LAS CRUCES — Downwinders had a message for the U.S. House speaker on Wednesday: You’re failing people the federal government exposed to radiation and hurting their chance at some measure of justice.

Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) attended a private event supporting candidate Yvette Herrell seeking to again represent the 2nd Congressional District in New Mexico, and then for a public event announcing national GOP investment in her campaign and other down-ballot races.

Despite the sun beating down on a stretch of gravel outside Farm and Ranch Heritage Museum, spirits were high for the 30 or so rallying there, many of whom wore shirts bearing slogans directed at Johnson: “Pass RECA before we die,” or “We are the unknowing, unwilling, uncompensated.”

RECA is the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act, which expired in June after decades of offering financial assistance to people harmed by U.S. nuclear weapons development. People in New Mexico were never included among those who could seek compensation despite having been downwind of the world’s first nuclear blast.

A bipartisan push in Congress to expand the program failed. Some advocates are still holding out hope for a bill on Johnson’s desk that could extend and expand RECA.

Bernice Gutierrez, a member of Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium board, said she was frustrated that the years of organizing by her group and others is being thwarted.

“One man is holding up this whole process. He’s denying justice to everybody,” Gutierrez said.

Gutierrez was 8 days-old in 1945, when the first atomic bomb exploded at the Trinity Site in the Jornada Del Muerto, just 35 miles from her hometown in Carrizozo, New Mexico. Her family has been plagued by aggressive and deadly cancers, which pushed her into the fight.

Gutierrez said Johnson isn’t just hurting New Mexicans, he’s hurting thousands of people nationwide – in far more Republican House districts than Democratic ones — who would finally receive benefits after radiation exposure from uranium mining and aboveground nuclear tests.

RECA then and now

Johnson has blocked an effort to expand and extend the life of the Radiation Exposure and Compensation Act, over the objections of members of his own party, who represent people exposed to radiation.

S. 3853 would allow thousands of people in Nevada, Arizona, Utah, Montana, Idaho, Colorado, New Mexico, Missouri and Guam — and uranium workers after 1972 — who have suffered diseases linked to radiation exposure to be eligible for compensation. The bill passed the Senate in a 69-30 vote in March.

Johnson’s publicly expressed concerns start and end with the costs of expanding the program.

Since its start in 1990 until the program’s sunset in June, the fund paid out $2.6 billion. The Congressional Budget Office estimated that costs would rise to between $50 billion and $60 billion over the next decade.

While advocates have disagreed on the accuracy of that figure, it’s also only a portion of the estimated $756 billion in spending for the nuclear weapons program between 2023 and 2032.

Time’s run out for the Radiation Exposure and Compensation Act

RECA is a unique fund that paid out lump-sums to people exposed to radiation from decades of nuclear tests or uranium mining before 1972. The program only compensated downwinders in a handful of counties in Arizona, Utah and Nevada.

However, there is a growing nationwide reckoning that radiation exposure has harmed more communities causing rare cancers, diseases and low birth rates.

‘We’ve sacrificed enough’

A call went up among people wearing yellow and black shirts and matching banners — evoking hazmat — as the flashing lights of a motorcade rounded the curve.

“Pass RECA now!” they chanted, as the motorcade carrying the speaker turned the corner, with escorts from federal, local and state police. The people ensconced in black SUVs in the center, had their heads turned away from the signs as they passed.

“I’m a New Mexican. I feel we’re all Downwinders here,” said Joaquin Lujan. He drove from Polvadera, outside of Socorro, to attend.

Lujan, 72, said the failure of the government to expand the program was a shame.

“The Republicans, I don’t know, they’re just not part of la gente,” he said. “That’s why we have to be out here. This is so important to our families.”

Don Meaders, a retired leader in the United Brotherhood of Carpenters, made a cross as part of the message to Johnson, saying it’s unconscionable to not help people exposed to radiation.

“The cross is a symbol of sacrifice, and we’ve sacrificed enough,” he said.

RECA and the election

Members of the New Mexico Democratic party and supporters of Democratic U.S. Rep. Gabe Vasquez joined the Downwinders outside the museum. Some held signs about reproductive rights, which have been curtailed by Republican policies.

While RECA did not explicitly come up during a pair of brief speeches delivered by Herrell and Johnson, it’s become a significant campaign issue in the toss-up of New Mexico’s 2nd Congressional District.

Herrell recently told Source NM she supports expanding RECA fully and would address it with Johnson after Downwinders joined Vasquez for a campaign event last week.

Tina Cordova, the founder of the Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium, said that Herrell’s positions on RECA have changed, and if Herrell wants the support of the Downwinders, she would have to do more to champion the cause.

“We requested that she get us a face-to-face meeting — and we’re on the outside, and they’re on the inside,” Cordova said, pointing to the museum up the road.

At a campaign rally for Vasquez in Albuquerque last week, leaders in the Democratic party publicly promised to pass RECA if they take the majority in the House.

“For me, that’s a safety net,” Cordova said.

Both Johnson and Herrell declined to take questions at the campaign event on Wednesday.