Cortez Fights for Conservative Constitutional Values
By John Earp
We spoke with State Representative Dr. Elaine Sena Cortez (NM District 62) recently about the recently concluded legislative session in Santa Fe. Cortez said, “So I can start with the House Republican Priorities. We had three big ones, which were: Our juvenile crime laws to keep violent youthful offenders off of our streets; the second one was to fix our medical malpractice caps among other changes, and then the third one was to create economic opportunity and growth by reforming and eliminating certain taxes. So that was a big fight against the Democrats [regarding] the top penalties on the juvenile violent offenders. You know, there was a mass shooting in Las Cruces and post-session, the Republicans in the House and in the Senate are already calling for a special session because we do not believe that the juvenile violent crime problem has been addressed. Our laws just lack the teeth necessary to detain and ultimately deter violent youthful offenders. We did work with the DAs and law enforcement, the governor, victim advocates and others to pass the most effective anti-crime legislation and the governor even called out the legislators for tougher deterrence, but the House Democrats, they passed a watered-down piece of legislation, which was HB 8, which was the start of addressing the crime issue. But there’s just so many more anti-crime bills. There were no other anti-crime bills that passed under HB 8 that would impact the state’s growing juvenile crime problem.”
She continued, “Another issue was restoring medical malpractice caps. That was a goal. Right now, New Mexico is the only state in the union with a decrease in medical doctors, so we need to bring people here and the only way to do that is to restore medical malpractice caps. We know that the House Republicans, our solutions to healthcare shortages in New Mexico. We had three bills aimed at fixing the malpractice clause. We ran a Hope Act, and that was the restoration of our medical malpractice caps, increasing tax credits for rural providers, tuition reimbursement for New Mexico students who go through residency in New Mexico and a tax credit to encourage doctors to relocate to New Mexico. So, we did introduce that, and then the third goal was creating economic growth through tax reform, and that was one of the bills that I carried was to eliminate the personal income tax, eliminate the social security tax, and both were tabled, but I plan on bringing those bills back during interim. Even if we can do it in incremental stages, the goal is to cut taxes for our New Mexican families, because they are having a hard time affording a quality life right now with inflation being so high. We know that’s a federal issue, but there are so many things that we could do on a state level to make life more affordable for New Mexicans. So those were house priorities that we had.”
Speaking of Republican successes this past session, Cortez said, “Even though those things didn’t get accomplished, those are still our priorities, but we did have Republican successes, and that was for the House and the Senate and the first success was that we defeated the largest proposed tax in New Mexico’s history, which was the Paid Family Medical Leave Act. We also killed a tax on the oil and gas industry. We were able to defeat a massive tax on alcohol that would have punished low-income households. We killed multiple housing bills that would have made it even harder for individuals and families to find affordable housing, and we were successful in finally getting CYFD reforms up to the governor. We were also successful in defeating two bills that would have infringed on our Second Amendment rights, which was GOSAFE (Gas-Operated Semi-Automatic Firearms Exclusion) Act, which was the assault rifle ban and the firearms in the Unfair Trade Practices Act, which would have driven gun stores out of the state. So those were some Republican successes.
Cortez mentioned several bills that passed both the state house and senate that in her view were bad for New Mexico. The first was “HB12, which was the red flag law, which would further erode our gun rights; SB 56, which was the prevailing wage, and HB6, which is the IRB prevailing wage, what that does is it adds cost to public works projects that taxpayers will have to pay for; SB 23, which was the oil and gas royalty rate and what that did was it increased the royalty rate on premium tracts of state trust lands. SB 48 was the Community Benefit Fund, which was a $350 million fund to provide for green energy and climate mitigation programs and to transition the state away from fossil fuel dependence. HB 450 was the capital outlay bill, and the governor slipped in $10 million for a new abortion clinic in northern New Mexico. The healthcare 240 B program changes will increase the cost of prescription drugs. SB 21 and 22 are bad for the ag[riculture] industry, which adds burdens on the industry by regulating the water which has historically not been regulated, increasing fines. SB 57 protected information from state-run facilities that include abortion facilities and it excludes public facilities from inspection of public records, which is designed to prevent information about abortion practices. Another bill that was gotten from New Mexico SB 36, which prevents state employees from providing information to federal agencies, and the bill that was designed to prevent the federal government from accessing information related to immigration status from state employees. Those were some of the bills that were bad for New Mexico.”
Cortez said, “In closing, I just want Lea County to know that I will continue to fight for public safety. I will fight to make life more affordable for New Mexicans. I’ll fight to bring more funds back to Lea County. I’ll fight for our oil and gas industry, which accounts for half of our state’s budget, and more than anything, I will fight to be your voice. I’ll fight for our families and children, and I’ll fight to preserve our conservative values and our constitutional freedoms. One last one that I would like to share was I was able to get a bill passed in the House and the Senate and got the governor’s signature, so it will become law, and it is the Silver Alert. Currently a Silver Alert is like the Amber Alert, but for those who have a medical diagnosis of Alzheimer’s or cognitive impairment. Under the new law that I got passed, if you show just signs of cognitive decline, we can issue a Silver Alert. The goal of this is that it helps individuals who are lost to return back home. While I know it doesn’t fix everything, it does move the needle a little bit to help this very vulnerable population. I know that I covered a lot of information, but God bless Lea County and God bless the great state of New Mexico.”