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New Mexico Governor signs bill to waive liquor license fees

Office of the Governor of New Mexico

LAS CRUCES - Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham signed Senate Bill 2 on Tuesday, March 9, which will waive liquor-license fees for one year in an effort to help businesses most impacted by the pandemic.

The governor had previously signed legislation to give restaurants a four-month tax holiday and provide a $600 tax rebate for low-income workers, and two separate bills to provide both low-interest loans and grants to small businesses.

“The food and beverage industry is a key piece of our economy, and these businesses anchor so many of our communities,” Lujan Grisham said. “As we continue to move ever closer to ending the worst of this pandemic, I am confident this state effort will help as they bounce back as quickly as possible.”

Going pro?

The New Mexico House of Representatives passed legislation Tuesday taking the first step toward changing New Mexico’s unique legislative system, in which lawmakers are not paid, have no staff except while in session and meet in alternating 30-day and 60-day sessions.

House Bill 301 would create the Legislative Process Review Commission, which would examine current policies and recommend ways to modernize the process.

“Depending on the commission’s finding, this may mean shifting to a full-time, professional legislature, which would allow representatives to give year-round, dedicated focus to their work in the Roundhouse,” said sponsor Rep. Angelica Rubio, D-Las Cruces.

Redistricting

A compromise bill on redistricting passed the Senate unanimously Tuesday and now moves to the House, where the original version of the bill is still alive.

Senate Bill 15 would create a new redistricting commission to draw maps for the Legislature to choose from, but would allow lawmakers to make whatever changes they wanted to those maps. The original bill, which came from a task force headed by retired state Supreme Court Justice Edward Chavez, would have required lawmakers to pick a map without making changes.

House Bill 11 retains that original intent and is pending in the House Judiciary Committee. The state is required to redraw district boundaries each 10 years to accommodate population shifts. The last two efforts both ended up in the courts when the Legislature and governors couldn’t come to an agreement.

With final numbers from the 2020 census, the Legislature will redraw the state’s three U.S. congressional districts, 112 legislative districts and 10 state Public Education Commission districts.