So far New Mexican lawmakers have submitted 569 different pieces of legislation to the House and Senate. That number is also sure to grow before the February 18th deadline for introduction of new legislation. NMBC is watching every bill in real time, and sifting through the clutter and pork to ensure the critical bills affecting your interests don’t slip by unnoticed. You can see which bills we’re following in real time by using the NMBC Legislative Bill Tracker. The NMBC bill tracker shows over 200 of the pieces of legislation that we are watching or actively working on this session, broken down by category.
There are still 46 days remaining in the Legislative Session and the real work of the committees is only just beginning to filter out bills with no chance of passing and advance others. Below are some of the bills that have begun to make progress through the session that NMBC feels would be improvements for our state.
- HB 139 and HJR 6: are bipartisan efforts to bring balance back to the legislative and executive branches. These are excellent bills that would restore balance to our branches of government.
- SB 78 and HB 49: Exempt Social Security from income tax. This bill is the latest attempt to pass tax changes on Social Security that should be common sense. A similar bill failed last year.
- HJR 7: School choice will allow students to be educated where they choose.
- HB 180: Limits fund appropriated by the Governor during public health emergencies to $750,000 per quarter.
- HB 159: Prohibits rule making during a pandemic.
There are also many bills this year focusing on ‘clean energy’ changes and other business mandates that would hurt jobs and harm businesses. The bills NMBC has been pushing back on are listed below. We do not think these bills are beneficial at this time, when the focus of legislators needs to be restoring the power balance in the state and helping business recovery.
- HB 20, HB 37 & HB 38: Business mandates for statewide paid leave.
- HB 40: bars privately managed detention facilities.
- HB 110: Mandated $15/hour minimum wage.
- HB 122: New tax on health insurance.
- HJR1: Increased rain of the permanent fund.
- HB 148: Increase UI contribution rate.
- HB 50: Allows individuals to sue businesses for any alleged infraction against air, land, and water.
- SB 8: Air quality regulations that circumvent the past two years of work by stakeholders to promulgate rules.
- SB 11: Imposes drastic requirements for vehicle emissions that will greatly increase costs of vehicles.
- SB 56: Increase top personal income tax rate to 8.2%.
- SB 63: Require all new school construction to include solar panels.
- SB 67: Requires all new energy to be renewable.
- SB 86: Regulates water use by the oil and gas industry and would require 22 new FTE at a cost of $2.3 million in salary plus more for equipment and other expenses.
- SB 89: Increase top personal income tax rate to 6.5%.
- SB 110: Increase taxpayer contribution to educational retirement board pension plan.
- SB 130: Requires 75% of state vehicles to be electric.
- SB 132: requires all new homes to have solar panels and charging stations for electric vehicles.
- SJR 3: Enacts a “green” amendment to the state constitution.