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Anti-gun bills referred to legislative committees

7 Comments / New Mexico, News, Politics / By

On the second day of the 2023 Legislative Session, progressive legislation was referred to House committees for consideration. Some of the proposals include sweeping gun bans to assault New Mexicans’ constitutional rights. Here are some of the bills that will be going through committees soon.

H.B. 9 by state Rep. Pamelya Herndon (D-Bernalillo), will force New Mexicans to lock up their firearms in “a gun safe or a device that prevents a firearm from being discharged or from being used to expel a projectile by the action of an explosion or a device other than a gun safe that locks a firearm and is designed to prevent children and unauthorized users from firing a firearm, which device may be installed on a firearm, be incorporated into the design of the firearm or prevent access to the firearm.”

If the gun owner does not lock up any and all firearms and their gun somehow was used in an offense by a minor causing “great bodily harm” or death, the parent of that child could be made a felon if the victim of the crime is killed or permanently disabled. 

H.B. 9 has been referred to House Consumer and Public Affairs Committee (HCPAC) and then House Judiciary Committee. No committee times have yet been posted for HCPAC, but hearings are expected within the week.

H.B. 50, sponsored by Rep. Patricia Roybal Caballero (D-Bernalillo), will ban magazines over nine rounds, making all owners of such firearms felons. The bill has been referred to House Consumer and Public Affairs Committee, House Judiciary Committee (HJC), and the House Appropriations and Finance Committee (HAFC). No dates have yet been set on HCPAC for a hearing.

H.B. 72, also by Roybal Caballero, would make it a felony to possess a bump stock, binary trigger, or anything else that “increased the rate of fire of a semiautomatic firearm.” The bill has been referred to Judiciary and HAFC. No dates have yet been set for a hearing yet.

H.B. 100, by Rep. Andrea Romero (D-Santa Fe), would mandate a 14-day waiting period before someone could purchase a gun from a Federal Firearms License (FFL).

H.B. 101, also by Romero, aims to ban magazines, but for those that are ten and under, while also banning so-called “assault weapons.” The legislation has not yet been referred to a committee.

S.B. 44, by Majority Senate Leader Peter Wirth (D-Santa Fe), would ban firearms at polling places. That bill has been referred to the Senate Rules Committee and then the Senate Judiciary Committee. No dates have yet been set for a hearing as of publication.

Keep track of bills scheduled for the committees by visiting the NMLegis.gov website’s “What’s Happening” page.

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Opening day: MLG goes leftward, Dems boot moderate from powerful chair post

20 Comments / New Mexico, News, Politics / By

On Tuesday, the New Mexico Legislature met for the first session of the 56th Legislature, which is meeting for 60 days this year. 17 new members were sworn in, and Democrats elected Rep. Javier Martínez (D-Bernalillo) as the next state House speaker, succeeding former Speaker Brian Egolf (D-Santa Fe). 

Democrat Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham also gave her annual “State of the State” address, where she made clear her priority to ram through $10 million in funding for a new Las Cruces abortion facility and codify abortion up to birth into law.

She also announced she wants socialized “universal health care” in New Mexico, taxpayer-funded paid family leave, expanded “free” college programs, as well as millions more to fund the state’s already failing schools that rank behind all other states and the District of Columbia. She also called for a new state department, the “New Mexico Health Care Authority” to help enact her universal healthcare dreams, as well as universal gun bans in the state.

But the most surprising takeaway from the meeting of the 56th Legislature on opening day was the removal of more moderate Rep. Patricia Lundstrom (D-Gallup) from the powerful House Appropriations Committee. Speaker Martinez put progressive Rep. Nathan Small in the spot instead, garnering confusion about the leadership mixup.

According to the Santa Fe New Mexican, Lundstrom said following the news, “This is unbelievable.” She told the Albuquerque Journal, “I’m incredibly disappointed, and I’m absolutely shocked.” She said Martínez “said I don’t meet his vision.”

“The speaker has the responsibility and the prerogative to organize the House committees as he feels best meets the current needs of New Mexico,” House Democratic spokeswoman Camille Ward told the Journal. “With new leadership on both sides of the aisle and on many of our committees in this session, Speaker Martínez is beginning a new chapter to move New Mexico forward.”

Another member making a large move is Rep. Christine Chandler (D-Los Alamos), who was moved from the chairwoman of House Taxation and Revenue to the powerful House Judiciary Committee, succeeding Rep. Gail Chasey (D-Bernalillo), who was recently elected Democrat House floor leader.

Initiatives Democrats seek to pass during the legislature include many of Lujan Grisham’s proposals, as well as “modernizing” the state legislature from a “citizen legislature” to a “professional legislature” where members of the House and Senate are paid, while they each are granted funds for district offices in their respective areas of the state. 

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Report: Suspect arrested in connection with shootings targeting Dem politicians

14 Comments / New Mexico, News, Politics / By

On Monday, the Albuquerque Police Department (APD) revealed that Solomon Peña, a former GOP candidate for state House of Representatives District 14 was arrested at his Albuquerque home. He is charged with conspiracy to pay four men to shoot at Democrat lawmakers’ homes.

As we previously reported, the politicians who were apparently targeted included outgoing Bernalillo County Commissioner Debbie O’Malley, Commissioner Adriann Barboa, and two legislators. Sen. Linda Lopez and newly appointed Sen. Antonio “Moe” Maestas were apparently targeted, although gunshots were heard near Maestas’ office, not his home.


Later, Democrat New Mexico House Majority Leader Javier Martínez (D-Bernalillo) reported he found gun holes and bullet remnants at his Albuquerque home. 

APD Chief Harold Medina told the Albuquerque Journal, “Peña, an unsuccessful legislative candidate in the 2022 election, is accused of conspiring with, and paying four other men to shoot at the homes of two county commissioners and two state legislators.”

Police officers executing the arrest said outside of Pena’s home, “Solomon Peña please come out with your hands up, we have the place surrounded.”

The suspect prevously served seven years in prison for involvement in a “slash and grab” robbery “scheme,” the Journal noted. 

Immediately following the revelation of Peña’s arrest, House Republican Leader Ryan Lane (R-Aztec) wrote in a statement, “We appreciate law enforcement’s diligence in pursuing this investigation and we are still learning of this development just as the rest of New Mexico is. New Mexico House Republicans condemn violence in any form and are grateful no one was injured. This is yet another example of a convicted felon unlawfully gaining access to firearms, which they are barred from owning or possessing, and using the weapon in a manner that causes public harm.”

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Lujan Grisham surprises with support for ‘School Choice Week’

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Democrat Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham made a surprise proclamation honoring School Choice Week, which commemorates school choice and the betterment of educational opportunities for students. 

Lujan Grisham declared January 22-28, 2023 as School Choice Week in the state, writing in the proclamation that “educational variety not only helps to diversify our economy, but also enhances the vibrancy of our community.”

She recognized that New Mexico has “many high-quality teaching professionals in all types of school settings who are committed to educating our children.”

Now, as the 2023 Legislative Session rolls around on Tuesday, she will have the opportunity to push for and sign legislation that will enshrine school choice in New Mexico.

State Sen. Craig Brandt (R-Sandoval) is sponsoring a school choice bill enacting “Education Freedom Accounts, which can be used to pay for private school tuition, tutoring services, textbooks, and instructional materials, nationally standardized assessments, and other educational charges” approved by the Public Education Department.

“It outlines the application process and procedures for parents and education service providers, as well as the rules and responsibilities of the parents and students,” and “creates an Education Freedom Review Commission to assist the department in determining what expenditures are qualifying educational expenses,” according to Brandt.

A similar bill being sponsored by state Rep.-elect John Block (R-Otero), will enable open enrollment for students to attend other schools in their district or outside of their district if their zoned educational resources are failing. Block believes no child should have to be stuck in a failing school just because of where they live in New Mexico.

Enacting school choice, which is a non-partisan issue, has shown to be an incredible step forward in creating quality education in other states. If New Mexico enacts such changes, it could lift the state from being 51st in education and propel it on the path to educational betterment.

Editor’s note: Block is the founder and editor of the Piñon Post, New Mexico’s #1 conservative online news publication.

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Pro-abortion legislators insist they will ‘codify’ abortion up to birth into NM law

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Far-left pro-abortion legislators are chomping at the bit to ram through even more pro-abortion legislation, although New Mexico has effectively already legalized abortion up to birth and infanticide with no protections whatsoever for women, babies, or medical professionals.

Despite the extremist anti-life agenda seeping through New Mexico via repeals of health protections for pregnant women and killing the terminally ill via cocktails of lethal unproven drugs, the far-left Democrats want even more of the life-ending policies.

Rep. Linda Serrato (D-Santa Fe) and Sen. Linda Lopez (D-Bernalillo) are planning on “codifying” abortion up to birth and infanticide into state law after Democrats in 2021 stripped protections, effectively legalizing just that. 

The Democrats claim that women should have unadulterated access to killing children in the womb “without a fear of retribution or shame or jail,” according to Serrato.

The bill, which is not listed as pre-filed on the New Mexico Legislature website, is reported by the Santa Fe New Mexican to mimic Democrat Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s executive order that decreed “abortion is an essential part of reproductive health care and must remain legal, safe and accessible.” Abortion is neither health care, since it ends a life instead of protecting one, and is not reproductive since it stops the reproductive process.

Lujan Grisham also is attempting to pass $10 million in funding to open a new abortion facility in Las Cruces to end the lives of the babies of Texas women traveling to the Land of Enchantment seeking the death-inducing procedure.

The New Mexican claims the radical anti-life bill “is likely to pass and end up on Lujan Grisham’s desk for her signature” due to the heavily Democrat makeup of the Legislature. Despite the political makeup, many Democrats in New Mexico are pro-life, with recent polls by the Albuquerque Journal and others showing New Mexicans of all political affiliations overwhelmingly support limits on abortion. 

Pro-life legislators are also sponsoring life-affirming bills that will protect life in the womb.

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Dems drop two new radical anti-gun bills ahead of 2023 Legislature

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On Thursday and Friday, Democrats dropped more anti-gun bills to assault New Mexicans’ Second Amendment rights. 

On Thursday, far-left legislators state Rep. Patricia Roybal Caballero (D-Bernalillo) and state Sen. Linda Lopez (D-Bernalillo) dropped H.B. 72, which makes it illegal to “knowingly possess

or transfer a semiautomatic firearm converter,” making the sale of any kind of modification device to enhance usability a fourth-degree felon.

H.B. 72 requests $1.5 million from the state to enforce the extreme anti-gun bill.

Another bill, H.B. 101 by far-left state Rep. Andrea Romero (D-Santa Fe), bans large-capacity magazines “regardless of whether the device is attached to a firearm.” It forces anyone owning such magazines to “remove the large-capacity magazine from the state,” “sell the large-capacity magazine to a licensed firearms dealer,” or “surrender the large-capacity magazine to a law enforcement agency for destruction.” It includes no grandfather clause and would take effect July 1, 2023, if passed. Any violator of the proposed law would be a fourth-degree felon.

Furthermore, anyone who owns any semi-automatic firearm, which Romero dubs an “assault” weapon, would be forced to either “remove the assault weapon from the state,” “render the assault weapon permanently inoperable,” or “surrender the assault weapon to the appropriate law enforcement agency for destruction.” Like the previous section of the bill, anyone not in compliance will become a fourth-degree felon.

These new anti-gun bills are just the beginning for anti-gun Democrats’ gun-grabbing agenda, which is sure to only increase, with the four already filed bills dropping before the 2023 Legislative Session starting on January 17. It is unclear if more will drop over the weekend or after the legislature goes into session.

All of the bills already proposed have either been stricken down in other states or are ripe for litigation due to their flagrant violation of the Second and Fourth amendments to the U.S. Constitution, as well as violations against the New Mexico state Constitution. 

Dems drop second anti-gun bill of the 2023 Legislative Session

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Leger Fernandez defends vote against bill requiring care for abortion survivors

20 Comments / New Mexico, News, Politics / By

On Wednesday, the Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives passed a bipartisan bill, the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, that would require medical care for babies born alive after a failed abortion attempt. All three of New Mexico’s U.S. House representatives, Reps. Melanie Stansbury (D-NM-01), Gabe Vasquez (D-NM-02), and Teresa Leger Fernandez (D-NM-03) voted against the commonsense bill.

Democrat Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-TX) voted for the bill, while Rep. Vicente Gonzales (D-TX) voted “present.”

Leger Fernandez released a video defending her “no” vote after the bill’s passage, saying, “I am wearing white today as the color of resistance here in Congress by us women who are saying ‘no’ to the extreme Republicans’ bills that they have brought forth that would criminalize — that would criminalize a woman’s decisions that they would make about their own bodies. And in this case, about a baby that may be born and does not have a baby.” 

She erroneously claimed, “They would wrench that baby from their parents and force them to take ‘em to a hospital and spend their last minutes, their last hours hooked up to a machine rather than in the arms of the mother who loved that child.” 

Leger Fernandez added, “And that’s why I voted no today on the Parental Interference Act, which they are calling something else, but it is not.” 

Instead of telling the truth about the bill, which is regarding aborted children, Democrats for years have been claiming are not actually human but “clumps of cells.” By Fernandez’s own admission, they are indeed “babies,” and it is strange she now claims the mother who is aborting the child now “loves” them. 

Also, there are many abortion survivors who did live through botched abortions and are perfectly healthy, functioning members of society. In many cases, these babies born alive are very much viable babies who can live successfully outside of the womb. The bill would have merely given these babies a chance at life.

However, Leger Fernandez and other democrats are calling the bill “interference.” She is a supporter of abortion up to and after birth, with endorsements from the likes of the pro-abortion groups EMILY’s List, Planned Parenthood, and NARAL.

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Dems drop second anti-gun bill of the 2023 Legislative Session

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On Wednesday, Democrats dropped their latest anti-gun bill they will introduce this upcoming 2023 Legislative Session.

Far-left state Rep. Pamelya Herndon (D-Bernalillo) is sponsoring a bill, H.B. 9, which will force New Mexicans to lock up their firearms in “a gun safe or a device that prevents a firearm from being discharged or from being used to expel a projectile by the action of an explosion or a device other than a gun safe that locks a firearm and is designed to prevent children and unauthorized users from firing a firearm, which device may be installed on a firearm, be incorporated into the design of the firearm or prevent access to the firearm.”

If the gun owner does not lock up any and all firearms and their gun somehow was used in an offense by a minor causing “great bodily harm” or death, the parent of that child could be made a felon if the victim of the crime is killed or permanently disabled. 

As noted by even some Democrats in the chamber during a July 2022 preview of the bill, it would be the first crime proposal to base a defendant’s sentence not on their own actions but that of someone else (a minor) who got ahold of a firearm. 

The bill does not, however, include provisions protecting the gun owner if the firearm was stolen, nor does it account for the de-facto tax it burdens the owner with being forced to find a new locking device to place it at all times. The bill is also blatantly unconstitutional.

Previous versions of this bill sponsored during the last two legislative sessions by state Sen. Antoinette Sedillo-Lopez (D-Bernalillo) have died.

The first anti-gun bill dropped by Democrats is one by state Rep. Patricia Roybal-Caballero (D-Bernalillo), H.B. 50, which bans all citizens who own firearm magazines greater than ten rounds and makes any offender a felon. 

The 2023 Legislative Session begins January 17, 2023. Read more about Herndon’s bill here.

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MLG releases massive $9.4B budget proposal for upcoming legislature

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On Tuesday, far-left Democrat New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham released her executive budget that she will demand the legislature pass in the upcoming 2023 Legislative Session starting next Tuesday, January 17, 2022.

The massive $9.4 billion budget would be a 10.58 percent increase from last fiscal year’s $8.5 billion budget. This proposed budget would include a four percent increase in salaries for state workers, a four percent increase for all school staff, along with a $750 rebate, according to the Santa Fe New Mexican. 

In the budget are sweeping social programs, including $107 million for housing and homelessness initiatives, $200 million infusion for health care programs, and $30 million for “free” school lunches in all schools.

Despite the massive spending on education and educator salaries, New Mexico’s schools rank below all other states and the District of Columbia. 

Weak-on-crime politics have led to a deadly past few years in New Mexico, especially in the state’s most populous city, Albuquerque, which shattered its homicide rate again in 2022, the second straight year in a row. 

Last year’s budget included $75 million in recurring funds for socialist “free” college for citizens and illegal aliens, millions for an anti-gun office of “gun violence prevention,” millions to carry out 2019’s Energy Transition Act (Green New Deal), among other waste that was spent on socialist-style handout programs in the state.

This year’s proposal would include a $4.1 million slush fund of sorts to the Environment Department to “develop and implement actions related to climate change,” along with $5.9 million for enviro-Marxist policies.

New Mexico remains the most federally dependent state in the nation. This executive budget would continue that record of heavy dependence on the government. 

After the budget was released, Power The Future’s Larry Behrens wrote, “Governor Lujan Grisham has proudly said we need to transition away from fossil fuels, but she sure can’t seem to transition away from spending the revenue,” adding, “Before taxpayers foot the bill for more of the Governor’s green pet projects, it’s past time for an examination on the Governor’s past initiatives to see if they’ve delivered on her over-hyped promises.”

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Dems drop first anti-gun bill of the 2023 Legislative Session

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On Monday, far-left New Mexico state Rep. Patricia Roybal-Caballero (D-Bernalillo) dropped the Democrats’ first anti-gun bill of the 2023 Legislative Session, H.B. 50. The bill is a magazine ban that would make violations of the bill if passed, felons.

The bill reads, “It is unlawful for a person to possess or transfer a large-capacity magazine within New Mexico, except when the person is: a resident of another state who transports a large-capacity magazine into New Mexico for use exclusively in an established shooting competition” or “a peace officer, in accordance with the policies of the peace officer’s law enforcement agency,” with multiple caveats. Other minor exceptions include being a member of the armed forces, certain manufacturers, certain armored vehicle operators, or those displaying such weapons in government-run museums or exhibits. 

It continues, “A person who violates the provisions of Subsection A of this section is guilty of a fourth degree felony and upon conviction shall be sentenced in accordance with the provisions of Section 31-18-15 NMSA 1978.”

Roybal-Caballero requests $1.5 million in state funds to carry out this gun grab throughout 2024, “including the funding of additional local and statewide law enforcement, court process, and incarceration.” She apparently is seeking to lock up more people in prison to push for her anti-gun agenda, despite Democrats claiming to want fewer people in prison.

The bill will likely be just the first of a flurry of bills that are hostile to the Second Amendment and New Mexicans’ other constitutional rights. Other proposals floated include creating a state office of “Gun Violence Prevention,” as well as an addition to New Mexico’s “red flag” bills. 

Read the bill and its supporting information here. 

All the attempted gun grabs coming in the 2023 Legislative Session (so far)

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