New Mexico

New Mexico supreme court strikes down local abortion pill restrictions

Published

12 months ago

January 10, 2025

New Mexico supreme court strikes down local abortion pill restrictions

The New Mexico supreme court late on Thursday ruled against several local ordinances in the state that aim to restrict distribution of the abortion pill.

In a unanimous opinion, the court said the ordinances invaded the legislature’s authority to regulate reproductive care.

“Our legislature granted to counties and municipalities all powers and duties not inconsistent with the laws of New Mexico. The ordinances violate this core precept and invade the legislature’s authority to regulate access to and provision of reproductive healthcare,” the court wrote in its opinion by the justice Shannon Bacon.

It declined to address whether the ordinances violated the state’s constitutional protections.

Abortion is legal in New Mexico, which has become a destination for women seeking abortions from Texas, especially, and other states that have banned the procedure following the US supreme court ruling in 2022 ending a woman’s constitutional right to abortion and handing powers over the issue to individual states.

Following that ruling, leaders of New Mexico’s Roosevelt and Lea counties and the towns of Clovis and Hobbs, all on the Texas border, passed ordinances seeking to stop abortion clinics from receiving or sending mifepristone, a pill taken with another drug to perform a medication abortion, and other abortion-related materials in the mail. Medication abortions account for more than half of all US abortions. Last June the supreme court upheld access to the drugs.

The ordinances invoked the federal Comstock Act, a 19th-century “anti-vice” law against mailing abortifacients, which are drugs that induce abortion, and said that clinics must comply with the law.

Under Roosevelt county’s ordinance, any person other than a government employee could bring a civil lawsuit and seek damages of at least $100,000 for each violation of the Comstock Act.

The New Mexico supreme court admonished this, saying that creating a private right of action and damages award was “clearly intended to punish protected conduct”.

The state attorney general, Raúl Torrez, praised the court’s ruling on Thursday, saying that the core of the argument was that state laws pre-empted any action by local governments to engage in activities that would infringe on the constitutional rights of citizens.

“The bottom line is simply this: abortion access is safe and secure in New Mexico,” he said. “It’s enshrined in law by the recent ruling by the New Mexico supreme court and thanks to the work of the New Mexico legislature.”

The New Mexico house speaker, Javier Martínez, called access to healthcare a basic fundamental right in New Mexico.

“It doesn’t take a genius to understand the statutory framework that we have. Local governments don’t regulate healthcare in New Mexico. It is up to the state,” the Albuquerque Democrat said.

Opposition to abortion runs deep in New Mexico communities along the border with Texas, however, which has one of the most restrictive bans in the US.

But Democrats, who control every statewide elected office in New Mexico and hold majorities in the state house and senate, have moved to shore up access to the service.

In 2021, the New Mexico legislature repealed a dormant 1969 statute that outlawed most abortion procedures as felonies, ensuring access to abortion even after the Roe v Wade reversal.

And in 2023, the Democratic New Mexico governor, Michelle Lujan Grisham, signed a bill that overrides local ordinances aimed at limiting abortion access and enacted a shield law that protects abortion providers from investigations by other states.

In September, construction began on a state-funded reproductive health and abortion clinic in southern New Mexico that will cater to local residents and people who travel from neighboring states.

The new clinic should open in 2026 to provide services ranging from medical and procedural abortions to contraception, cervical cancer screenings and education about adoptions.

It was not immediately clear whether the ruling can be appealed in federal court. The New Mexico supreme court opinion explicitly declined to address conflicts with federal law, basing its decision solely on state provisions.

The Texas-based attorney Jonathan Mitchell, a former Texas solicitor general and architect of that state’s strict abortion ban, said he looked forward “to litigating these issues in other states and bringing the meaning of the federal Comstock Act to the supreme court of the United States”.

Reuters and the Associated Press contributed reporting

Source link

New Mexico

New Mexico deserves speedier game commission appointments

Published

10 hours ago

January 9, 2026

Press Room

New Mexico deserves speedier game commission appointments

State

Zip Code

Country

Source link

New Mexico

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

Published

22 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.

Source link

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

Source link