The 2025 legislative session is underway! Here are brief summaries of the bills we are currently working on, with links to our Action Center so you can easily contact your legislators and the governor about any of them. Please check back often, as we will continue to add bills to this list as they are introduced.

Health Care Legislation

• Join the 9 major interstate health care worker compacts New Mexico does not yet participate in. We are advocating for nine bills that would bring New Mexico into the interstate compacts for physicians, physician assistants, psychologists (Senate Bill 106), counselors, dentists and dental hygienists, emergency medical personnel, audiologists and speech therapists (House Bill 79; Senate Bill 104), physical therapists (House Bill 82), and occupational therapists (House Bill 81). These bills would make it easier for health care providers licensed in other states to provide care in New Mexico, including via telehealth. Read more about this reform and email your legislators and the governor to urge them to pass it!

• Create a Permanent Fund for Health Care: Senate Bill 88. New Mexico has established a dozen permanent funds to provide long-term dedicated funding for policy areas including education and conservation. However, the state does not yet have a permanent fund for health care, even though health is the state’s second largest expense after education. This legislation would establish a permanent fund to support Medicaid, allowing the state to increase the rates it pays providers to care for patients insured by Medicaid. Read more about this reform and email your legislators and the governor to urge them to pass it!

• End the Gross Receipts Tax on co-pays and deductibles and expand the Rural Health Care Practitioner Tax Credit (House Bill 52). We are advocating for legislation to permanently repeal the GRT on co-payments and deductibles. We are also supporting House Bill 52 to expand the Rural Health Care Practitioner Tax Credit to EMTS, paramedics, occupational therapists, audiologists, speech and language pathologists, and licensed practical nurses. Read more about this reform and email your legislators and the governor to urge them to pass it!

• Reform the medical malpractice system to center patient needs and safety: Senate Bill 176. We are advocating for Senate Bill 176, which would cap attorney’s fees in medical malpractice attorney lawsuits, end lump-sum payouts from the Patient Compensation Fund (PCF), and send the majority of any punitive damages awarded in a medical malpractice cases to a new fund designed to improve patient safety. Read more about this reform and email your legislators and the governor to urge them to pass it!

Education Legislation

• Cap the size of Kindergarten through third grade classes at 20 students: House Bill 94. We are supporting House Bill 94 to phase in a cap of 20 students in grades K-3. Smaller class sizes improve early literacy by allowing teachers to spend more time with each student and provide more personalized instruction, increasing the chances that students will be reading by third grade. They also reduce teacher stress and burnout, keeping more good teachers in the profession. Read more about this reform and email your legislators and the governor to urge them to pass it!

Other Legislation

• Oppose attempts to bring back predatory lending. In 2022, the legislature and governor enacted a law ending predatory lending by capping the interest rate of small loans at 36%. House Bill 59 proposes to allow payroll advances without any limit on interest or fees. In other states, these services have resulted in costs to borrowers equivalent to 300% APR or higher. We OPPOSE HB 59 unless all fees for a payroll advance (including voluntary “tips”) are capped at 36% or lower. Read more about this issue – more info coming soon.

• Improve the Strategic Water Reserve. The Strategic Water Reserve is an innovative water management tool that Think New Mexico proposed and won passage of in 2005. It allows the state to buy and lease water rights to help keep our rivers flowing to meet the needs of endangered species and the state’s water delivery obligations under interstate compacts. We are supporting legislation that would create a fund for the Reserve and expand the purposes for which instream water rights may be purchased. Read more about this reform – more info coming soon.