Governor signs four public safety bills on Monday

ALBUQUERQUE — Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham signed four public safety bills, including one that would prohibit anyone from openly carrying a firearm within 100 feet of a polling site, during a news conference held at an Albuquerque high school Monday.

“These four bills are an incredible effort to do more,” Lujan Grisham said before signing the bills in a student-filled auditorium at West Mesa High School.

“We have to be diligent and continue this work until Albuquerque and New Mexico are the safest places in America to raise your families, to go to school, to own a business,” she said.

Several of the measures — including Senate Bill 96, which increases the penalty for second-degree murder — were on a list of 21 high-priority public safety initiatives the governor promoted just days before the session began.

Those proposals ranged from prohibiting panhandling to cutting back on the capacity of semi-automatic weapons to raising the minimum age to legally purchase semi-automatic and automatic weapons from 18 to 21.

The vast majority of those bills failed to make it across the legislative finish line during this year’s 30-day session.

But SB 96, which increases the maximum penalty for second-degree murder to 18 years from 15 and increases the penalty for attempted second-degree murder to nine years from three, got through, as did another “tough on crime” bill, Senate Bill 271, in the waning hours of the session.

SB 271 allows judges more leeway in deciding to order a felony suspect to be detained without bond until trial if the person previously had been released and was accused of committing another felony during that time.

The governor also signed Senate Bill 5, which prohibits carrying a firearm within 100 feet of a polling site, making such an offense a misdemeanor charge punishable by up to six months in jail and a $500 fine. Some exceptions are carved out, including for law enforcement officers and New Mexicans who have concealed carry permits.

Finally, House Bill 129 also signed into law Monday, imposes a seven-day waiting period on the legal sale of any firearms in New Mexico to allow for more time to conduct a background check on the buyer.