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New Mexico governor defends approach to attempted gun restrictions, emergency order on gun violence

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New Mexico governor defends approach to attempted gun restrictions, emergency order on gun violence


FILE – Demonstrators carry their assault rifles to a Second Amendment rally in response to Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s recent public health order suspending the conceal and open carry of guns in and around Albuquerque for 30-days, Tuesday, Sept. 12, 2023, in Albuquerque, N.M. Restrictions on carrying guns in public that are tied to an emergency public health order are going under the legal microscope Tuesday, Oct. 3, in New Mexico, where the Democratic governor is testing the boundaries of her authority and constitutional law in response to violent crime in the state’s largest metro area.Roberto E. Rosales/AP

SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham on Tuesday defended her decision to treat gun violence as a public health epidemic, citing statistics on recent firearms seizures, reduced reports of gunfire in the Albuquerque metro area and an uptick in jail bookings, while awaiting a crucial court ruling on a signature effort to suspend gun-carry rights in public parks and playgrounds.

The governor last week extended an emergency public health order regarding gun violence an additional 30 days into early November. A federal judge has temporarily blocked provisions that suspended the right to carry guns in public parks, playgrounds and other areas where children recreate, setting a Wednesday deadline for a ruling on whether to indefinitely block the restrictions while several court challenges are resolved.

Lujan Grisham appeared at the news conference alongside Cabinet secretaries not only for New Mexico’s Public Safety and Corrections departments but also child welfare services, pubic health and environmental protection agencies that are under orders to respond to the ravages of gun violence and drugs.

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They unveiled a new website dashboard for statistics related to gun violence in the Albuquerque area. Administration officials said some new efforts to contain gun violence and drugs wouldn’t be possible without the emergency orders — such as a mandate that expanded behavior health services from major medical insurers and emergency funding for wastewater testing for drugs at schools.

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“I won’t rest until we don’t have to talk about (gun violence) as an epidemic and a public health emergency. That’s the goal — and if we turn the tide and it’s sustainable,” Lujan Grisham said.

Lujan Grisham is confronting a public backlash from critics of her public health order who describe its gun restriction provisions as an assault on constitutional rights that allow a person to carry a firearm for self defense.

On Tuesday, the governor said she has a responsibility to explore opportunities for gun-free “safe spaces” amid shifting judicial precedent.

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“That’s a question that’s now moving to the courts,” Lujan Grisham said of her proposed gun restrictions. “I need to know what we can and cannot do to keep New Mexicans safe.”

The standoff is one of many in the wake of a U.S. Supreme Court decision last year expanding gun rights, as leaders in politically liberal-leaning states explore new avenues for restrictions.

The governor’s emergency orders also include directives for monthly inspections of firearms dealers statewide, reports on gunshot victims at New Mexico hospitals and voluntary gun-buyback programs.

Corrections Secretary Alisha Tafoya Lucero said her agency is taking custody of 48 high-maintenance inmates from Bernalillo County’s Metropolitan Detention Center to free up staff to help the area contend with violent crime.

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Environment Department Secretary James Kenney said the planned wastewater testing program aims to identify which opioids, including fentanyl, are present at public schools, with 250 testing points statewide, to inform the state’s response.

The governor has scaled back initial gun restrictions in the emergency public health order that broadly suspended the right to carry guns in most public places, which the sheriff and Albuquerque’s police chief had refused to enforce.

The latest health order also avoids interference with access to a municipal shooting range in Albuquerque located within a public park. Gun restrictions would be tied to a statistical threshold for violent crime that applied only to Albuquerque and the surrounding area.

State police would have authority under the governor’s order to assess civil penalties and fines of up to $5,000 for infractions.

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New Mexico

Trump raises some eyebrows with blue state stops in New Mexico, Virginia

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Trump raises some eyebrows with blue state stops in New Mexico, Virginia


While Trump’s advisers and allies say they advantages in these stops, including helping downballot Republicans and popping into geographically convenient places that might be more competitive than they seem, others see it as a risk they could come to regret.



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New Mexico

New Mexico SIC adds more than $300m to private markets

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New Mexico

Trump comes to New Mexico, where Republicans are courting Hispanic voters hard 

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Trump comes to New Mexico, where Republicans are courting Hispanic voters hard 


Ten days ago, New Mexican Republican Ronnie Lucero posted on X before heading to a Trump golf resort in Miami to attend the Republican candidate’s Latino Summit. He wrote, “I am going to ask President Trump to come to New Mexico now that we are within the margin of error of flipping red.”

He says his conversation with Trump was maybe 15 seconds long, and he does not take credit, but when the rally was confirmed, Lucero was jubilant. He is the former chair of the Republican National Hispanic Assembly, and has the fervor of a convert.

“I was a Democrat,” he said. “I actually voted for Bill Clinton, and when George Bush became president, I voted for Bush. I voted for Obama his first election, and I voted against him in the second election.”

As he got more involved in politics he felt his values and his identity were pulling him to the right.

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“It became more clear to me that I was very conservative. And, you know, our values as a Hispanic community are very conservative.”

As former President Donald Trump stops in Albuquerque for a rally Thursday, his decision to call on New Mexico so close to the election might seem surprising. Polls suggest his Democratic opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, is set to win by several points.

But Trump’s visit fits into a concerted effort. New Mexico is the state with the highest proportion of Hispanic voters, about 45%, coming from many backgrounds, including centuries-old families and recent immigrants. And Republicans are working to win them over up and down the ballot.

“The Republican Party of New Mexico has made a pretty strong effort to get more of the Hispanic representation in the party itself,” said Lucero, whose day job is selling used cars in Albuquerque.

For example, KUNM found that in the four state Senate races which Republicans lost by the smallest margin last time, the party is running Hispanic candidates this time around. And a report last year by the news outlet Axios found a record number of Hispanic New Mexicans running as Republicans for the state House of Representatives.

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Lucero says the party is working to appeal to Hispanic voters’ core values: family, culture, economic opportunity and freedom.

But of those, he says the most important argument right now is the economy. Hispanic households here are a bit more likely to be family households, and household income is lower than that of white families.

“So inflation is actually hitting our families a lot more,” he said.

He also said he makes arguments around public safety. The Albuquerque Police Department said last year that most victims and suspects of homicide are Hispanic.

Lucero says the campaign has been going door to door and holding events specifically focused on the Hispanic community. The New York Post reported last week that conservative groups are spending $5 million on Spanish-language ads here in the final stretch of the campaign.

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Lucero does not focus as much on issues like abortion, or the rights of transgender people. But some Hispanic Republicans do. Gabriel Ramos is running for state senator in Southern New Mexico, and he also switched sides after in 2019 joining a group of Democrats who voted to keep an abortion ban from the 1960s on the state’s books.

“The liberal/progressive movement that’s going on, I just didn’t agree with,” he said. “I just felt that I needed to become a Republican.”

He said the Democratic party has changed since it dominated the unions in the mining community in which he grew up.

If the miners were alive today, he said, “I don’t think that if they really looked at what the parties stood for, I don’t think that most of them would agree with most of the Democrat values.”

And the real reason for Trump’s visit might lie in a race where the candidates are vying ferociously for Hispanic voters: the 2nd Congressional District in southern New Mexico, which is nearly 60% Hispanic.

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Nationally, the race to control the House of Representatives is a toss-up, and this contest is one of the tightest in the country. Democratic candidate Gabe Vasquez, who is from a Mexican immigrant family, won by a whisker two years ago and insists he’ll win again.

“There’s a narrative that we are losing Latinos to the Republican Party, and to folks that say that in my district, I would say that that couldn’t be further from the truth,” he said.

He pointed out that a Hispanic outreach center that opened last election season, when Republican candidate Yvette Herrell was in office, in Albuquerque’s heavily Hispanic South Valley, and promised pizza parties and job fairs, has since closed.
“That was at a place where Republicans had a press conference and had vowed that they would do a better job of attracting Latino communities and Hispanic voters,” he said.

Herrell is running again this time and is expected to speak at the Trump rally. In an email statement to KUNM, Vianca Rodriguez, the Trump Campaign Deputy Director of Hispanic Communications, said, “The Trump campaign’s Latino outreach strategy is a comprehensive, all-hands-on-deck effort,” saying that Latino Americans for Trump staff are working in GOP offices in heavily Hispanic areas across Arizona, Nevada, and Georgia. She also referred to the Vice President as “Que Mala” (translation: how bad!) Kamala Harris.

Republicans looking for reasons to be optimistic in New Mexico have pointed to a recent poll that showed Harris with only a three point lead, though Source New Mexico reports that poll was conducted by a firm owned by Kellyanne Conway, a former spokesperson for Trump.

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State Representative Stephani Lord (R-Sandia Park) told Newsmax this week, “what I’m hearing in New Mexico is a lot of people that were not going to support Trump previously are totally on board with him. I’m talking about our Hispanic voters.”

She did not offer any evidence and most polls show Harris with a convincing lead. The chair of the Democratic Party of New Mexico, Jessica Velasquez, said her party has long done a better job representing the Hispanic community.

“You know, the Democratic Party has always had Hispanic candidates at the federal level for years,” she said. “The overwhelming majority of Hispanic state legislators in both chambers in Santa Fe are Democrats. There are only a handful of Hispanic Republicans.”

Still, KUNM spoke to a few Democrats who think their party needs to not take Hispanics for granted, like the former Democratic mayor of Las Vegas, Louie Trujillo.

“I’m surprised at how many Trump supporters there are in northern New Mexico,” he said. “Younger people, younger than me. Those are the Gen Z voters, who people were hoping to get out and capture that Democratic vote.”

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He remembers an enthusiastic Obama campaign in Las Vegas in 2008 and feels the national party could up its game in New Mexico today. In heavily Hispanic Mora County, County Commissioner Veronica Serna, another Democrat, also sounded a note of caution.

“Especially because it’s always been predominantly Democrat, I don’t think we can just assume that it’s going to continue being that way,” she said. “I think that, especially for the younger voters, they have a mind of their own.”





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