By Esteban Candelaria
The Santa Fe New Mexican

As the halfway point of this year’s legislative session approaches, lawmakers on the Senate Judiciary Committee sought to temper criticisms that a public safety package making its way through the Roundhouse does not go far enough.

House Bill 8, which the committee took a red pen to on Wednesday, presently represents one of the largest efforts to tackle crime in New Mexico during this legislative session.

After some changes the committee voted 7-1 to advance the bill, with all but Sen. Moe Maestas, D-Albuquerque, voting for it. Maestas argued cracking down on drug trafficking has not been effective historically and would not be successful under HB 8.

Sen. Joseph Cervantes, D-Las Cruces, the chair of Senate Judiciary, said HB 8 was just an early step in addressing crime during this session.

“We’re not even at the midpoint of this session. We are still having bills introduced, we’ve got a number of bills that relate to public safety and crime in this committee that are still coming up,” he said. “We’re just getting warmed up.”

Sen. Crystal Brantley, R-Elephant Butte, echoed that sentiment.

“This is just the appetizer, I hope, of a public safety session,” she said, adding she hoped lawmakers would also consider “meaty bills that will make drastic, meaningful change in New Mexico.”

The package, which bundles six bills that originally stood on their own, would make an array of changes, including amending criminal competency procedures for defendants who may not be able to understand proceedings in their cases and imposing stiffer penalties for fentanyl traffickers or those found with devices that make semiautomatic firearms automatic.

Santa Fe-based attorney Megan Dorsey, an expert witness on the bill, said it sought to “strike a balance between recognizing the need to protect the members of our community from violent crimes and drugs and DWIs, while also recognizing the need to protect nonviolent offenders struggling with mental health.”

In the House, the package attracted some ill will from Republicans, who saw significant pieces of legislation rejected from inclusion in the bundle of bills, including a proposal to crack down on juvenile crime.

When the bill was taken up on the House floor on Saturday, Republicans introduced a number of amendments to get some of their ideas into the package, only to see them voted down in the Democrat-controlled chamber.

Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham has also criticized lawmakers for not going far enough yet with crime and public safety proposals. She has called for more, including a measure to ban the sale or transfer of many semiautomatic rifles and a bill to expand the list of offenses that constitute racketeering, such as human trafficking and sexual exploitation of a child.

The Senate Judiciary Committee’s discussion of the crime package on Wednesday comes the day before lawmakers’ self-imposed deadline to have it on the governor’s desk within the first 30 days of the legislative session. The midway point of this year’s session, which is also the deadline to file new bills, is on Thursday.

Senators took up a number of amendments to the package, many of which were proposed by Sen. Katy Duhigg, D-Albuquerque.

For example, the committee voted to scratch out a measure that would have allowed prosecutors to charge people caught with multiple devices to convert guns into automatic weapons separately for each device.

Duhigg argued that measure raised concerns about disproportionate punishment, saying someone who may have 3D-printed conversion devices in bulk could face three years in prison for each one.

Duhigg also raised concerns with the idea of creating optional sentencing enhancements for fentanyl traffickers based in part on the number of pills they were caught with, arguing establishing a minimum number of pills to trigger possible extra prison time may have adverse effects.

“If you have a pill approach, and if now the goal is to stay below a certain number of pills, it encourages the producers to make those pills stronger,” she said. “And as a result, we’ll have more ODs and more people dying.”

Duhigg proposed slashing those penalties, leaving the option for five years in prison for orchestrators of fentanyl trafficking and a separate, amended option for five years in prison for 40 grams of fentanyl powder. The amendment would have gotten rid of a three-year sentencing option for 10 to 50 grams of powder, or 100 to 500 pills.

However, attorney Mark Baker argued fentanyl dealers generally do not tailor the potency of their product to avoid accountability. The amendment ultimately failed 4-3, with Senate Majority Leader Peter Wirth, D-Santa Fe, joining Republicans in voting against it.

Esteban Candelaria is a corps member with Report for America, a national service program that places journalists into local newsrooms. He covers child welfare and the state Children, Youth and Families Department. Learn more about Report for America at reportforamerica.org.