State Republican candidates say crime will be issue in elections

Sep. 13—ALBUQUERQUE — State lawmakers from both major political parties last year said they would work together to create a series of bills addressing concerns about rising crime rates in New Mexico. Legislation was passed, but in the eyes of some, it didn't go far enough.

As the 2022 election approaches, two veteran Albuquerque House Republican lawmakers, GOP legislative candidates and victims of crime said during a news conference it's past time for the Legislature to act in a more meaningful way — highlighting an issue the party, badly outnumbered in both chambers, hopes will draw votes in November.

Some who spoke Monday said the public has to play a role in demanding more be done.

Otherwise, said Nicole Chavez, the mother of Jayden Chavez, an Albuquerque teen shot and killed seven years ago in a drive-by shooting, "if we don't get new legislators, if we don't get crime bills [passed], if we don't hold criminals accountable, it's only going to get worse."

Chavez is running for the House District 28 seat in Albuquerque held by Democratic Rep. Pamelya Herndon.

Chavez and other Republican House candidates said, if elected, they would push for more funding for the New Mexico Crime Victims Reparation Commission, which provides financial assistance to victims of violent crimes. They also want lawmakers to reconsider an effort to alter the state's pretrial detention process, putting the burden on defendants to prove they pose no further risk of violence if they are released until trial.

That measure failed to gain traction in the 2022 session.

But lawmakers did approve a sweeping crime bill that includes stiffer penalties for violent offenders and recruitment and retention stipends for police officers. House Bill 68 also removes a statute of limitations on second-degree murder charges, creates the crime of operating a chop shop and makes it a fourth-degree felony to threaten a judge or a judge's family.

Rep. William Rehm, D-Albuquerque, who supported the bill, said the legislation wasn't extensive enough in some respects and more needs to be done when it comes to stopping repeat offenders from committing more crimes.

Rehm cited a recent Albuquerque Journal poll that said 85 percent of New Mexicans surveyed support efforts to change current pretrial detention laws to keep those criminals behind bars as they await trial.

Some studies suggest such measures do little to deter crime as those violent offenders are not necessarily likely to break more laws while awaiting trial. A recent Santa Fe Institute and the University of New Mexico's Center for Applied Research and Analysis released by the Administrative Office of the Courts said about 11 percent of people who are released from jail while awaiting trial are charged with new felony crimes and just 3 percent are charged with committing new violent crimes.

Rehm said the study focuses only on those offenders who were caught committing a crime and not those who may have offended and got away. And 14 percent is still too high, he added.

"Talk to those family members where loved ones were murdered by that 14 percent," he said.

Though Rehm said he hopes Republican gubernatorial candidate Mark Ronchetti wins the governor's race in November, neither he nor the other candidates criticized incumbent Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham. Rehm said House Republicans will work with Democrats in both the House and Senate to "compromise" on needed crime legislation.

Chavez, who said she spends her late son's birthday staring at his headstone in the cemetery, said she believes there are centrist Democrats who want to support tougher anti-crime legislation.

"Crime is not Republican; it's not Democrat," she said. "It's happening to all of us. We need to address this situation. There's got to be changes made."

Gregg Cunningham, a retired police officer and former U.S. Marine who is running for the House District 29 seat held by Rep. Joy Garrett, D-Albuquerque, said New Mexicans "are being conditioned to accept criminal behavior is part of our daily lives — it's just the way things are. That's wrong."

Rep. Marian Matthews, D-Albuquerque, acknowledged as she knocks on doors to campaign and ask voters what their main concerns are, the overwhelming response is crime.

"There is a real perception that the city — Albuquerque — is less and less a safe city and that is of great concern to people," she said Monday, adding House Bill 68 "was a good start, but it's only a start. There is a great deal more work we need to do."

She said she plans to push for legislation to impose clearer and harsher charges against those who engage in wholesale shoplifting activities.

House Republicans will reintroduce bills that have failed in past sessions as well, including measures to affect felony charges against people who commit wholesale retail crimes such as massive, pre-planned group shoplifting, he said.

A Legislative Finance Committee report released late in 2021 said New Mexico's violent crime rate increased 30 percent between 2014 and 2020.