By Daniel J. Chacón, The Santa Fe New Mexican

New Mexico’s capital city will be buzzing with political activity for the next four weeks starting Tuesday, when the Legislature convenes for a 30-day session sure to be punctuated with intense and fiery debate over how to spend billions of dollars in new revenue and whether restrictions on firearms will help curb violent crime in the state.

What should New Mexicans expect?

As is the case every year, expect the unexpected.

While lawmakers will introduce a slew of proposed laws, the focus of the session will be on passing a budget amid record revenue projections for New Mexico — but with revenue growth expected to slow in the future.

The task of agreeing on a budget is certain to spark conflict between Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham and lawmakers, who develop separate spending plans with different priorities for the upcoming fiscal year and then try to meet in the middle.

The governor is proposing a $10.5 billion budget, which represents a nearly 10% increase over the current fiscal year.

Her proposal, which maintains reserves at 34%, calls for a $500 million housing package — half for direct assistance to renters, homeowners and people experiencing homelessness and the other half for loans for building and renovation projects — and a $283 million increase in education spending.

The governor’s spending plan also includes 14% salary increases for state police officers and 3% raises for most other state employees.

Sen. George Muñoz, a Gallup Democrat who chairs two of the most influential committees in the Legislature — the Legislative Finance Committee and the Senate Finance Committee — said the governor’s spending plan isn’t sustainable.

“I think it’s going to be difficult to tamper down recurring spending by the executive,” he said Saturday. “If we don’t tamper down recurring spending, New Mexico will begin cuts within one to two years.”

Lawmakers are proposing a $10.1 billion budget, which would increase spending by nearly 6%.

Lawmakers’ spending plan, which would put reserves at 30%, calls for 4% raises for all state employees.

It also proposes the creation of a $300 million governmental accountability trust fund that would essentially be used to fund pilot projects in state government to ensure they deliver results before the Legislature commits to them long-term.

Public safety

The issue likely to trigger the most controversy is — no surprise — guns.

Calling it the largest and most comprehensive public safety package in New Mexico history, the governor on Friday unveiled a slew of gun control measures, including an assault weapons ban and a 14-day waiting period to buy firearms.

Republicans, who are in the minority in both chambers, immediately fired back, signaling what promises to be a hard-fought debate as lawmakers continue to look for ways to address crime.

The fight over guns will be on full display outside the Capitol — firearms are largely prohibited inside the Roundhouse — when the New Mexico Shooting Sports Association and other pro-gun groups hold what they’re calling a Second Amendment Day Rally Feb. 3.

Rep. Andrea Romero, a Santa Fe Democrat leading the charge on a proposed assault weapons ban, said the likelihood of the gun control bills passing this year after failing to gain traction during last year’s 60-day session is stronger than ever before.

Romero said a mass shooting in Farmington in May reinforced the need for gun control and that lawmakers have fine-tuned their proposed bills to withstand legal challenges.

“We’re not looking at the cosmetics,” she said, referring to a proposed assault weapons ban. “We’re looking at the mechanisms that create the atrocities that we’re trying to prevent and how we regulate it, so we’re approaching it completely differently from the bottom up and we’ve learned from our federal partners and we’ve learned from the folks who said this is not going to work and this is why not.”

Local lawmakers

Romero won’t be the only Santa Fe-area lawmaker with a full plate.

Members of Santa Fe County’s legislative delegation are proposing a wide variety of bills, including one that takes aim at the city of Santa Fe and its late audits.

Rep. Linda Serrato, D-Santa Fe, is sponsoring a bill to codify an executive order issued by former Gov. Susana Martinez, a Republican, that requires agencies to be up-to-date in their financial reporting in order to receive capital outlay. 

Serrato received applause at a recent forum when she announced she would be working on the bill with state Auditor Joseph Maestas, a former Santa Fe city councilor.

“Back in May, the [Legislative Finance Committee] found that there was $3.1 billion in capital outlay that had not been used, and all of us received an email with a document that said, ‘Hey, this is where people are at in spending their money,’ ” she said, adding 72 projects she has invested in have not spent their funding.

“I need it in my community right now,” she said. “There are sewer lines that are failing right now my community needs, so we’re looking to put that into statute to make that the law.”

In an op-ed published Sunday in The New Mexican, Serrato threatened to withhold funding from the city of Santa Fe.

“Before I can appropriate any more dollars to the City as a fiscal agent, I need to see these projects move forward,” she wrote.

New faces

The 30-day session comes in an election year certain to change the makeup of the Legislature.

Already, the composition of both chambers will be slightly different following the departures of several longtime lawmakers.

Rep. Greg Nibert, a Roswell Republican who has been member of the House of Representatives since 2016, will now be in the Senate. He was appointed to fill the seat of former Sen. Stuart Ingle, R-Portales, who announced his retirement in October after 39 years in the Legislature.

Jared Hembree, a Republican attorney from Roswell, has been nominated to replace Nibert in the House and is awaiting a formal appointment by the governor.

Another new member to the House is Democrat Cristina Parajón, former director of strategy for the New Mexico Human Services Department. Parajón was appointed last year to fill the vacancy created by the resignation of Rep. Christine Trujillo, an Albuquerque Democrat who stepped down in July after more than a decade in the Legislature.

Rancher and businessman Steve McCutcheon II, a Carlsbad Republican, will be new to the Senate. The former Eddy County commissioner replaced former Sen. Gay Kernan, R-Hobbs, who resigned in August after 21 years in the Legislature.

Offbeat bills

Lawmakers have been busy crafting myriad pieces of legislation, some of which have already started to generate a lot of attention.

Whether the proposed bills will get a message from the governor is, of course, a different matter.

While lawmakers can introduce bills on any topic during a 60-day session, 30-day sessions are focused on the budget and bills need the governor’s approval to be placed on the agenda.

Rep. Stefani Lord, a Sandia Park Republican, is proposing some of the most unconventional bills of the session, including a proposal to outlaw necrophilia and another that would allow a court to order a convicted sex offender to undergo chemical castration as a condition of their parole.

Rep. John Block, R-Alamogordo, is proposing a $1.5 billion appropriation to construct what he called 50.3 miles of “unfinished border barrier” between New Mexico and Mexico.

“With the truly criminal failure of the Joe Biden administration to stop the border crisis, our border state is now forced to do the job of the federal government to protect our citizens,” Block said in a statement. “I will not stand idly by and allow my constituents to continue to be saddled with the consequences of Biden’s failures.”