Sen. Joe Cervantes, D-Las Cruces, shown earlier this year, questioned whether some of the legislation in the upcoming special session will do much to deal with crime. “Parts of our state have themselves under control and some parts do not, so I think the governor has the proper priority of crime and public safety in mind, so I support that,” he said Wednesday. “But I think there are much more effective ways of addressing crime than we have been presented thus far.”
Sen. Joe Cervantes, D-Las Cruces, shown earlier this year, questioned whether some of the legislation in the upcoming special session will do much to deal with crime. “Parts of our state have themselves under control and some parts do not, so I think the governor has the proper priority of crime and public safety in mind, so I support that,” he said Wednesday. “But I think there are much more effective ways of addressing crime than we have been presented thus far.”
Amid pushback from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham is pulling the plug on her most ambitious proposal for the upcoming special session.
Lawmakers had complained the governor was moving too fast on an overhaul of state law around “assisted outpatient treatment,” or court-ordered treatment for mental illness or addiction, and worried it was too complex a task to tackle during a special session expected to last only a few days.
“The governor hears what you’re saying, that it’s too much to do in a special session,” Holly Agajanian, Lujan Grisham’s chief general counsel, told lawmakers Wednesday during a meeting of the Courts, Corrections and Justice Committee.
The proposal instead is poised to be considered during the regular 60-day session in January, which is what lawmakers had originally advocated.
“The governor … has listened and been listening to the committee and to your thoughts on the big lift that retooling that part of our behavioral health system is going to entail,” she said, adding Lujan Grisham has instead decided to take “some small, necessary steps” to help people who are either an extreme danger to themselves or others.
Asked what had changed in the last month, Agajanian said “the retooling and overhaul of the whole criminal competency system” was “too big” for the special session, set to begin July 18.
“We have gone back and decided to do the small changes instead,” Agajanian told lawmakers. “When I say ‘small changes,’ I mean we are amending a bill that already exists. I do not mean to imply that these changes will not have a big impact.”
The focus now will be on people who repeatedly cycle through the system and are found incompetent but don’t ever receive inpatient treatment — as well as expanding the definition of what it means for a person to be a danger to themselves or others in order to qualify for involuntary civil commitment.
Peter Cubra, an Albuquerque-based attorney who said he has represented thousands of people who got involved in the criminal justice system because of their psychiatric conditions, urged lawmakers to “please slow this down.”
“What I heard today in terms of changing the entire civil commitment statute is more controversial and more impactful than things that we have spent literally eight sessions trying to sort out with respect to forced treatment,” he said via Zoom. “It really would disserve every person with a disability in New Mexico for you to act under these circumstances so swiftly.”
Cubra said there are “hundreds of people” begging for treatment who wouldn’t have access to a bed if Lujan Grisham’s proposals become law.
“Instead, we will be holding people against their will in a form of treatment, involuntary treatment, which is almost never effective,” he said.
Other bills still on the governor’s call include increasing penalties for felons caught in possession of firearms, requiring crime statistics reporting from state and local law enforcement agencies, and prohibiting pedestrians from standing on some roadways and medians.
While lawmakers have voiced concerns about all of the governor’s proposals, the two-pronged civil and criminal mental competency bill to make assisted outpatient treatment mandatory in every judicial district in the state sparked the most opposition.
Sen. Joe Cervantes, D-Las Cruces, questioned whether the proposed pieces of legislation for the special session, which is focused on public safety, will do much to deal with crime in New Mexico.
“I fully agree with the governor [that] we have a rampant crime problem in parts of our state, and I emphasize ‘parts of our state,’ ” he said in an interview.
“Parts of our state have themselves under control and some parts do not, so I think the governor has the proper priority of crime and public safety in mind, so I support that,” Cervantes said. “But I think there are much more effective ways of addressing crime than we have been presented thus far.”
