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The 2024 New Mexico 30 Day Legislative Session starts at noon on - January 16th. I am your lobbyist and will represent NMUCA during this session.
Support or opposition is determined by the board of NMUCA. Lobbying for or against legislation is measured first and foremost with our mission.
Below are instructions for - 5 Easy Steps to Stay Informed and Get Involved - that contains both general and specific information about the NM Legislative Session, and how you can attend virtual meetings, communicate with legislators, and make your voice heard while our legislators make decisions about NM’s future.
2024 NM Legislative Session
5 Easy Steps to Keep Informed & Involved
January 2, 2024 - January 12 Legislation may be pre-filed
January 16 Opening day (noon)
January 31 Deadline for introduction
February 15 Session ends (noon)
March 6 Legislation not acted upon by governor is pocket vetoed
May 15 Effective date of legislation not a general appropriation bill or a bill carrying an emergency clause or other specified date
Step One – Know your legislator!
Although you can contact every legislator or those serving on a particular committee, you have much more weight as a direct constituent.
Click Here to Find Your Legislator
Step Two – Get familiar with the committees & who serves on them.
Click Here and then Click on “Committees” Committee make up is determined the first week of the session.
Step Three – Find Legislation
Click Here to search for legislation by list, number, sponsor or keyword.
To keep track of legislation, set-up your own Bill Finder using MyRoundhouse - https://www.nmlegis.gov/MyRoundhouse/ Once you have it set-up simply click the “PLUS” button to add a locator; you can then add legislation to that locator. It will keep track of the legislation and let you know when there is movement on the bill. You can set up more than one locator if you want to keep track of bills by category. I have a NMUCA one and a personal one for example.
Step Four – How to Read a Bill, see changes, & track Votes
We will use HM 3 for an example. Once you have clicked on a specific bill, you will see the following information displayed:
· ID
· Title
· Sponsor (s)
· Current Location
· Text in HTML and Text in PDF
· Sponsors
· Votes
· Analysis
· Committee Reports & Amendments
· Floor Amendment
· Actions
· Governor’s Vetoes
Analysis is your best friend here. Every bill introduced will undergo a “Fiscal Impact Report” often called an FIR. It will show the financial impact for the state, but it will also have a summary of the bill and include merits or issues with the bill found during review by the Legislative Council Services and other State Agencies that it may affect if passed into law.
Step Five – Participate
Webcasts are available for most committee meetings as well as House and Senate Chamber Meetings. Some Committees will allow interactive communication, but it will be extremely limited. A word of warning – the audio and visual capabilities at the NM State Capitol are quite old and very inefficient; expect a rough experience while trying to participate via online services.
You can also watch proceedings two ways by using
Webcast Click Here to visit
NMUCA will send out Legislative Alerts during the session. These can be for information purposes only or they may be a Call to Action. If there is a Call to Action, you will either receive a link where you can quickly fill out a pre-filled form to contact legislators, or you will be asked to call and email. I will make this as easy as possible for everyone. I will also send out weekly reports and share the NMUCA bill tracker.
I welcome your input during the session. If you see a bill that I should be aware of, please let me know.
Remember, the most effective way to have influence on the decisions of our legislators is to educate them on our industry and to inform them how their decisions on legislation can affect our industry and our businesses. It's also very important that legislators are aware that we are paying attention to what they are doing and the decisions they are making.
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