From left, Dist. 43 Rep. Christine Chandler, Dist. 6 Sen. Robert Gonzales and Dist. 5 Sen. Leo Jaramillo participate in the legislative preview meeting Monday night at Fuller Lodge. The League of Women Voters and American Association of University Women hosted the event. Photo by Kirsten Laskey/ladailypost.com
Scene from the legislative preview event Monday at Fuller Lodge. Photo by Kirsten Laskey/ladailypost.com
By KIRSTEN LASKEY
Los Alamos Daily Post
kirsten@ladailypost.com
New Mexico’s 2025 Legislative Session begins at noon Tuesday, Jan. 21 and three of Los Alamos’ elected officials shared what they expect to be in store for the 60-day session during an event Monday evening at Fuller Lodge.
Dist. 43 Rep. Christine Chandler, Dist. 5 Sen. Leo Jaramillo and Dist. 6 Sen. Robert Gonzales offered their insights during the legislative preview hosted by the League of Women Voters and American Association of University Women.
The agenda for the session has a lot of important issues on it, Chandler said. Housing, developing protections for tenants and bringing more oversight to the Children, Youth and Family Department are among the big topics of discussion.
As far as the bills Chandler plans to focus on, she said, “Paid Family Medical Leave continues to be one of my personal priorities and our (the House) leadership priorities and the Senate leadership priorities.”
She pointed out that during the last 60-day session two years ago, the bill only failed by two votes in the House, so her hope is that this time it passes. Chandler explained that the Paid Family Medical Leave Bill creates a fund based on payroll fee.
“The employer will pay .4 percent of whatever your wages are, and the employee will pay .5 percent … and that goes into a fund and that fund will pay benefits when someone is having a baby or adopting or you’re welcoming a child into a family,” she said. “It will also pay while you are out to care for your mom, your dad, a child who is sick, your husband who has cancer …”
Chandler added that the coverage wouldn’t end with immediate family and there would be a cap, which is the median wage in New Mexico. She emphasized that the employer would not pay wages while the employee is on leave. Plus, individuals would need to apply for the fund, which would be verified.
Other bills Chandler said she plans to file include the Extreme Risk Firearm Protection Act. She explained that it would be a law that allows police to take guns from someone who is proven to be a risk to themselves or someone else. Another bill addresses artificial intelligence. Chandler said the state is way behind in addressing AI. This bill would address developers and deployers who use algorithms to screen out people in consequential decisions. For instance, she said if someone submitted a job application electronically, but the application would not be looked at because the system deemed this person unqualified due to a discriminatory algorithm. Her bill would make employers and developers responsible for ensuring there is screening for discriminatory algorithms and that there are protocols in place to adjust for that.
Gonzales said the state is entering its new session on a good note financially.
“We are in a very good position as a state,” he said.
For instance, Gonzales said 15 years ago New Mexico had $14 billion in assets. In 2025, the state has $58 billion in assets.
“We have come a long way,” he said, adding that New Mexico is between the second and third wealthiest in investments in the nation.
“The important part is we have put in fairly strong safeguards to where if something goes wrong, we won’t be pulling programs or taking dollars away from different agencies…,” Gonzales said.
For bills Gonzales plans to introduce during the legislation session, he said one would be a constitutional amendment for state employees. Right now, the program for retiree healthcare operates on contributions from employers and employees. Gonzales said the amendment guarantees that no one could wipe it out entirely. He explained there are no existing protections.
Gonzales said a recent summit on New Mexico water policy inspired him to pursue another piece of legislation, which would be to develop a curriculum for K-12 and possibly higher education where students would gain an understanding of water in New Mexico: what is its worth, where the state is at with its water, where it is heading, etc.
Jaramillo has a full plate for his legislative session. He explained he plans to carry a bill for the Aging and Long-term Services Department, which is also supported by the Securities Division of the Regulations and Licensing Department. The bill, Jaramillo said, would protect vulnerable adults from financial exploitation.
“Right now, the law is written that you have up to 25 days if you see anything suspicious with financial activity when it comes to seniors,” he said. “What this bill would do is put a line in with federal guidelines, which means it would go up to 55 days and that there would be a halt in any type of payment if we found any type of fraudulent use of the individual’s money, if we identified any type of suspicion on the account. This could halt that for 55 days while we look in that.”
Furthermore, Jaramillo said he is working on modernizing the parole board to ensure that when it reviews a case on whether an incarcerated individual can return to society, it is not retrying the person for a case they already served. Rather, the board is looking at the person’s acts during incarceration up to the time of leaving incarceration. Additionally, Jaramillo said there is a desire to ensure hearings are not being held at times that are sensitive to the victims.
Regarding Developmental Disabilities Waivers, Jaramillo said a raise was given in the first quarter of the fiscal year and unfortunately it wasn’t built into the budget and those raises had to be given back. As a result, the Early Childhood Education and Care Department is looking for $1.1 million to get those individuals reimbursed with the pay they should have gotten.
Jaramillo said the bill he is carrying hopes to fund another $3.3 million to get the other three quarters of the bill covered “so we can ensure these individuals are paid properly. It was really sad meeting with caregivers who talked about that they could make more working at Target then they could working to take care of somebody who really needed the help…”
For bills that could directly benefit Los Alamos, Jaramillo said he, along with Chandler, is carrying a bill which looks at theater on-call licenses. He explained if SALA Event Center wants to host an event that serves liquor it would need to work with an entity with a liquor license. The bill would allow SALA to apply for a license and serve liquor. Also, Jaramillo is working on an ATV weight limit bill. He said there is a weight limit for ATVs but with Los Alamos National Laboratory striving to have more solar power and solar powered ATVs being heavier, he is working to modify the weight limit.
Additionally, Jaramillo and Chandler are working with Los Alamos County on its capital outlay requests such as electric infrastructure for housing. He is also working with the University of New Mexico-Los Alamos on its capital outlay projects. Finally, Jaramillo said he working with Los Alamos Public Schools Superintendent Jennifer Guy on electrical upgrades for the schools’ robotics programs.
During the question-and-answer period, the state legislators were asked about everything from gun safety to educators’ wages.
Los Alamos County Councilor Suzie Havemann asked about more information on safeguards installed to protect the state’s finances.
Gonzales explained that two years ago, he sponsored SB26, which required when revenue reaches a certain level, any surplus goes to a trust strictly so that funds are being saved. There are quite a few trusts, he said, for protection and so the state is prepared if there is a drop in revenue.
Chandler offered more information.
“We have been developing a lot of cushions in our budget … the Permanent Fund Enhancement is one … there’s a Land of Enchantment Fund, there’s an Early Childhood Fund,” she said. “These are all hedges … for when the oil industry starts to taper off, and we starting see signs of that, and we will be able to sustain our budget based on various saving accounts and it’s been very prudent planning on the part of the Finance and Appropriation Committee in the legislation.”
A member of the audience asked about any gun safety issues that the representatives foresee coming up in the legislative session.
“I am anticipating an assault rifle regulation to be filed,” Chandler said, adding there could possibly be bills on conversion of semi-automatic to an automatic as well as setting age limits on purchasing guns.
“There will be other gun safety bills,” she said. “Some of them will be heavy lifts.”
Gonzales said gun safety legislative is complicated; noting that he has constituents who are pro-guns.
“This is where we have to just work with these individuals,” he said. “And a lot of these individuals want to turn it into behavioral health and maybe part of that is true but the whole part is look at what is happening in our schools – what if that happened to your family members … so more and more I think we ought to make some strives and I think this will be a good year for that.”
A lot of conversations about guns centered on school shootings, Jaramillo said. He said he had a conversation with a constituent who suggested having armed security at schools. Jaramillo said he is looking forward to reading bills on gun legislature.
“Just because they talk about guns doesn’t it mean it’s always going to be a good deal,” he explained. “I learned as a freshmen (legislator) that I can’t say I support something until I definitely read it and hear the arguments on both sides …”
Another member asked about teacher salaries and if they would be increased.
Chandler said increases in teacher salaries have been happening but deferred to Jaramillo and Gonzales, both of whom have worked in education.
Jaramillo agreed that two years ago the state worked on increasing salaries for teachers. He said he sympathized with educators; as a former teacher himself, Jaramillo said it forced him to make difficult decisions on what to spend his money on and ultimately, he had to leave the profession because it did not pay enough. Could more be done for teacher salaries? he asked, yes, but it is better than what it was, he said.
“We were leading the Southwest on pay of teachers,” Jaramillo said. “So now we need to work on affordable housing to get teachers to come and to stay here. It is like an onion – there’s one layer, you pull one back and there’s another …”
“Any part we can do to increase salaries – definitely,” Gonzales said. He noted there is a fund that all school districts can apply to for building affordable housing to recruit and retain educators.
The upcoming Legislative Session will run through March 22.