New Mexico

New Mexico groups have mixed reactions to Harris as presumptive nominee – NM Political Report

Published

1 year ago

July 29, 2024

New Mexico groups have mixed reactions to Harris as presumptive nominee – NM Political Report

Some New Mexico-based reproductive justice and LGBTQ groups express mixed reactions to Vice President Kamala Harris as Democrat’s presumptive nominee for president. Marshall Martinez, executive director of Equality New Mexico, said he was “very excited” about a woman of color campaign for president. But Indigenous Women Rising founder and Executive Director Rachel Lorenzo, a Mescalero […]

Some New Mexico-based reproductive justice and LGBTQ groups express mixed reactions to Vice President Kamala Harris as Democrat’s presumptive nominee for president.

Marshall Martinez, executive director of Equality New Mexico, said he was “very excited” about a woman of color campaign for president. But Indigenous Women Rising founder and Executive Director Rachel Lorenzo, a Mescalero Apache/Laguna Pueblo/Xicana, said they are neutral right now about Harris being the likely candidate at the top of the Democratic ticket.

Martinez said Harris has some history as both a prosecutor when she was the California Attorney General and when she was senator for the state of California that “we don’t love,” but he said every candidate will likely be “problematic for us in some kind of way.” He said that he is excited because given the community Harris comes from as a woman of color from California,“ she comes with an innate understanding of our struggle.”

Lorenzo, who uses they/them pronouns, said IWR’s primary concerns are tribal sovereignty and reproductive rights. While some have spoken of Harris as an advocate for reproductive justice because she has raised the issue of Black women’s high rates of maternal mortality, Lorenzo said they respectfully do not agree with that interpretation of Harris as a candidate.

“We always talk about our movement being intersectional. Reproductive justice isn’t just about abortion access, it’s about safe communities, access to good education, clean environments to raise our families in and it also includes sex worker rights,” Lorenzo said.

Lorenzo said they are concerned about Harris’ record during her time in California on sex workers and that “actions speak louder than words.” During her time as a prosecutor and a senator, Harris worked to shut down internet sites that allowed sex workers to advertise services more safely.

“That’s why we’re more concerned about what she does versus what she says and especially since this country was founded on racism and taking Indigenous lands, it’s hard to validate a system founded on so much violence, even if a woman of color is at the top of the ticket,” Lorenzo said.

Martinez said that President Joe Biden was “really good on most LGBTQ issues” and both by virtue of experience and the community she comes from as a woman of color, “Harris is likely a little bit better.”

Martinez also said that Harris as the presumptive nominee for the Democratic presidential ticket has given voters who care about LGBTQ issues a “reason to be positive about showing up to vote in November.”

Martinez said he thought that Harris’ age, at 59, was also a plus for LGBTQ voters. She was more likely to have known individuals who are out as LGTBQ individuals than the previous generation.

Under the Biden administration, the Department of Health and Human Services established new rules for Title IX that expands protections for students who are LGBTQ, as well as other expansions. Some advocates have said that Biden intended to establish another rule that would have expanded protections for transgender students in a second administration.

Biden administration rolls back Title IX restrictions put in place by Trump

Martinez said that EQNM is relying on the idea that Harris will at least have the same position on LGBTQ protections under Title IX that Biden had as well and “the same drive to get it done.”

“I think the nature of her being a vice president, there’s some stuff we don’t know yet. But I’m hopeful she would go even further,” Martinez said.

One of the reasons he has hope is because Harris did a series of town halls on reproductive rights and she mentioned the intersection of LGBTQ issues and reproductive rights and bodily autonomy.

“What we know is, we don’t have to teach her what those intersections are, she already gets it. From there, when she was in the senate and when she was running for president [in 2019], she spoke a lot about LGBTQ issues and she attended many Pride festivals,” Martinez said.

He said he was impressed because Harris didn’t just ride in a car in the parade in order to be seen, but that she did an onstage rally and a question-and-answer session at the Pride festival she attended. He said she really engaged with the community and “to me, that’s how you show up for the community.”

“Harris was never the person who shows up to walk in a parade of one,” Martinez said.

Martinez said he is also hopeful that Harris can beat former Pres. Donald Trump in November. He said that when Biden endorsed Harris, “the excitement really changed.”

“In that last few days, we’ve seen a lot more affirmative ‘I’m with her’…we talk about the enthusiasm gap. The best indicator of that gap, early on, is whether or not the base communities are motivated to volunteer and give money to do the work. We saw that motivation drastically increase,” Martinez said.

Lorenzo, however, said they want to know what Harris’ plans are specifically for reproductive health in Indian country. They said the Biden administration would address the Hyde Amendment and it didn’t.

The Hyde Amendment is a decades-old measure that prohibits federal funding to be used for abortion services. This means that for decades, Indigenous individuals cannot access abortion through Indian Health Services.

Lorenzo also said they would like to have seen Harris spend more time engaging with abortion funds, midwives and doulas. Lorenzo said that while IWR has been invited to various meetings and listening sessions with Harris in the past, the meetings were not always accessible due to a lack of internet platform participation and because the meetings were held only in major cities.

Lorenzo said they want to see action from Harris, not words. “We heard great words from Biden on the campaign about protecting abortion access. One of the most basic things he could have done was recodify Roe v. Wade. While I don’t agree with recodifying Roe, we haven’t seen much action. We haven’t seen action on Hyde but he talked about it,” Lorenzo said.

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New Mexico

New Mexico deserves speedier game commission appointments

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5 hours ago

January 9, 2026

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New Mexico deserves speedier game commission appointments

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New Mexico

What bills have been filed for New Mexico’s 2026 legislative session?

Published

17 hours ago

January 8, 2026

Press Room

What bills have been filed for New Mexico’s 2026 legislative session?

The governor sets the agenda for the session, including for the budget, so here is what they are looking at so far.

SANTA FE, N.M. — As the regular session of the New Mexico Legislature is set to begin Jan. 20, lawmakers have already filed dozens of bills.

Bills include prohibiting book bans at public libraries and protections against AI, specifically the distribution of sensitive and “Deepfake” images

Juvenile justice reform is, again, a hot topic. House Bill 25 would allow access to someone’s juvenile records during a background check if they’re trying to buy a gun.

Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham sets the agenda and puts forth the proposed budget lawmakers will address during the session. The governor is calling for lawmakers to take up an $11.3 billion budget for the 2027 fiscal year, which is up 4.6% from current spending levels.

Where would that money go? More than $600 million would go to universal free child care. Meanwhile, more than $200 million would go to health care and to protect against federal funding cuts.

There is also $65 million for statewide affordable housing initiatives and $19 million for public safety.

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New Mexico

Understanding New Mexico’s data center boom | Opinion

Published

1 day ago

January 8, 2026

Press Room

Understanding New Mexico’s data center boom | Opinion

Paul Gessing, Rio Grande Foundation
| Las Cruces Sun-News

After years of failure to land a “big fish” business for New Mexico’s economy (or effectively use the oil and gas revenues to grow the economy) Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham with the help of her Economic Development Secretary Rob Black have lured no fewer than three large data centers to New Mexico. These data centers are being built to serve the booming world of Artificial Intelligence (AI), and they will have profound impacts on New Mexico.

It is our view that having these data centers locate in New Mexico is better than having them locate elsewhere. While we have many differences of opinion with this governor, we are pleased to see her get serious about growing and diversifying New Mexico’s oil-dependent economy albeit quite late in her second term.

Sadly, the governor and legislature have chosen not to use broad based economic reforms like deregulation or tax cuts to improve New Mexico’s competitiveness. But, with the failure of her “preferred” economic development “wins” like Maxeon and Ebon solar both of which the governor announced a few years ago, but haven’t panned out, the focus on a more realistic strategy is welcome and long overdue.

Currently, three new data centers are slated to be built in New Mexico:

Oracle’s Project Jupiter in Santa Teresa with an investment of $165 billion.
Project Zenith slated to be built in Roswell amounts to a $11.7 billion investment.
New Era Energy & Digital, Inc. While the overall investment is unclear, the energy requirement is the largest of the three at 7 gigawatts (that’s seven times the power used by the City of San Francisco).

What is a data center? Basically, they are the real-world computing infrastructure that makes up the Internet. The rise of AI requires vast new computing power. It is critical that these facilities have uninterrupted electricity.

That electricity is going to be largely generated by traditional sources like natural gas and possibly nuclear. That contravenes New Mexico’s Energy Transition Act of 2019 which was adopted by this Gov. and many of the legislators still in office. Under the Act electrical power emissions are supposed to be eliminated in a few years.

With the amount of money being invested in these facilities and the simple fact that wind and solar and other “renewable” energy sources aren’t going to get the job done. In 2025 the Legislature passed and MLG signed HB 93 which allows for the creation of “microgrids” that won’t tax the grid and make our electricity more expensive, but the ETA will have to be amended or ignored to provide enough electricity for these data centers. There’s no other option.

New Mexicans have every right to wonder why powerful friends of the governor can set up their own natural gas microgrids while the rest of us face rising costs and decreased reliability from so-called “renewables.” Don’t get me wrong, having these data centers come to New Mexico is an economic boon.

But it comes tempered with massive subsidies including a 30-year property tax exemption and up to $165 billion in industrial revenue bonds. New Mexico is ideally suited as a destination for these data centers with its favorable climate and lack of natural disasters like hurricanes, tornadoes, and floods. We shouldn’t be giving away such massive subsidies.

Welcoming the data center boom to New Mexico better than rejecting them and pushing them to locate in other states. There is no way to avoid CO2 emissions whether they happen here or somewhere else. But, there are questions about both the electricity demand and subsidies that must be addressed as New Mexico’s data center boom begins.

What will the Legislature, radical environmental groups, and future governors of our state do to hinder (or help) bring these data centers to our State? That is an open question that depends heavily on upcoming statewide elections. It is important that New Mexicans understand and appreciate these complicated issues.

Paul Gessing is president of New Mexico’s Rio Grande Foundation. The Rio Grande Foundation is an independent, nonpartisan, tax-exempt research and educational organization dedicated to promoting prosperity for New Mexico based on principles of limited government, economic freedom and individual responsibility

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