The National Association for Industrial and Office Parks (NAIOP) and the Sandoval Economic Alliance (SEA) held a legislative recap panel on April 3 at Presbyterian Rust Medical Center.
Three elected officials were featured in the panel, New Mexico Sen. Jay Block (R-Dist. 12), Rep. Kathleen Cates (D-Dist. 44) andRep. Joshua Hernandez (R-Dist. 60), all representing Sandoval County.
The panelists talked about what strides were made in the 2025 session and what didn’t get across the finish line.
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What passed
Senate Bills 1, 2, and 3 were some of the most important bills that got passed in this session, according to Block:
- Senate Bill 1 creates a $1 billion fund for behavioral health initiatives across New Mexico.
- Senate Bill 2 gives $200 million to expand behavioral health services across the state.
- Senate Bill 3, the Behavioral Health Reform and Investment Act, makes a Behavioral Health Executive Committee to create behavioral health regions across the state.
Both Senate Bills 1 and 3 were signed into law by Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham on Feb. 27; Senate Bill 2 was not signed by the governor because the money proposed was included in House Bill 2, which passed.
Senate Bills 169 and 170 were also mentioned at the panel for bills that passed. Both were companion bills that dealt with site readiness.
“If we had a site selector come here and say, ‘we need shovel in the ground in 12 months,' there was no way we could come close to that. So we lost numerous projects in our state because we couldn’t get utilities fast enough,” Hernandez said.
Senate Bill 169 creates a committee to recommend economic development sites where early investment would ready sites for immediate development.The bill also establishes the Site-Readiness Fund with a $24 million appropriation.
Senate Bill 170 will allow for utility infrastructure to be pre-deployed to sites, even before a company is identified.
Neither Senate Bills 169 nor 170 have been signed into law by the governor as of the time of writing, but the panelists expected them to be signed.
What didn't
All three elected officials agreed that making changes to medical malpractice was a missed opportunity in the previous session.
“I believe medical malpractice was a huge miss on our side,” Hernandez said.
Senate Bill 176, called the Medical Malpractice Changes bill, had 23 sponsors, but never got past the Senate Health and Public Affairs Committee.
“When you get about 23 conservatives and progressives together to try and fix medical malpractice in New Mexico, that should tell you something,” Block said.
The bill would have made three changes by:
- Capping attorney’s fees in medical malpractice attorney lawsuits
- Ending lump-sum payouts from the Patient Compensation Fund
- Sending 75% of any punitive damages awarded in medical malpractice cases to a new public fund to improve patient safety.
“I think there were still very good bills on the table last session and so we want to make sure they come back next session and I’m looking to getting them on the governor's call list,” Cates said.
Attorneys
| Rank | Prior Rank | Business name |
|---|---|---|
1 | 1 | Modrall Sperling |
2 | 2 | Rodey Dickason Sloan Akin & Robb PA |
3 | 3 | Butt Thornton & Baehr PC |
