Democrat leaders are pushing bills through the process that would degrade our election integrity – without proper public notice of hearings in some cases.
HB 4 Voting Rights Protections, sponsored by Javier Martínez, Gail Chasey, Katy M. Duhigg, D. Wonda Johnson, and Raymundo Lara would allow state agencies to ‘automatically’ register people without their knowledge or consent. This process opens the possibility that residents, who may not be citizens, are registered to vote.
Monday (3/6/23), at 12:46 pm, Sen Joseph Cervantes, Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee placed HB 4 on the committee agenda for a meeting scheduled to begin at 1:30 pm (or 1/2 hour after the Senate floor session.) That’s less than one hour notice to the public and other committee members. To add insult to injury, any member of the public who wants to make comments in this committee must send an email to Sen Cervantes’ staff 24 hours in advance. Having to send an email 24 hours in advance to speak with virtually no advance notice of when a bill is going to be in committee seems like an intentional attempt to exclude public input. The ploy worked resulting in very limited public input and HB 4 passed the Senate Judiciary Committee with all Democrats voting ‘YES’ and all Republicans voting ‘NO.’ This bill has only one vote left on the Senate floor. Please ask Senators to say NO to HB 4 by sending a quick email, HERE.
SB 180 Election Changes, sponsored by Katy M. Duhigg, Leo Jaramillo, Gail Chasey. This bill would allow counties and the state to accept money from outside groups to influence our elections. Nationwide, many states are stopping outside influence in their elections. Not only is New Mexico not doing the same, our progressive legislators are pushing to make it law! Please take 30 seconds to stop this bill, HERE.
If that’s not bad enough, Rep Wonda Johnson, chairwoman of the House Government, Elections, and Indian Affairs Committee is using a procedural maneuver to kill a bill that would improve election integrity. How? By not putting the bill on the committee agenda for debate.
HB 110 Voter ID Requirements, sponsored by John Block and Mark Duncanwould mandate that those voting in-person need to provide a picture ID to vote. Those voting by mail would have the choice of either providing their ID or their social security number. Surveys nationwide and here in New Mexico indicate that a majority of voters – of any political party – favor requiring ID to vote. However, since this bill has not been put on the agenda for even one hearing, at this point in the session it has been silently killed!
If we can’t vote in our elections, then we’ll have no say to those who are in office and for a group that is very pro-choice, it’s hypocritical that they won’t allow us to choose who is in leadership.