By Sherry Robinson

Former Gov. Susana Martinez once described her first legislative session, in 2011, as “handto-hand combat.” A former DA, Martinez had no experience with the Legislature, and went in swinging. She used campaign rhetoric, radio ads and robo calls to browbeat them and even sent a staff member to videotape them as they debated.

She said Senate Majority Leader Michael Sanchez “chose to play politics with our children’s future.”

Of the film tax credit, she said, “We cannot subsidize Hollywood on the backs of our schoolchildren.”

At the end of an unnecessarily contentious session, nobody had gotten much done.

Rep. Moe Maestas, D-Albuquerque, said, “She views us as the enemy; she does not view us as partners in a democratic government.”

Martinez never changed her approach. For eight years, as I wrote in many a column, she entered sessions with her dukes up. New Mexico paid for this standoff with a slower economic recovery from the Great Recession.

This summer, we regressed a decade. Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham called a special session on public safety and tried to browbeat lawmakers into approving a set of bills that weren’t ready for prime time. Once again, browbeating by one branch of government didn’t work on another branch. Lujan Grisham not only damaged relations with legislators but made them look bad during campaign season. They won’t forget that.

Lujan Grisham began talking about a special session in March and circulated draft bills, but drafts kept changing. Days ahead of the session lawmakers hadn’t seen completed bills, and the governor was still adding new bills to the call. Two bills were so complex that haphazard approval guaranteed lawsuits. Leaders said repeatedly there was no consensus.

The governor blew past legislators’ concerns and blamed them for not taking crime seriously years ago. “Shame on you,” she said. When 45 advocacy groups and experts objected to problematic legislation, she said taking their advice would be “doing nothing.”

Republicans have demonized Lujan Grisham since she set foot in the Roundhouse, but happily entered the Democrats’ breach by carrying her bills with a few of their own. On July 18, their 16 bills went unheard. In a five-hour session, lawmakers passed the feed bill, which pays for the session, and tacked on fire and flood money for Ruidoso and behavioral health programs.

House Minority Leader Rod Montoya, always ready with his own spin, told New Mexico Political Report: “Republicans agreed with the governor that crime is out of control. It’s unfortunate we’re unable to address anything crime related. The only things my colleagues are willing to do is spend more money.”

Lujan Grisham blistered the Democrats in a redhot written statement from the governor’s office: “This legislature just demonstrated that it has no interest in making New Mexico safer… (Ignoring the reality of daily crime) is nothing less than a dereliction of duty. “The legislature as a body walked away from their most important responsibility: keeping New Mexicans safe. But it is noteworthy that a majority of Republicans would have passed many or all of these bills — they were blocked.

“The legislature should be embarrassed at their inability to summon even an ounce of courage to adopt common-sense legislation… (T)he public should be outraged.”

That’s extreme language. New Mexico In Depth was the only media outlet to call out the governor, saying the entire episode “demonstrates a sharp degree of hubris.”

Or pigheadedness, I would add.

Her language also smacks of campaigning. The last sentence of the public statement was: “My promise to you is that I will not stop fighting to protect you and your families.”

It was something Susana Martinez could have said. The word “fighting” requires an adversary, and Lujan Grisham just made that adversary her own party.

Sherry Robinson is a longtime New Mexico reporter and editor. She has worked in Grants, Gallup, the Albuquerque Journal, New Mexico Business Weekly and Albuquerque Tribune. She is the author of four books. Her columns won first place in 2024 from New Mexico Press Women.