What didn’t happen (that should have) this session?

While the recent New Mexico legislative session passed without any MAJOR harmful tax hikes or regulations being adopted (yes, the alcohol tax increase in HB 14 and the royalty increase in SB 23 are unnecessary). But, Paid Family Leave and numerous other bills failed, meaning that the Legislature again could have been MUCH worse. But, as is usually the case these days, the Legislature failed to do anything significant to improve the economy  or education systems. They also failed to restrain executive “emergency” power. Here are a list of issues (and often associated bills) that the Legislature failed to address.

 Economy: New Mexico’s economy is too dependent on both oil and gas and the federal government. Residents of the state are also the most impoverished in the nation. Despite another massive oil and gas surplus ($3 billion) nothing of substance was done to improve the economy.

• No significant tax cuts, no elimination of the personal income tax (HB 275).
• No elimination of Social Security taxes (HB 293).
• No reform of the gross receipts tax was even introduced.
• No right to work legislation was introduced.
• No reform to New Mexico’s “prevailing wage” law was introduced (but HB 6 expanded the prevailing wage).
• No attempt to deregulation New Mexico’s economy was introduced.
• The State’s lousy workforce participation rate and how to increase it were never seriously contemplated.

Education: New Mexico’s education system remains the worst performing in the nation despite massive spending growth.

• No school choice proposals were adopted.
• No broad effort to implement Mississippi-style reading reforms was adopted and New Mexico’s commitment to improving reading was only marginally addressed. Efforts to improve reading instruction in New Mexico require buy-in from all levels of government and a robust series of reforms. New Mexico has not done this.
•  Even a constitutional amendment to reform New Mexico’s boards of regents due to a recent scandal at Western NM University failed.
• The BEST bill that got real traction relating to education was HB 65 which saw the Legislature (with zero “no” votes”) attempt to clearly give school districts the right to have 4-day school weeks. Sadly, the veto override effort for this bill did not get done in the senate.

Health Care Reform: Nothing of significance happened to improve New Mexico’s health care system or reduce medical provider shortages. No medical malpractice reform, no compacts, and no reform of Medicaid.

EV mandates: Bills (like HB 270) to end New Mexico’s unrealistic and economically-harmful EV mandates failed.

Constitutional liberties: Gun rights were unfortunately attacked again (HB 12), but nothing was done to restore free speech, gun rights, or balance in public health orders by restoring the Legislature as an equal branch of government (HB 535).

Yet again, the 2025 Legislature failed to address New Mexico’s biggest problems. This is nothing new. It is deeply unfortunate for the Legislature to spend 60 days doing nothing significant to make New Mexico a better, more attractive place to live.