Heading to the floor: A controversial bill to end a decades-old law that criminalizes performing an abortion jumped its second committee hurdle Friday when members of the House Judiciary Committee voted along party lines — eight Democrats to four Republicans — to support it.

House Bill 7, sponsored by five Democrats in the House of Representatives, will next go to the House floor for a full discussion and vote. Similar bills have cleared the House in the past, only to be stymied somewhere on the Senate side.

Lawmakers want task force to go on: In December, members of a task force that shines a spotlight on the often overlooked tragedy of murdered and missing Indigenous women reported that they could not provide a full report. That’s because, they said, no single law enforcement agency was maintaining a database of those cases. And efforts to collect information from nearly two dozen law enforcement entities through public records requests often were hampered by responses saying the requests were too broad or too burdensome.

On Friday, a trio of Democratic lawmakers in the House of Representatives introduced House Bill 208, designed to bring new investigative forces and $50,000 in funding to the state Indian Affairs Department to implement recommendations from the task force.

“It is so important that we continue the work bringing justice to the survivors of our missing and murdered Native women and relatives,” Lynn Trujillo, secretary of the state Indian Affairs Department, said in a news release announcing the bill Friday. “The governor and these legislators give our families hope that their lives have and do matter and that they will no longer be ignored.”

A 2017 Urban Indian Health Institute report said New Mexico had the highest number of murdered and missing Indigenous women in the country — 78. That report said Albuquerque and Gallup were two of the top 10 cities with the highest number of those cases.

Not exactly pointing fingers but: As this nearly all-virtual legislative session plays out, some lawmakers have said they are not receiving fiscal impact reports or amendments 12 to 24 hours in advance, as promised. There may be problems for the public as well. On Friday, Melanie Majors, executive director of the Foundation for Open Government, sent a letter to Senate Majority Leader Peter Wirth, D-Santa Fe, detailing other issues. She told Wirth in the letter that members of the public are not being “adequately noticed about how and when to submit comments about bills.”

And, she wrote, committee schedules do not include a deadline for the public to submit comments, among other problems. She called it “an obstacle to participation by the public.” She said one solution is to post a “highly visible public notice,” letting the public know how and when to do this, and when submission deadlines are. She also wrote that some members of the public cannot access the proceedings at all because they do not have broadband access or computers — a point some Republican lawmakers brought up before the session started on Jan. 19.

Looking ahead: The legislative session will enter its third week Tuesday. No weekend hearings are planned, but come Monday, both the Senate and the House of Representatives will resume virtual hearings via Zoom, covering an array of bills regarding pandemic relief for those hit hardest by COVID-19, school funding and paid sick leave, among other issues.

Expect a bill or two to pop up about legalizing recreational cannabis, too. Visit nmlegis.gov for updates on bill introductions, committee hearings and other happenings around the state Capitol.

Quote of the day: “She was 5 foot nothing, cussed like a sailor and smoked like a train.” —Rep. Gail Armstrong, R-Magdalena, describing her late mother to members of the House Health and Human Services Committee during a debate on a “dignity with death” bill.

“I wish I would have met your mother.” —Rep. Deborah Armstrong, D-Albuquerque and co-sponsor of that bill, in response to Armstrong’s comment.