Lt. Gov. Howie Morales, in his capacity as acting governor, has signed legislation that will provide full benefits for 459,500 New Mexicans who depend on SNAP for food assistance, even if the federal government does not supply the funding.
Morales signed House Bill 1 on Monday evening after the Legislature adjourned following a four-hour-long special session.
“I am proud that we came together in the best spirit as New Mexicans to make sure vulnerable families in our state are taken care of. This legislation ensures New Mexicans can feed their families this holiday season,” Morales said in a press release. Morales served as acting governor during the special session while Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham is in Brazil at a conference on climate change.
House Bill 1 passed the House 52-9 and the Senate 30-6. In the House, Republicans Gail Armstrong of Magdelena, John Block of Alamogordo, Jonathan Henry of Artesia, Stefani Lord of Sandia Park, Alan Martinez of Bernalillo, Angelita Mejia of Dexter, Andrea Reeb of Clovis, Elenan Sena-Cortez of Hobbs and Harlan Vincent of Ruidoso Downs voted against it.
Lawmakers in the Senate who opposed passage were Republicans Pat Boone of Elida, Crystal Brantley of Elephant Butte, David Gallegos of Eunice, Larry Scott of Hobbs, Ant Thornton of Albuquerque and Jim Townsend of Artesia.
The legislation authorizes the New Mexico Health Care Authority’s Income Support Division to spend $162.5 million in previously appropriated but unspent funds to fully cover the monthly benefits of New Mexico SNAP recipients either until full federal payments resume or until January 20, when the 30-day regular legislative session begins. The funds would go out in $20 million-a-week increments throughout December and into January, if necessary.
“Your state leaders are coming together to ensure that half a million children, seniors, people with disabilities and working families who rely on these benefits across New Mexico can keep food on their tables,” New Mexico House Speaker Javier Martinez (D-Albuquerque) said at a press conference shortly before the session began at noon. The bill also contains provisions that would revert funds back into state coffers if the federal government resumes full payments.
Other components of House Bill 1 include $75,000 to cover expenses related to the special session, $100,000 to the state’s judicial branch for upgrades to security infrastructure and equipment and $30 million to replenish the state’s contingency fund, which was used earlier this month to pay out a portion of November’s benefits.
When the bill was under consideration, legislators in both the House and Senate approved an amendment to the bill that allocates $50,000 to be used by the Legislative Finance Committee to evaluate the state’s SNAP program to ensure that recipients are receiving the correct amounts of benefits and detect potential fraud.
That amount of money SNAP authorized Monday was on top of $16.6 million that was authorized during last month’s special session to offset cuts to the program that were set to impact New Mexicans eligible for benefits under the anti-hunger program.
Last week, Lujan Grisham called lawmakers back into a special session for the second time in less than two months to appropriate more money to offset any suspension of SNAP payments by the federal government and amid uncertainty about whether the Trump administration would comply with court orders to make full payments.
The conflicting stances of the Trump Administration has already caused chaos in New Mexico, where late last week the Healthcare Authority ordered that full SNAP benefits for November be dispersed after the federal government indicated it would comply with a federal court ruling directing them to pay out the full monthly benefits, at least a portion of which the administration was seeking to withhold during the government shutdown.
However, this weekend, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) reversed course when it issued a memo instructing states to undo any payment of full benefits and warning that states could be held liable if they failed to do so.
During the session, the partisan battles and narratives that have dominated conversations around the shutdown also made their way into the Roundhouse.
At the press conference, Martinez called the Trump administration’s efforts to avoid paying full monthly benefits to SNAP recipients “unprecedented cruelty.”
The comments come as a continuing resolution to fund the government garnered the 60 votes needed to advance out of the Senate Sunday night. Speaker Mike Johnson, R-Louisiana, is calling the U.S. The House of Representatives went back into session for the first time in a month to approve the deal.
Martinez stated that although he believes the deal struck is not a good one, he hopes that it can bring some stability and resume the flow of SNAP benefits; he wants to be prepared if that does not happen.
“That’s why, even as we hope that the federal government funds SNAP very soon, we’re not taking chances,” he said.
Republicans argued that blame for the havoc caused by the withholding of SNAP benefits rested with New Mexico’s two Democratic Senators, Martin Heinrich and Ben Ray Luján, who consistently voted against attempts to reopen the government.
“We’re going to do this, and we have to do this, and we need to do this, and I agree with doing this, and I will be voting yes today, because it’s something we have to do. But let’s not forget how we got here. Let’s not make up stories, because our two (senators), who were supposed to represent this state, voted no 14 times,” Sen. Craig Brandt (R-Rio Rancho) said about his support for the bill.