By LINDA NELSON
Los Alamos
NM Residents:
As a concerned New Mexican and parent/grandparent, I wanted to take this opportunity to bring to your attention some legislative bills that were passed into law during the 2023 legislative session. These bills are an assault on parental rights, fair elections and free speech! There is a state-wide effort called the NM REFERENDUM PROJECT currently underway to prevent these bills from becoming law, and we are well on our way to reaching our goal of gathering 180,000 signatures. If you want to help us stop these bills – go to the following website (https://NMBadBills.com), print out your county’s 6 petitions, print/sign your name and provide your mailing address and voting precinct. Then simply mail to the following address to assure your signed petitions arrive by June 16, 2023. If you don’t have the resources at home to print your petitions, please reach out to me at lnelson24248@gmail.com, and I would be happy to help you accomplish this task! We need YOUR help to protect New Mexico’s children, NM elections and our God given right to freedom of speech!
Referendum Project
PO Box 3188
Roswell, NM 88202
What are these bills, you ask? They are as follows:
HB-7: Reproductive & Gender Affirming Healthcare Freedom Act
Despite its name, this bill restricts our freedoms in New Mexico. As law, this bill creates unrestricted access to Abortion and Transgender interventions across New Mexico.
More specifically, this bill will:
(1) violate a parent’s right to make medical decisions for their children;
(2) restrict freedom of speech and remove conscience protections for those who do not wish to encourage or promote these interventions;
(3) Prohibit state or local governments from passing future life protections;
(4) create a legal pathway for certain forms of infanticide.
Talking points:
(1) The bill language gives our minors unrestricted access to receive abortion or transgender interventions and no parental notification is required.
(2) No protections are offered for religious beliefs or matters of conscience for those who do not wish to participate in or even refer someone to these interventions.
(3) The bill prohibits New Mexico state or local governments from creating or enforcing “any law,
ordinance, policy or regulation that violates or conflicts” with the bill.
(4) This bill will prevent prosecution of anyone who allows the death of a baby born-alive from a botched attempt at late term abortion.
Under this bill, those who, by religious or conscientious objection, discourage these procedures or notify the minor’s parent, can be fined $5,000.
SB13: Reproductive and Gender-Affirming Health Care Protection Act
Do not be fooled by the name of this bill; the only thing it is meant to protect is an industry that causes great harm. As law, this bill works in tandem with HB7 by offering protections for any individual seeking, providing, or receiving abortions or transgender interventions in the state of New Mexico. In addition to the grave concerns about protecting life and gender, this bill (1) violates freedom of speech (2) violates parents’ rights, (3) violates separation of powers, and (4) protects predatory activities.
Talking Points:
(1) SB13 blatantly violates freedom of speech by silencing all electronic forms of pro-life
speech that would be used to deter an individual or entity from seeking, providing, or
receiving abortions or transgender interventions.
(2) SB13 gives no age restrictions or requirements of parental notification for a minor to
receive these services and then protects a provider or facilitator from being prosecuted
for performing services without parental involvement.
(3) SB13 violates separation of powers between states as enshrined in the 10th Amendment
of the US Constitution by disallowing enforcement of a subpoena or judgement of a court
in another state.
(4) SB13 protects predatory activities by protecting any individual who is assisting another
individual who is seeking, receiving or providing these protected health activities.
SB397: School-Based Health Centers – Creation and Operation
SB397 is the gateway used to reach our students with the harmful provisions of HB7 and SB13. As law, this bill institutes School-Based Health Centers, giving our students direct access to abortion procedures and transgender interventions while (1) violating parents’ rights, (2) violating freedom of speech for conscientious objectors, and (3) harming our students rather than helping them.
Talking Points:
(1) Students of all ages will now have direct access to a myriad of services including multiple forms of birth-control, referrals for abortions, gender-transition counseling, and referrals to or the provision of
hormone blockers; all without the requirement of parental notification.
(2) Health care providers who work within these School-based health centers will be required to provide or refer for services including abortions and transgender interventions regardless of moral or religious objections.
(3) School-based health centers further drive wedges between parents and their children by creating
avenues to dangerous and permanent procedures without involving parents. These dangerous and
permanent procedures cause great harm to our children’s physical, mental, and emotional well-being.
Our children deserve help, not harm.
HB 207: EXPAND HUMAN RIGHTS ACT SCOPE
This bill poses a great threat to our religious liberty in New Mexico for Public Contractors.
• A public contractor is anyone who contracts with the state to provide a service, such as food banks, homeless shelters, Medicaid providers, and many more.
• Many Religious organizations meet the qualifications of a “public contractor” (ie. Daycares, foster placement programs, organizations listed above, and more.) HB207, the Extend Human Rights Act, prohibits public contractors, including our faith-based public contractors, from refusing or otherwise limiting or putting conditions on services to a person because of a multitude of identifiers including gender identity, sexual orientation, or even serious medical condition. Religious Freedom Threat – This language strips a faith-based organization of the ability to refuse services or employment to someone who does not hold their same beliefs.
• For example, if a faith-based organization contracts with the government to provide foster care placement but refuses to recognize same sex couples as a home for placement, they will be in violation of this bill.
• The freedom to operate based on the foundation of religious beliefs will be stripped. Religious Liberty is one of our most foundational constitutional rights, (Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion…) and once again our New Mexico legislators are passing a bill that strips our freedom and violates the United States Constitution.
HB4: VOTING RIGHTS PROTECTIONS
• Automatic Voter Registration through 3rd Party MVD, and other State Agencies that interact with the public. Giving the agencies and additional 3rd parties access to the voter rolls and the ability to change the rolls.
• Registrants are forced to opt out if they don’t want to be registered to vote, even if they tell the MVD or other agencies they do not want to be registered. This violates some individual’s freedom of religion, since their religion forbids participating in the voting process. This also violates the Americans with Disabilities Act because it forces those with dementia, Alzheimer or other mentally debilitating diseases to make extra efforts send return a card taking them off the voter rolls.
• Inmates are eligible to vote and register to vote upon release, even if they have not completed their sentences.
• Eliminates the requirement that a voter’s registration be canceled upon felony conviction. This means that felons will be allowed to vote. They can request to be on the absentee ballot list and have the ballot mailed to their place of incarceration.
• Voluntary permanent absentee voter list. This will increase the work on the Clerks of every county. They will have to keep the list maintained and updated. It will increase insecurity since voter verification has not been updated and the SOS suspended verification of absentee ballots during the 2022 general election. This is also a step towards mail in voting only.
• Permanent drop boxes required for each county. Violates the constitution by legislating functions that belong to the counties.
• Allows people to register public buildings as a place of residence for voting purposes. This will make canvassing elections impossible and therefore unverifiable.
• Expands the definition of who can return an absentee ballot.
• Declaring the day of general election and a regular local election a school holiday with no appropriations to pay staff’s holiday pay. This means the school districts will be required to pay staff and make up the time in the school calendar for these additional days off.
SM180: ELECTION CHANGES
This bill is littered with new rules to withhold information from the public, obstruct the referendum process, and increase the possibility of rigged elections.
Some of the items found in this bill include:
Section 1. Public Officials’ home addresses will not be available in public filings.
Section 6. 1-1-27. Change the IPRA laws pertaining to elections, preventing the release of information to the public. This will prevent the public from reviewing and overseeing election data.
Section 2. Chap 1, article 1 & Section 8. Creating an elections security program. This is intended to increase control of all local elections by the State and Federal government. There are 3rd party vendors that have been contracted by the state to perform Cyber security duties that are registered as foreign corporations. Real time synchronization can allow changes in the election without detection.
1-24-3 All special elections in the state shall be conducted absentee. That means there will be NO in person voting and increased risk of unsecure elections.
Section 17. 1-4-1.1 (C) & 7-1-8.8 U. Authorizing the release of voters Tax information to the Secretary of State’s office.
Section. 77. 1-17-8 Increasing the time the Secretary of State takes to review petitions to 30 days for referendums. This decreases the amount of time to obtain signatures. This will restrict a constitutional right to referendum laws the people do not want enacted.
Section 69. 1-13-8. The process for searching for “missing ballots” will no longer require a district court order to open the ballot box. They are now giving the authority to open the ballot box by the county clerk or deputy clerk in the presence of the presiding judge and two election judges. This eliminates judicial oversite and the need to justify opening the ballot box.
