Senate Minority Leader Bill Sharer, R-Farmington, responds to the governor’s State of the State address with Senate Republicans during a news conference Tuesday, Jan. 20, 2026 at the state Capitol. Photo by Nathan Burton/The New Mexican

By CLARA BATES
The Santa Fe New Mexican

New Mexico Republicans found cause for encouragement as Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham laid out her priorities for the legislative session Tuesday, although fights loom over issues like banning immigrant detention facilities.

“She’s absolutely with us on things like public safety and health care,” said Senate Minority Leader Bill Sharer, R-Farmington, at a news conference after Lujan Grisham’s speech, calling that “amazing.”

Earlier Tuesday, House Republican leaders said their session goals also include medical malpractice changes and reducing juvenile crime.

“We’re happy to see that the governor is finally echoing some of those priorities,” said House Minority Leader Gail Armstrong, R-Magdalena.

On public safety the Democratic governor has at times found more allies in the Republican caucus than her own in recent years. While GOP leaders cheered some of her proposals Tuesday, their fate will depend on Democrats who hold the majority in both chambers.

The governor is pushing changes to the Children’s Code that would allow more juveniles to be sentenced as adults, as well as proposing enhanced penalties for certain crimes, giving the courts more authority to do involuntary mental health treatment commitments, and expanding pretrial detention for suspects charged with violent crimes.

Progressive Democrats in prior sessions have opposed some of those measures as overly punitive and favoring incarceration over treatment.

House Minority Whip Alan Martinez, R-Bernalillo, said he is glad to hear the governor is prioritizing combating crime, especially juvenile crime.

“If these kids are old enough to do violent crime, they’re old enough to be held accountable,” Martinez said.

“We’re going to have to take those hard votes because if we don’t, our families will not feel safe out there,” he added.

Sharer called Lujan Grisham’s proposals to change the mental health commitment laws — which would tweak the definitions of “harm to self” and “harm to others” in state law — “our bill.” He also said he would support expanding pretrial detention.

“We used to have pretrial detention — if you were perceived to be a threat, we held you till the trial,” Sharer said.

Health care common ground

Lujan Grisham also said she’ll push for changes to the state’s medical malpractice laws, which supporters say would help keep doctors in the state.

While she didn’t specify in her speech, proposals include capping punitive damages. Punitive damages are designed to punish misconduct, on top of compensatory damages, which cover an injured defendant’s losses. Opponents of changing the cap have argued it’s a crucial path for victims to get justice and deter wrongdoing, while proponents say it dissuades doctors from practicing in New Mexico.

The medical malpractice issue, Armstrong said, “needs a tourniquet, not a Band-Aid.”

The governor supports approving all the medical compacts, she said, which refer to agreements among states that eases the process for out-of-state doctors and other professionals to practice in New Mexico.

Interstate compacts, Armstrong said, are important to reducing the state’s worsening physician shortage — the “bread and butter,” she said — but medical malpractice reform is the “steak.”

On that issue, Sharer said, “the governor and us are on the same page, going in the same direction with health care access.” He added she is pushing “some of the same things that we’ve worked on for years now.”

‘Obstacles to progress’

Other Lujan Grisham priorities are sure to receive staunch Republican opposition — proposals Sharer termed “obstacles to progress.”

Among them is a proposed ban on assault rifles.

“Nobody needs a body-shredding weapon for hunting or self defense,” Lujan Grisham said in her speech. 

Sharer called that “absurd” and said most people can’t define an assault weapon.

“And yet, we’re going to go out there with an assault weapons ban that we can’t even define what it is, and it’s all mostly cosmetic, and that is not going to stop anything either,” Sharer said.

Republicans are also against Lujan Grisham’s efforts to fund universal child care, with Sharer saying state money should only go to the neediest families, not everyone.

“Why don’t we focus on people who really need help?” he said. 

Lujan Grisham also called for codifying in state law the emissions reductions goals set during her tenure, something Republicans have said they will oppose.

“Families are already struggling to afford groceries, gas, and rent, and now the Governor wants to lock in policies that will make electricity more expensive and less reliable,” Armstrong said in a statement Tuesday.

Not mentioned in Lujan Grisham’s speech but still among her priorities, a spokesperson confirmed, is banning immigration detention centers in the state, which Republicans have come out against.

“Our local communities need to be able to govern their community the way that they feel best. … This is big government telling smaller government what to do, what they can and can’t do, and I’m not sure that that’s best for those communities,” Armstrong said.

House Republicans will also oppose efforts for the state to continue filling in for Affordable Care Act subsidies that were cut by Congress last year, with Armstrong calling it a federal issue.

“We can’t keep subsidizing it. Let’s fix the problem — and that’s on the federal level,” she said.