New Mexico
Paid family medical leave clears New Mexico Senate – Source New Mexico
After nearly five hours of debate from New Mexico Republican opponents, the Senate version of the paid family medical leave bill passed the Senate floor just before 11 p.m. Friday night.
Lawmakers passed Senate Bill 3 in a 25-15 vote. Its counterpart in the other chamber, House Bill 6, awaits its second committee hearing in the House Commerce and Economic Development Committee, where the proposal died last session.
Sen. George Muñoz (D-Gallup) was the only Democrat who voted against the bill Friday night.
Senate Bill 3 sets up a fund administered by the New Mexico Department of Workforce Solutions for employers and employees to pay into, that could eventually pay employees for a maximum of 12 weeks while they’re on leave for their own medical needs or that of a family member.
Before it gets to that point the bill will allow nine weeks for an individual’s medical leave. During that time, the state will study how the program is doing before it makes a decision to implement the 12-week leave mandate. If signed into law, New Mexicans who need family leave will start with up to 12-weeks guaranteed during that period.
“It’s an insurance program for all those things that happen to us whether we like it or not,” said bill sponsor Senate Pro Tempore Mimi Stewart (D-Albuquerque).
Supporters of the bill say the fund needs $36 million in startup costs to develop.
Eligible employees would pay $272 a year into the fund through payroll deductions, and employers would pay $218 per mean wage employee per year to fund the program.
The legislation returned this year after sponsors said they worked with business owners to address concerns about potential harms to small businesses.
The 2024 bill promises protections for employers through measures like capping contribution increases, delaying implementation and employee eligibility requirements.
The Senate proposal also creates a temporary advisory committee with representation from a variety of organizations including those that work with small businesses, medical groups, women and the elderly.
The committee would be responsible for creating rules for how the fund will operate. It’s also responsible for creating educational materials for employers and employees.
Two amendments presented on the Senate floor Friday night by Stewart and Sen. Joseph Cervantes (D-Las Cruces) made additional changes to the makeup of the temporary advisory committee and employee eligibility, including eliminating certain types of leave by doubling the days an employee would have to work to be eligible for leave from 90 to 180 working days.
Both amendments were approved.
Still, the debate echoed previous arguments that stalled the bill last session.
“If you want to beat up the big box stores, have at it. Let’s bring back the small store, I’m good with that,” said Sen. William Sharer (R-Farmington). “But this isn’t beating up the big box store, it’s beating up Main Street.”
Stewart said in a previous debate that 66% of small businesses wouldn’t have to pay into the fund, as the bill narrowly escaped the Senate Rules Committee on Feb. 3 with a vote of 6-5.
Opponents of the bill expressed concern that there’s not enough safeguards in place to protect businesses from lawsuits and being squeezed by fund contributions, calling the bill in its current form “confusing” for business owners.
“I know in my heart and the emails that I get, the many concerns I have from my employers that this is a tough transition that this is going to make,” Sen. Pat Woods (R-Broadview) said. “We’re trying to get employers to grow in our state and prosper in our state … what my employers are telling me is that if this bill passes they’re going to have to remove the benefits they give their employees already.”
A survey by the Small Business Majority found that 85% of small business owners support a state-run paid family and medical leave insurance program. That same survey found that 61% of small businesses believed paid family medical leave made them more competitive with larger companies that offer better benefit packages to employees.
Stewart told lawmakers the state was committed to making the transition “as easy as possible” for employers.
“We’re taking our time with this,” Stewart said. “We’re going to have a robust interim rulemaking. We want businesses to feel good about this. We want it easy for them.”
The application period for leave is also deferred until Jan. 1, 2027, Stewart said.
Sharer called the bill “flawed” and said it would “break up the business family” because the government would be able to back up an employee who wanted to take leave and had a conflict, instead of allowing the issue to be resolved between an employee and their employer.
He also raised concern about opening up a potential for fraud.
Stewart pointed out that there is nothing in the bill language that compels an employee to take leave or bars either party from working out leave amongst themselves.
She said the bill was designed to help both workers and employers because there is a high threshold for obtaining leave, such as requiring an application and multiple sources of support for an employee’s claim. It also helps employees get back to work faster and allows employers to offset costs by hiring temporary workers to fill in and not have to pay for someone’s leave.
“It’s a high bar to get medical leave,” Stewart said. “If you have employees that you just want to let off for a while, nothing says you can’t do that. The whole idea behind the changes we make today is to ease that employee-employer relationship. This does not require you to do things different with your employees. It’s really just for these situations where people cannot work.”
The National Partnership for Women and Families, a nonprofit working on fairness in the workplace, says there’s very few instances of fraud and many of the few suspicions of fraud have not been proven.
Stewart said nearly half of women in New Mexico were not in the workforce, and that this bill would bring mothers, family caregivers and people with chronic health conditions back into the workforce
She cited the U.S. Department of Labor which states that New Mexico would experience an expansion of the labor force by 47,000 workers with paid family medical leave enacted. Stewart told lawmakers that a paid family medical leave program would ensure families in need had resources during difficult times.
New Mexico had the fourth highest poverty rate last year, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. It is also among the states with the highest Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program use in the country. It ranks 50th in child welfare.
“We’re talking human dignity and social justice. Because right now these workers are just fired or they lose their jobs,” Stewart said. “I believe this will answer a lot of the issues that are economically disadvantaging New Mexico.”
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New Mexico
Inmate country store in Santa Fe to open Friday
The Old Gumby’s Country Store in Santa Fe has a lot to offer, not only to shoppers, but the products’ creators too.
SANTA FE, N.M. – The Old Gumby’s Country Store in Santa Fe has a lot to offer, not only to shoppers, but the products’ creators too.
“This could be the first opportunity for them to feel confident about something,” New Mexico Corrections Department’s Public Information Officer, Brittany Roembach.
That’s because all the people who handmade these things are serving time in New Mexico prisons.
“Welding, woodworking, we have a print shop, we have an embroidery shop,” said Ron Martinez, an administrative manger for Correction Industries.
The inmates have to apply for the program like a job. The proceeds from what they sell at the store goes back into the program and others like it.
The inmates even make an hourly wage.
“Varies on the jobs based on what they’re doing, it’s a dollar up to two dollars,” Martinez said.
But to be able to share their work with the community is priceless.
“They’re learning that skill, OK? They’re building products that are being sold and that builds a lot of self-worth for them,” said Martinez.
Not only does it build self-worth, but it helps them start fresh once they are released.
“One of the inmates who makes these he’s getting out soon and his family wants, he told me that his family is helping him to potentially start his own studio to sell rugs. So they can truly take it and turn it into a career,” said Roembach.
The store will open its doors Friday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. It is cash only, so make sure you hit the ATM before you head out. It’s going to be open once a month to give the inmates some time to replenish their stock.
For more information on Old Gumby’s Country Store, click here.
New Mexico
Snap seeks to dismiss New Mexico lawsuit over child safety
By Sheila Dang
(Reuters) – Snap on Thursday filed a motion to dismiss a New Mexico lawsuit that alleged the tech company enabled child sexual exploitation on its messaging app Snapchat, arguing there were inaccuracies to the state’s investigation.
The lawsuit, brought by New Mexico Attorney General Raul Torrez in September, is among a series of efforts by U.S. lawmakers to hold tech companies accountable for harm to minors who use their services. In January, U.S. senators grilled the CEOs of Snap, Meta Platforms, TikTok, X and Discord, accusing the companies of failing to protect children from abuse and “sextortion,” in which predators coerce minors into sending explicit photos or videos.
As part of a months-long investigation, New Mexico set up a decoy account for a 14-year-old girl, which investigators said did not add any friends but quickly received suggestions from Snapchat to add users with explicit account names.
In a filing in the first judicial court of New Mexico, Snap said the allegations were “patently false” and that the decoy account proactively sent many friend requests to certain users, contrary to the state’s claims.
New Mexico’s lawsuit also accused Snap of failing to warn children and parents of the dangers of sextortion on Snapchat. The Santa Monica, California-based company responded that the claims were barred by the First Amendment because Snap cannot be compelled to speak.
“Not only would Snap be required to make subjective judgments about potential risks of harm and disclose them, but it would have to do so with virtually no guidance about how to avoid liability in the future,” Snap said in the filing.
The state’s lawsuit is also a clear violation of Section 230, a portion of a 1996 law that protects online platforms from civil liability over content posted by users and third parties, Snap said.
The company added it has doubled the size of its trust and safety team and tripled its law enforcement operations team since 2020.
(Reporting by Sheila Dang in Austin, Texas; Editing by Matthew Lewis)
New Mexico
Environmental group, feds and irrigation district reach settlement in silvery minnow suit • Source New Mexico
A big fight over a small, endangered fish that lives in the Rio Grande has come to a resolution, as a federal judge in New Mexico OK’d a settlement Tuesday proposed by the parties.
U.S. District of New Mexico Magistrate Judge Gregory Fouratt approved an agreement between WildEarth Guardians, an environmental and conservation nonprofit based in Santa Fe, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and a middle Rio Grande irrigation district.
The deal ends a 2022 lawsuit brought by WildEarth Guardians alleging the federal government mismanaged the Rio Grande and promoted unsustainable water uses, which violated provisions of the Endangered Species Act to restore habitats for the silvery minnow and two other species.
Feds, irrigation district say keep your wheels off of the silvery minnow
The dual strains of climate change and human diversions for irrigation are contributing to the Rio Grande drying more frequently, especially the crucial stretch of river between Cochiti Dam and Elephant Butte, where silvery minnow live.
The 4-inch long minnow, is unlike most freshwater fish. Silvery minnow directly spawn into the water in the spring, and the fertilized eggs slip downstream, a method more common to marine fish. When the river was slower and shallower, the minnow was prolific along Rio Grande from Española to Gulf of Mexico. Federal and local irrigation projects straightened the river, making it deeper and faster, and built dams that prevented fish from moving freely in the river. Now, the short-lived fish is limited to one reach,which dries almost completely each year. After years of population decline, the fish was named an endangered species in 1994.
The minnow holds an important role as an indicator of the Rio Grande’s health, said Daniel Timmons, the wild rivers program director for Wild Earth Guardians.
“The Rio Grande through Albuquerque used to support sturgeon and catfish that were 200 pounds. And today, the river is barely able to support a 4-inch minnow,” he said. “If it’s not able to support a minnow, it’s not able to support the entire web of life.”
The settlement makes some immediate changes, such as outlining specific provisions of the the Middle Rio Grande Water Conservancy District to fallow 2,500-3,500 acres farmland for the next four years or offer imported Colorado River water to keep in the riverbed.
Other provisions, such as the agreement to start the process for new federal conservation measures – called a Biological Opinion – will take four years.
While the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will be “driving the bus” to produce a new Biological Opinion; there will be more opportunities for public comment as part of the agreement.
That’s unusual, he said, adding that Biological Opinions are often made behind closed doors.
“I’m hopeful the agencies will be more transparent throughout the process and will be engaging the public to make sure it’s more of a participatory process than it has been in the past,” Timmons said.
The federal government also agreed to pay $41,000 for WildEarth Guardian’s legal fees.
Currently, federal wildlife officials are going to continue using conservation measures from the 2016 Biological Opinion in the interim, said Debra Hill, a supervisory biologist for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Rio Grande Basin.
One of the goals is to make the 87 conservation measures from the 2016 opinion less vague and more focused, she said.
The settlement shows that government agencies will have to work together to address creative solutions as the Rio Grande is expected to shrink further from climate change, she said.
“We are really going to have to figure out how to work with what is limited, and so it’s going to take working together as much as we can,” Hill said.
Hill called the minnow a “canary in a coal mine,” for life on the river.
“If we’re starting to see that a fish doesn’t have what it needs to survive in the Middle Rio Grande, we need to, as a society, realize that water is the same water that we rely on,” Hill said.
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