Sam Bregman unveils policy agenda

Bernalillo County DA and Democrat gubernatorial candidate Sam Bregman has outlined a 190 page policy agenda on his campaign website. Bregman is running against Deb Haaland who ran Interior under Joe Biden and Ken Miyagishima, former Mayor of Las Cruces. Currently Gregg Hull, Mayor of Rio Rancho, is the only announced Republican. We took a close look at the 190 page document published by Bregman. Here are a few thoughts:

1. This is lengthy and dense by any campaign’s standards. Kudos to the Bregman campaign for putting so much time and effort into a detailed policy agenda. We checked Deb Haaland’s campaign website and saw basically no policy agenda.  We are pleased that he and Ken Miyagishima (we’ll take a look at his platform soon) have outlined numerous real world policy items.
2.  It is crime heavy as Bregman undoubtedly plans to run against soft-on-crime policies of the Democrat-controlled Legislature, but there are numerous economic agenda items of interest to RGF.
3. On taxes, no broad-based tax cuts are outlined, unfortunately, just some narrowly-focused tax reductions. He does say to “continue GRT reform” and wants to end the tax on health care.
4. On education he doesn’t advocate for private school choice (anathema to the unions) but does support “public school choice” meaning eliminating district boundaries. This is a step in the right direction. His agenda also has some elements of the successful Mississippi Model and other accountability and goal-setting reforms. It’s not where we’d want to go, but it seems like a step in the right direction.
5. On health care Bregman is not inclined towards medical malpractice reform. In fact, he’d further subsidize it by offering doctors tax credits for malpractice insurance. Bregman also follows Democrat orthodoxy on Medicaid and using tax dollars to make up for reductions in the Big Beautiful Bill. On the plus side Bregman says he wants New Mexico to join the interstate compacts that have been opposed by the trial bar. This appears to be in conflict with is pro-trial-attorney approach, but it is worth further analysis and exploration.
6. On energy Bregman does not oppose the oil and gas industry. In fact he recognizes its importance to New Mexico and its state economy and budget but of course makes a nod toward “transitioning” away from it in the future.

Overall there are several things to like and a lot that we’d like to see changed in Bregman’s platform.  That’s in sharp contrast to Deb Haaland at this point and even Michelle Lujan Grisham during her 2022 campaign in which she avoided talking about most policy issues with the exception of abortion.