By SHERRY ROBINSON
All She Wrote

The State Ethics Commission tore the mask off New Mexico Safety Over Profit and revealed – ta da! – trial lawyers.

After arguing that they didn’t have to register as lobbyists or reveal funding sources, NMSOP had a change of heart after reading the commission’s 73-page lawsuit. They settled by paying a $5,000 fine (the maximum allowed), registering with the state, and releasing their full list of donors, along with expenditures.

We learn that in recent years about 50 trial lawyers and/or their firms dug into deep pockets and found nearly $1.3 million to fight reforms of the state’s medical malpractice law and related measures. Three-quarters of donors are board members or past presidents of the Trial Lawyers Association. Many have waged the big-dollar lawsuits against healthcare providers that appear in the news. Four were outside the state, including showboat Iowa lawyer Nicholas Rowley, who ponied up $425,000. The Trial Lawyers Association was good for $245,000.

So much for the charade that NMSOP was just a group of regular folks. Now they want us to know who they are. In a recent newspaper ad, NMSOP said in red boldface: “We don’t hide our donors. We celebrate them.”

This is the group that crushed reform of the state’s medical malpractice law in the last legislative session. This law, delivered in 2021 by a former Trial Lawyers Association president and a compliant Legislature, has painted a target on the state’s doctors and caused malpractice insurance premiums and litigation to spike. New Mexico is the only state losing doctors.

This year, to fight medical malpractice reforms advanced by the nonprofit Think New Mexico, NMSOP advertised in newspapers and social media and attacked Think New Mexico in op eds. The Trial Lawyers Association in 2024 showered Democrats with $556,354 in campaign contributions.

According to followthemoney.org, the Trial Lawyers Association gave $15,200 to Sen. Peter Wirth, $20,700 to Sen. Linda Lopez, $10,700 to Sen. Joe Cervantes, $10,000 to Sen. Katy Duhigg, and $8,000 to Sen. Cindy Nava.

Here’s what they got.

The two key bills were SB 176, which protected injured patients but capped attorney payouts, and HB 243, which allowed New Mexico to join the Interstate Medical Licensure Compact, an agreement among states to recognize each others’ professional licenses. It’s the easiest way to increase doctors, said sponsors. Companion bills would have done the same for other healthcare professions.

Senate Majority Leader Peter Wirth, a lawyer, assigned SB 176 to three committees to slow it down. He defended the 2021 measure to the Albuquerque Journal and repeated NMSOP talking points about harming patients and holding insurance companies responsible.

Sen. Linda Lopez held SB 176 in her Health and Public Affairs Committee for 40 days of the session’s 60 days. Her biggest campaign donor in 2024 was the Trial Lawyers Association; with contributions from individual lawyers and law firms the amount doubles.

SB 176 died there on a 5-4 vote, with Democrats voting against. Donations to the five cost the trial lawyers less than $300,000.

Senate Judiciary Chairman Joe Cervantes sat on the compact bill, HB 243, more than a week after it passed the House unanimously. In committee he disparaged the medical compacts as a “creative way to make a buck.” He and Sen. Katy Duhigg made dozens of amendments until the bill was unacceptable to the interstate compact commission. The other compact bills also died. Trial lawyers don’t like the compacts because they wouldn’t be able to sue the interstate compact commissions that oversee the compacts. Why would they sue the commissions? Who knows?

Cervantes and Duhigg are both lawyers. Their law firms sue doctors. Does anybody think they might have a conflict of interest?

Now look at Rep. Mariana Anaya, who is holding a town hall on medical malpractice reform and doctor shortages. NMSOP’s newly released expenditures show that it paid Anaya’s consulting company $10,000 last October, after she had won her Democratic primary. With no opposition, she was effectively an incoming legislator. This is on top of the trial lawyers’ campaign donation of $6,000.

NMSOP has tossed us enough red herrings to start a seafood café: Greedy corporate- owned hospitals, greedy insurance companies, imagined limits on patients’ right to sue, and hospital horror stories.

Yes, providers make mistakes. Yes, some should find another profession. We feel for the victims and want to assure their care, but who is served by a $40 million verdict that either bankrupts the organization or cripples its ability to serve?

Our healthcare shortage is becoming a major issue. New Mexico Democrats are on the wrong side of this debate.