New Mexico governor wants to deal with state spending, voting reform & police body cams in special session

SANTA FE, New Mexico -- Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham has not yet released the official agenda for New Mexico's special legislative session due to begin Thursday, but she has indicated a broadened scope beyond budget matters to wade into potentially volatile issues of election procedure and police accountability.

The governor wants to consider possible election reforms amid concerns about ballot tally delays in New Mexico's June 2 primary.

“It could either be extending the time for absentee ballots, which we know is an issue and continues to be an issue as we see how many are coming through the mail,” she said. “It could be an emergency mail-in election system just related to Covid, just for the general election in November.”

She is also calling for legislation to mandate body cameras for all law enforcement agencies amid protests against police brutality in the wake of George Floyd's death.

“We should capture this moment. This is another civil rights movement in this country,” Lujan Grisham said.

“It’s possible in a special session that we have a requirement that every law enforcement entity — so police departments, sheriffs, State Police, corrections — everyone has to have a body camera. We want to know what’s going on. We want there to be transparency. We want the public to be more confident,” she explained.

On the budget front, Lujan Grisham is urging state lawmakers to tap state reserves and federal recovery money to preserve some state spending increases, including a 2% pay bump for public school personnel and state workers.

“That’s why you have reserves, so that you don’t collapse your entire operation system,” she said. “I feel like legislators are going to feel like this is responsible investing in our futures.”

State lawmakers are confronting a harrowing decline in annual state government income linked to economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic.

Economists recently revised estimates for state government income downward by $439 million for the current fiscal year ending on June 30 and by just under $2 billion for the coming fiscal year.

“We’re going to have some very serious problems going into 2022, maybe even more serious than we have this year,” said Republican Sen. William Burt of Alamogordo.