Over the past decade, New Mexico has quietly become one of the most consequential policy innovators in the country. We launched the nation’s first universal child care program, committed to 100% clean electricity, legalized cannabis, protected abortion and gender-affirming care, expanded voting rights, and unlocked hundreds of millions of dollars for kids.
None of it happened by accident. Every one of those wins traveled a different path and each path runs directly through an election. Here’s what New Mexico teaches us about why your vote matters at every level of the ballot.
Your Legislature Writes the Laws! (So Vote for the People Who Write Them Right)
Most of New Mexico’s biggest wins were bills, passed by legislators YOU elect.
- The Energy Transition Act (SB 489, 2019) passed the Senate 32–9 and set the state on course for 100% carbon-free electricity by 2045.
- The Cannabis Regulation Act (2021) legalized adult-use cannabis on the third legislative attempt; proof that persistence in the legislature pays off.
- The New Mexico Voting Rights Act (HB 4, 2023) made New Mexico the first state in the nation to pass an omnibus pro-voting law that year: automatic and same-day registration, permanent absentee status, and a Native American Voting Rights Act requiring consultation with Tribes, Nations, and Pueblos.
- The Reproductive and Gender-Affirming Health Care Freedom Act (HB 7, 2023) shielded patients and providers from out-of-state prosecution, building on SB 10 (2021), which repealed the state’s 1969 criminal abortion ban before Roe fell. Speaking of SB10, that bill was only possible after a concerted effort to oust moderate “democrats” during the 2020 election cycle who had stood in the way of abortion care for years; a clear example of why voting really does make a difference!
- More recently: the Immigrant Safety Act (HB 9) ended New Mexico’s participation in federal civil immigration detention; the Community Benefits Fund (SB 48, 2025) invested $210 million in community-led climate solutions; and SB 23 (2025) raised oil and gas royalty rates on state lands from 20% to 25%, the first update since the 1970s,
projected to bring $50–75 million a year to schools, universities, and hospitals.
Every one of these bills had named sponsors, committee votes, and floor votes. Your state representative and senator cast them. A different legislature would have produced a very different list.
Your Executive Branch Makes It Real! (So Vote for the People Who Run It)
Passing a law is only half the job. Implementation, and in some cases action that requires no law at all, belongs to the governor and the executive branch you elect. New Mexico offers two textbook examples.
The methane executive order (Executive Order 2019-003). Just days into her first term, Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham signed an executive order directing every state agency to develop a statewide climate strategy, committing New Mexico to cut greenhouse gas emissions at least 45% below 2005 levels by 2030 and join the U.S. Climate Alliance in support of the Paris Agreement goals. It created the interagency Climate Change Task Force that still drives the state’s climate work. No legislature, no ballot measure, just one signature reversed eight years of policy direction overnight. The order targeted the oil and gas industry’s waste of an estimated $244 million in natural gas every year, and its directives led to methane rules that require capture of 98% of natural gas waste and cut Permian Basin emissions roughly in half compared to neighboring Texas. That’s the power of the executive branch: speed, direction, and control of the agencies that write and enforce the rules.
The universal child care decision. In 2022, the administration used existing law and one-time funds to extend free child care to families earning up to 400% of the federal poverty level; the most expansive eligibility in the nation at the time. That was an executive-branch determination, not a bill. And it did the political heavy lifting: it let families experience universal child care before anyone asked them to fund it permanently. The program launched statewide on November 1, 2025, roughly $600 million a year, no income limits, no copays, and was codified into law in 2026 by SB 241, which authorizes up to $700 million from the Early Childhood Trust Fund over five years. The executive action created the reality, the reality built the constituency, and the constituency won permanent funding. The governor also made tuition-free college real: her Higher Education Department built the Opportunity Scholarship into 100% coverage of tuition and fees at any public college, later locked in by a nearly $1 billion Higher Education Trust Fund (2025).
Different governor, different orders, different priorities — a different state.
Your Ballot Measures Are Your Direct Line to Power! (So Vote All the Way Down)
Some things legislators can’t do (or won’t do), so voters finished the job themselves. The idea of tapping the Land Grant Permanent Fund for early childhood education had been introduced in the Legislature for more than a decade and repeatedly died, year after year, blocked by resistance to touching the fund.
So advocates took the question directly to the people. In 2022, Constitutional Amendment 1 – the “Vote Yes for Kids” measure – passed with roughly 70% of the vote, one of the widest margins ever recorded for a children’s funding measure. It raised the permanent fund’s annual distribution from 5% to 6.25%, directing the added 1.25% — about $250 million a year and growing, to early childhood education and care. That amendment is the financial engine behind universal child care today.
Here’s the structural lesson: amendments only reach the ballot if legislators agree to put them there, and they only pass if voters ratify them. Skipping the bottom of the ballot means walking away from the most direct power democracy offers and leaving the people who waited a decade for that $250 million standing empty-handed.
The Bottom Line
New Mexico’s transformation wasn’t the work of one election or one official. Bills needed legislators. The methane order, the child care expansion, and the enforcement of every rule needed a governor. The permanent fund amendment needed voters. Three different levers of democracy and all three had to be pulled.
That’s the message for every eligible voter in New Mexico! Vote for the legislators who will pass the bills. Vote for the executives who will act when the legislature won’t, and carry out the laws when it does. And vote on the measures that let you change the constitution itself. Democracy rewards the people who show up for all of it.