As you probably know from my “Out of office” email responses, our social media, or the news, New Mexico just ended our 60-day legislative session on Saturday, March 18. And it was the most successful session for LGBTQ (and intersectional) issues in recent history.
I am extremely proud of the work Equality New Mexico did alongside our partner organizations, with the support of a dozen Legislative Champions.
This legislative session saw fewer bills introduced than previous years, but since our legislature can only do any business in the 60-day period (constitutionally), it still meant a LOT of work to kill the bad bills and move the good ones over the finish line!
Equality New Mexico went in with a handful of top-priority bills, but we were tracking, supporting, and working actively (both publicly and behind the scenes) to influence the outcome of a few dozen of them.
Our top-priority bills that passed are historical and set the stage for New Mexico to be the safest state in the nation for LGBTQ people!
We removed the requirement for a newspaper ad when folks legally change their names; we prohibited local governments and public institutions from restricting or interfering with access to abortion or gender affirming healthcare; we prohibited local governments, healthcare providers, or anyone else involved from participating (or being compelled to participate) in the prosecution or civil lawsuits from other states against providers or patients seeking abortion or gender affirming healthcare. We established new definitions of Gender, Gender Identity, Sex, and Sexual Orientation in our non-discrimination law, “The Human Rights Act,” and we closed a loophole that previously prevented the non-discrimination law from applying to taxpayer-funded entities such as local governments, state agencies, or even school districts. We passed broad, sweeping democracy reforms with the NM Voting Rights Act, which enshrined Native American voting protections in state law, created a permanent vote-by-mail list, re-enfranchised formerly incarcerated individuals, and created an automatic back-end voter registration system so that soon all eligible New Mexicans will be registered to vote whenever they interact with any state agency, like getting a driver’s license or applying for Medicaid.
New Mexico = Most protected state for LGBTQ people.
We helped our partners enact meaningful police reform by mandating a duty to intervene during excessive force situations and creating a database to track officers who have excessive use of force complaints and investigations, making it harder for them to hide by merely moving to another department and continuing bad behavior.
LGBTQ people = over policed, over prosecuted, over incarcerated.
Thanks to the large coalition of amazing partners, we were able to monitor and defeat all attempts to attack LGBTQ people, abortion access, voting access, and “tough on crime” policies.
Thank you to our amazing partner organizations for prioritizing the lives of LGBTQ New Mexicans.
There is much work to be done moving forward, but the EQNM team will be taking a bit of a break to rest and recover, scattering vacations across April and May. We will be gearing up for our big c4 fundraiser in June, the 3rd annual Resilience Event part of our 30-year anniversary celebrations. And, of course, PRIDE season is right around the corner, so there is a lot to plan for that.
3rd Annual Resilience Event. Saturday June 3rd, 11 a.m. - 2 p.m. Albuquerque Social Club
Thank you for your support of us and our work, and especially for ensuring we have the team we need to accomplish such big victories.