Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham signed a proclamation yesterday afternoon to officially kick off today’s legislative session on public safety.
In a press conference in the Roundhouse cabinet room, the governor was resolute about moving forward with the session despite calls from behavioral health providers and lawmakers in her own party to call it off.
Citing the “dangerous intersection” of crime and homelessness, the governor provided brief summaries of several proposals. Among them are plans for creating longer sentences for felons in possession of guns, another that would make it illegal to loiter on narrow road medians, and one relating to competency that would make it easier to place people with untreated mental illness and addiction issues into involuntary treatment.
In a letter sent last week to the governor from a large group of care providers, they protested the measures relating to competency and civil commitment due to questions about constitutionality and what they said was a shortage of professionals to provide mental health treatment.
Supporters of the governor’s plan say the problem isn’t a lack of treatment resources, but that most people who are arrested and have behavioral health issues resist voluntary treatment.
Governor Lujan Grisham said that the state has dismissed 16,000 cases since 2017 because defendants were identified as incompetent, and that more than five thousand of those cases were felonies.
Some state legislators have been criticizing the public session because they feel it doesn’t allow enough time to tackle complicated challenges. The Governor called that reasoning “unacceptable.”
“When someone tells you it's a big problem, it is,” said Governor Lujan Grisham. “And when they say to you, 'It's gonna take a lot of work,' it has. We are doing the work. But don't let them tell you that they don't have enough time. They've had decades and in fact, the failure of our legislature to take serious these issues in large part is exactly how we got to where we are today.”
Recent days and conversations with lawmakers have led to some last-minute additions to the suite of proposals for the public safety session.
The three newest ones, if approved, would strengthen the state’s racketeering act, address the availability of fentanyl, and aim to generate more aid for victims of the South Fork and Salt Fires and other natural disasters in New Mexico.
