February 28, 2021
Even after a nearly four hour Senate committee meeting on Saturday, none of the four cannabis legalization bills the panel discussed advanced. But with encouragement from the Senate majority leader and the committee’s chair, the sponsors said they work to come up with a unified approach before another meeting next week.
It seems likely, based on comments from some committee members, that none of the Senate proposals will advance out of committee, but that portions of them will be incorporated into a House bill that has already advanced to the Senate.
Senate Tax, Business and Transportation Committee Chair Benny Shendo, D-Jemez Pueblo announced at the beginning of the meeting that the committee would not take action on any of the bills. Instead, the committee heard public testimony and examined the differences between the bills. And in a somewhat unorthodox procedure, the committee discussed HB 12, which has not yet been assigned to any Senate committees. HB
New Mexico Senate Unanimously Confirms Sonya L. Smith As Department of Veterans’ Services Secretary
DVS News:
SANTA FE – Sonya L. Smith was unanimously confirmed by the New Mexico Senate today as secretary of the New Mexico Department of Veterans’ Services (DVS).
The vote was 38-0, officially naming her as the fifth DVS secretary and first African-American to serve as head of the agency. She had been serving on an interim basis since her nomination for the position by Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham last October after the retirement of then-Secretary Judy Griego.
Secretary Smith comes to DVS from the New Mexico Department of Health, where she served as a special projects coordinator–specifically helping guide the efforts of the agency’s
February 5, 2021
New Mexicans who are following the push by many lawmakers to legalize recreational-use cannabis now have plenty of reading material.
Legislators have filed four legalization bills, two of which have identical language. All of the bills have the same general goal, but with different paths to get there and varying standards of what would and wouldn’t be allowed in a post-legalization New Mexico. Passage of any of the bills is still not a guarantee and given the history of previous cannabis legalization proposals and the legislative process in general, it is likely some pieces of the differing bills will be absorbed into one final bill.