News Column

New Mexico’s Serious Medical Malpractice Issue

SEAL of the NEW MEXICO HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES By Jack Ryan Morris - This vector image includes elements that have been taken or adapted from this file:, CC BY-SA 4.0, Link

March, 2025

By Merilee Dannemann

A special session for healthcare

When the medical malpractice bill, Senate Bill 176, was killed in its first Senate committee, after more than 40 days of delay in that committee, I wondered whether that failure by itself would be enough to trigger a crisis response. Several other bills intended to help ease New Mexico’s healthcare situation were still going through the process.

We don’t have to wonder any more. Enough healthcare-related bills failed to set our collective hair on fire. Our already precarious access to healthcare got a little worse. Republican legislators proposed a special session. You don’t have to be a Republican to agree with them.

Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham has talked about a special session for juvenile crime, and momentum appears to be building, as law enforcement reviews the horrific shooting in a Las Cruces park and the apparently deliberate killing of a bicyclist in Albuquerque last year by two teens and a child joyriding in a stolen vehicle.

The governor has also acknowledged how serious the healthcare situation has become. Maybe we need two special sessions, or maybe a combined one on both subjects.

The most efficient way to run a special session is for legislators and other policy leaders to meet in less formal settings, such as task forces or interim committees, explore the issues thoroughly, listen to experts, and reach substantial agreement on the legislation before the formal special session starts.

That preparation was lacking in the unsuccessful special session on crime last year. This year, in the recently concluded regular session, most legislators did not have to say anything about the malpractice issue or vote on it because of the long delay in the bill’s first committee.

If legislators are intent on avoiding taking a position, it may be impossible to get a majority to agree to a solution. In that case, a special session won’t accomplish anything.

So we have to change the subject. Medical malpractice is being treated as a public policy issue but it is also, at least in part, a campaign finance issue.

To sum it up, too many Democratic legislators – not all, but too many -- are taking too much money from the trial lawyers. It appears that money is having too much influence.

The trial lawyers’ campaign contribution arm is called the Committee on Individual Responsibility. This committee, according to the campaign finance reports filed with the New Mexico Secretary of State, is more than a major donor to many New Mexico Democratic legislators. For some, it is almost the biggest.

The campaign finance reports show numerous campaign contributions of $2,000-$5,000 from this committee to Democratic legislative candidates who later won their elections. Some reports show the committee contributed $10,000, which was the largest or second largest contribution to that candidate’s campaign.

This committee also contributed substantially to the Speaker Fund and the New Mexico Senate Democrats (in one filing, the First General report of 2024, $26,000 to each of these funds). Those two funds in turn contributed to individual candidates’ campaign funds. Individual lawyers also contributed to some candidates.

This is perfectly legal, and, whether you like it or not, it is the way our system is designed to work. But in this instance it raises serious questions. Absent these large campaign contributions, would legislators support New Mexico’s current malpractice policy?

(I have discussed the substance of the malpractice issue in previous columns so I am not repeating that here.)

Maybe it’s time for constituents who care about this issue to talk to their own legislators. You can ask your legislator if he or she received $5,000 or more from the Committee on Individual Responsibility and what position he or she takes on the medical malpractice law. If you don’t know how to reach your representative or senator, you can find their contact information at nmlegis.gov.

Merilee Dannemann is a long-time New Mexico journalist and public policy specialist. Her column, focused on New Mexico policy issues, is also published on her web site www.triplespacedagain.com.

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