services upon failure to comply with a plan of care.
SB 93 - Appropriation for research and development of chile harvesting solutions and marketing of chile grown in NM.
SB 105 - Reducing the rates of several types of taxes and repealing other taxes.
SB 107 - A tax credit for each qualifying rural job the employer creates.
SB 117 - Increasing the amount of the special needs adopted child tax credit.
SB 112 - Allowing pregnant women in their third trimester to be issued temporary significant mobility limitation parking placards.
SB 125 - Make tax exemption on military retirement income permanent.
SB 154 - Amending the rights of sexual assault survivors. Providing more resources and avenues for police to investigate these crimes.
SM2 -Repeal the EIB’s electric vehicle mandate.
SM3 - A memorial to support Israel and condemn Hamas.
Democrat Anti-2A Bills
HB 27 - Seeks to expand the State Red Flag Gun Confiscation Law. It empowers law enforcement officers and unspecified licensed healthcare professionals to petition for extreme risk protective orders. Immediate firearm surrender is required upon service of these orders.
HB 114 - A bill that would force firearm retailers and manufacturers out of New Mexico by making it easy to sue them.
HB 129 - Adds a 14-day waiting period to a firearm purchase.
HB 127 - Raises the minimum age to purchase or possess a firearm to 21 years old.
HB 137- Semiautomatic rifle ban.
SB 5 - Makes 100 feet of all polling places, and 50 feet within a voting drobox gun-free zones under penalty.
SB 69 - Requires a 14-day waiting period for firearm purchases.
SB 90 - Imposing an additional tax on firearms and ammunition.
SJR 12 - Amends the NM constitution to allow municipalities and counties to regulate firearms in a manner that is more restrictive than state law.
GOP Pro 2A Bills
HB 81 - (bipartisan) Tax credit for those who purchase a secure gun storage box equal to the amount of the gun storage.
HB 79 - Provides a partial gross receipts tax reduction for the sale of firearms and ammunition.
HB 78 - Constitutional carry bill.
HB 58 - Eliminate the background check requirement for firearm purchases.
GOP Crime Bills
HJR 3 - Remove the requirements that only courts of record may deny bail and that only prosecuting authorities may request a hearing to determine whether bail is denied, to allow courts to deny bail for all types of criminal offenses
HB 44- Establishing a pre-trial presumption that a defendant has proven dangerous by clear and convincing evidence and no release conditions will protect the safety of the community.
HB 46 - Penalty for a felon in possession of a firearm is five years imprisonment.
HB 47 - Creating a crime of unlawfully carrying a firearm while trafficking controlled substances.
HB 56 - Clarifying that trespassing includes persons who knowingly enter without prior permission or remain on the lands of another knowing that the owner or lawful occupant did not provide permission; increasing the penalty for trespass in certain circumstances.
HB 57 - Chemical castration for sex offenders.
HB 60 - Makes necrophilia a crime.
HB 61 - Increasing the penalty for aggravated battery upon a peace officer.
HB 63 - Requiring the department of health to develop, maintain and oversee a cannabis school use prevention resource program;
HB 64 - Clarifying cannabis packaging requirements pertaining to children's safety.
HB 65 - Removing limitations on what may constitute reasonable suspicion of a crime involving cannabis
HB 69 - Creating the crime of organized residential theft; prescribing penalties.
HB 77 - Reinstate the death penalty
HB 80 - Relating to CYFD. Creating the crimes of assault and aggravated assault against a public service worker and battery and aggravated battery against a public service worker
HB 96 - Increasing the penalty for resisting, evading or obstructing an officer to a fourth degree felony.
HB 106 - Adding the exposure to the use of fentanyl as evidence of abuse of a child
HB 152 - Prohibiting driving with controlled substances or
Metabolites in the blood
HB 155 - Providing three strikes for violent felons for the purposes of life imprisonment; eliminating the possibility of parole. Providing that certain convictions incurred by a defendant before the age of eighteen shall constitute violent felonies
SB 66 - Increasing the penalty of making a shooting threat to a fourth degree felony
SB 73 - Reinstating the death penalty for murdering a peace officer
SJR 11 - Allow conditions for denial of bail and for pretrial detention. Remove the requirement that bail denial be made only by a court of record and remove the limitation of bail denial to defendants charged with a felony
SB 107 - Increasing the amount of the rural job tax credit; making the credit refundable and removing transferability
SB 122 - Establishing a rebuttable presumption that no release conditions will reasonably protect the safety of any other person or the community if a defendant is likely to pose a threat to the safety of others if released pending trial.
Other Bad Democrat Bills to Watch
HB 6 - Would codify a 12-week paid family and medical leave program. This act forces employees and employers to pay out of pocket into a fund managed by the New Mexico Department of Workforce Solutions. Employees will be required to contribute an additional .5% of their wages and employers an additional .4% to this fund.
HB 11- Would codify a six-week paid family medical leave program. Employees will be required to contribute an additional .5% of their wages to this fund.
HB 133 - Amend the Oil and Gas Act and institute new gas-killing regulations.
HB 41 - Clean Transportation Fuels Standard would raise gas prices by .50 a gallon.
HB 182 - Anti-first amendment. Creates a new broad definition of ‘materially deceptive media” and creates a crime for distributing it.
HM 8 - An anti-Israel memorial.
SJR 8 - Government power grab in the name of environmental rights.
SB 2 - Would further harm the oil and gas industry by increasing the royalty rates for oil and gas tracts of land through the New Mexico State Land Office.
SB 3 - Would codify a 12-week paid family medical leave. Employees will be required to contribute an additional .5% of their wages and employers an additional .4% to this fund.
SB 136 - Appropriates 1 million taxpayer dollars for the Governor, Lt. Governor, and her cabinet to purchase new electric vehicles to use throughout their term of office.
SB 147 - Adds an additional tax to liquor purchases making future purchases more expensive.
SB 158 - Creates a “constitutional revision commission” of 15 people appointed by the governor and others to study and recommend changes to the NM constitution.
NM Legislators in the Media:
Report: Backlog of CYFD investigations signals 'clear and urgent safety risk' for kids | Local News | santafenewmexican.com
https://www.kob.com/new-mexico/cyfd-leaders-face-tough-questions-as-lawmakers-seek-solutions
https://news.yahoo.com/mexico-republicans-turn-politics-version-043400836.html
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/2804738/new-mexico-gop-democratic-gov-impeachment
Lawmakers, business leaders prioritize CTE programming in Legislature | Business | abqjournal.com
Republican legislator files bills aimed at curbing crime in New Mexico (msn.com)
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