Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham speaks with Rep. Christine Chandler, D-Los Alamos, following a news conference to discuss public safety held at the state Capitol on Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2025. Photo by Gabriela Campos/The New Mexican

Bernalillo County District Attorney Sam Bregman speaks to the group gathered at a news conference held at the state Capitol on Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2025. ‘However, I want to make this as clear as possible, violent juvenile crime is out of control,’ said Bregman, who is advocating for legal changes to crack down on youthful offenders. Photo by Gabriela Campos/The New Mexican

By DANIEL J. CHACÓN
The Santa Fe New Mexican

Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham defended her record on crime Tuesday as she continued to call on lawmakers to pass an omnibus public safety package during the 60-day legislative session.

During a news briefing at the Capitol, called to underscore what the Governor’s Office described as an “urgent need for public safety reform,” Lujan Grisham rejected the idea she had waited too long to ramp up pressure on the Legislature to act amid a yearslong crime problem.

“I asked them to take action in 2018, 2019, 2020, ‘21, ‘22, ‘23,” said Lujan Grisham, a Democrat serving her second and final term in office.

The governor noted she had called a special session in July to focus on public safety, which ended after lawmakers adjourned in five hours without giving any of her proposals a hearing, saying they weren’t ready for consideration. 

“But look, whatever time it takes, it takes,” Lujan Grisham said. “Here’s something else that I need to say: They did not not send me criminal justice bills. Every single year, I can point to a bill I’ve signed, including lots of gun legislation that there was not always bipartisan agreement on. They got upstairs.”

Though she took partial blame for a “one-sided” narrative, the governor said the notion policymakers didn’t want to tackle crime is untrue.

“But figuring out when we had a decimated behavioral health system, when we had issues attracting providers, when we had COVID … you lose an entire race,” she said. “Then we had fires. We led the country with hideous climate change fires that we didn’t need any help starting; the feds started it for us, OK? So, we took care of New Mexicans where they were without ignoring crime.”

Sometimes, she said, the state needs a moment “where all those other crises do not take center stage, and we can really robustly have a continuum.”

“Maybe the benefit of those debates for those years allows New Mexico not to nibble again at the edges and do one or another but an omnibus package, which we haven’t done, I don’t think, in decades,” Lujan Grisham said. “You know what? I will take that 1000% of the time because that will erode this crisis and do something about it faster than one or two pieces of legislation at a time.”

Governor highlights priorities

During the news briefing, which came just hours before a House committee was scheduled to consider a criminal competency bill and changes to the so-called red-flag gun law involving the seizure of firearms, law enforcement officials and legislators from both sides of the aisle joined Lujan Grisham as she reiterated her call for action. Lujan Grisham said more than 18,000 cases “have been dismissed because of competency” since 2017. She said “1,500-plus of those individuals” turned out to be repeat offenders.

“What we also know is that too often after that dismissal, there isn’t a structure to support [those individuals], whatever it is, so restoring competency, getting treatment, if there needs to be a commitment — none of that really occurs,” she said. “That means that these individuals end up on our streets.”

The governor highlighted some of the bills that are among her priorities, including increasing penalties for felons in possession of firearms and a proposal dealing with the involuntary commitment of criminal defendants who are deemed incompetent to stand trial. She also shared an interaction she had with an “unhoused man” early Tuesday morning during a breakfast hosted by the Archdiocese of Santa Fe.

“I stood up and went outside to talk” to the man, whose name is Mario, she said. Although he seemed anxious and nervous, the governor said she had “no indication” the man is a felon.

“We build a robust system, we can do better, faster, more productive work for Mario,” she said. “Dangerous, repeat, violent offenders have to have these interventions. These are common-sense solutions.”

Lujan Grisham said the state isn’t going to vilify poverty or mental health issues.

“But we aren’t going to tolerate a revolving door of criminality anywhere in the state,” she said. “We can do both, so I believe in the session we will.”

Bipartisan support

Bernalillo County District Attorney Sam Bregman, who also attended the news conference, said in his view crime “as a whole” is starting to get better in New Mexico.

“However, I want to make this as clear as possible, violent juvenile crime is out of control,” said Bregman, who is advocating for legal changes to crack down on youthful offenders.

“If you don’t believe me, just look at some very basic data,” he said. “Right now in the detention center in Bernalillo County, there are 25 juveniles with murder charges. That’s from all over the state. Nineteen of them are from Bernalillo County.”

Bregman said juveniles don’t face serious consequences when they first get in trouble with the law.

“That needs to change,” he said. “Because they face no consequences, sometimes the first consequence they see is when we’re sentencing them to life in prison for first-degree murder.”

State Rep. Andrea Reeb, R-Clovis, one of two Republican lawmakers who attended the governor’s news conference, said she was “excited to be dealing with public safety in a bipartisan fashion” during this year’s session.

“Everybody seems to be coming to the table, whether it’s competency, whether it’s Sam Bregman’s great ideas on the juvenile bills,” she said. “I know we’re not going to agree on everything, but public safety is something I feel very strongly about.”

Sen. Moe Maestas, D-Albuquerque, thanked the governor for “lighting a fire under all of us” to tackle crime.

“Criminal law is centuries old and based on fundamental criminal law principles,” said Maestas, a former prosecutor who is sponsoring about 10 public safety bills. “I believe we can stay true to those principles but yet be open-minded and creative to modernize our criminal laws. … We need to amend these laws to deal with the realities of the modern world.”

Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, next to Public Safety Advisor Benjamin Baker, answers questions from journalists at a news conference held at the state Capitol on Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2025. Lujan Grisham defended her record on crime as she continued to call on lawmakers to pass an omnibus public safety package during the 60-day legislative session. “I asked them to take action in 2018, 2019, 2020, ‘21, ‘22, ‘23,” the governor said. Photo by Gabriela Campos/The New Mexican