The state legislature’s special session on public safety could have gone on for days, but it ended yesterday afternoon, less than five hours after it started.
None of Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham’s proposed measures were debated, but lawmakers passed a funding bill that provides 100 million dollars for wildfire and flooding relief and another three million dollars to expand assisted outpatient treatment and competency diversion pilot programs.
The two houses voted a combined 97 to 7 in favor of the measure.
The underlying irony of the day was that Republican lawmakers were ready to debate and perhaps pass components of the Democratic governor’s agenda. But Democrats wouldn’t have it. They spoke out against several of the proposals from the outset.
After the State House of Representatives approved the $103 million bill it brought forward, it then adjourned with no known date for returning to the measures, citing a legislative principle known as sine die in the Latin.
About an hour and half after the Senate also adjourned, ending the one-day session, the governor issued a withering statement, accusing lawmakers of avoiding their responsibilities and saying that the public should be quote “outraged.”
One of the areas of disagreement between Democratic lawmakers and the governor was a criminal competency bill that would have provided a path for mandating behavioral health and drug addiction treatment.
Democratic senator from Bernalillo County, Gerald Ortiz y Piño says that the legislature has already earmarked money for voluntary outpatient programs, but that the state administration has failed to implement them.
“The issue is that the executive branch has not really felt the urgency of expanding services,” Ortiz y Piño said. “They're instead urging us to change the law that will increase the demand for services, but we don't have adequate services to meet that demand, so that people will wind up in jail.”
Several Republicans praised the governor’s resolve and lamented the actions of their colleagues. One of them was Belen senator Gregory Baca.
“Why would we not take an opportunity to take a step? Why deny progress in pursuit of perfection? Here we could move the needle. Maybe not where we need it to be, but let's get off the number one list for crime in this nation,” Baca said.
The one successfully passed bill from yesterday’s abbreviated session now awaits either a signature or veto from Governor Lujan Grisham.
