A House committee on judicial affairs on Monday endorsed the bill that would allow damage awards of up to $2 million and court intervention in state and local government affairs where civil rights guarantees are violated under the New Mexico Constitution.<\/p>\n
Democratic legislators advance the bill on a party-line 8-4 vote without Republican support. Approval by the House would send the Bill to the Democrat-led Senate for consideration.<\/p>\n
The proposal would rein in immunity from prosecution for public officials and builds on recommendations of a civil rights commission, chartered by the Legislature and Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham in June as protests over police brutality and racial injustice swept the nation and New Mexico\u2019s largest city.<\/p>\n
Sponsors of the bill say it would address possible civil rights violations in a variety of government posts \u2014 from child protective services to police \u2014 though only agencies can be sued and not individual officials. Supporters of the initiative say that would reinforce bedrock state constitutional guarantees against excessive fines, cruel and unusual punishment, due process, gun rights and more.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is some ability of having a broader range of rights protected than you would see in federal court,\u201d bill co-sponsor and Democratic House Speaker Brian Egolf said. He noted likely new protections against discrimination on the basis of sex.<\/p>\n
Law enforcement agencies and police associations remain staunchly opposed, along with school boards and city and county governments.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt will do nothing to rectify wrongs by so-called government bad actors,\u201d said Dona Ana County Sheriff Kim Stewart, who served on the civil rights commission and wrote a dissenting opinion. \u201cDon\u2019t fall for it, I beg you.\u201d<\/p>\n
Democratic sponsors of the bill say the $2 million cap on damages was added to a revised bill before Monday\u2019s committee meeting in response to negotiations with the New Mexico association of counties that administers an insurance pool for county sheriffs.<\/p>\n
But changes to the bill did little or nothing to stanch criticism that the bill would undermine government finances and public investments in police training and pay. The state\u2019s Human Services Department said the bill could result in lawsuits against Medicaid providers and state contractors.<\/p>\n
Grace Philips, general counsel for New Mexico Association of Counties that administers liability insurance coverage for county sheriff\u2019s departments statewide, said the financial impact of civil rights lawsuits remains a concern.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can hear the high hopes that so many people have for this legislation but those hopes and expectations really don\u2019t match the words on the paper,\u201d Philips told the commission during four hours of public testimony and deliberations.<\/p>\n
Mark Baker, vice chairman of the civil rights commission, said changes to the bill haven\u2019t broadened support.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it seems pretty clear from today that the answer will remain that they\u2019re opposed to this bill no matter what concessions are made,\u201d Baker said. \u201cMaybe I\u2019m wrong about that. I hope I am.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A House committee on judicial affairs on Monday endorsed the bill that would allow damage awards of up to $2 million and court intervention in state and local government affairs where civil rights guarantees are violated under the New Mexico Constitution. Democratic legislators advance the bill on a party-line 8-4 vote without Republican support. Approval […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":48712,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[815],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-48711","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-associated-press-new-mexico"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48711","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48711"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48711\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48712"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48711"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48711"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48711"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=48711"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}