Roosevelt County Chamber’s

March 2, 2021
Paid sick leave bill narrowly passes House
On Sunday State Representatives took to the floor to debate HB20, forcing employers to provide paid sick leave. When the dust had settled on three hours of debate, the bill had narrowly passed by a 36-33 margin. The bill provides for one hour of sick time to be accrued for every 30 hours of work, providing 64 hours per year. The use of the sick time is more liberal than most employer plans and could only be verified with a health provider after two consecutive days off. The plan does not apply to public employees, who sponsors say have equal or better plans already. The only good news is that it appears that language allowing for the employee’s start date to be the point of accrual rather than the law’s effective date was stripped from the bill. The bill hasn’t yet been referred to committee in the Senate.

Recreational cannabis bills to be rolled together
The working idea now is that the numerous recreational cannabis bills will likely be combined with the base bill being HB12, which passed the House floor on Friday by a vote of  39-31. That tinkering may occur before that bill gets to its first committee. If they pull that together quickly in the background a bill may move rapidly through the Senate to the Governor’s desk.

Coronavirus and worker’s comp
Another troubling bill that could be costly to business is HB268. The bill inserts language into the law that in essence appears to assume that anyone filing a claim related to COVID-19 got the virus at work. The New Mexico Chamber has been arguing that claims related to COVID-19 are already proceeding through the worker’s comp system and that lowering the gates could cause a flood of claims that would cost employers big bucks in increased worker’s comp premiums. Like it isn’t bad enough already.

Civil Rights Act advances despite concerns on cost
The Senate Health and Public Affairs Committee passed HB4 Friday along party lines. The bill was assembled during the summer after the death of George Floyd and rioting across the country ensued. The Governor put together a civil rights commission, which penned the law. Counties and municipalities object to the law because it would strip qualified immunity, which protects individual public servants from lawsuit and would make it easier for lawsuits to be waged against agencies like police departments and detention centers. Debate last week centered around the hidden costs of the bill because of those potential lawsuits. Republicans are arguing that because of potential costs the bill should be heard before the finance committee, an assignment that the Democratic leadership has been unwilling to assign the bill.

Senate lightens things up after long two days
After a controversial floor call procedure on Monday other hot debate on Tuesday, the mood finally lightened somewhat Tuesday afternoon as the Senate prepared to adjourn. After Republican Sen. Bill Sharer made an impassioned plea to have the fencing in front of the Capitol removed. Sen. George Munoz jokingly excused Sharer from committee on Wednesday to work on the fence. Sharer spouted back that he had a tractor and would get right on it. Sen. Cliff Pirtle famous for introducing bills over the years to do away with Daylight Saving Time corrected Munoz’ statement of committee to reflect Mountain Standard Time. Then he threw in a jab to the Democrat majority that the Texas Governor had just lifted the state’s mask requirement and that many of his constituents were likely leaving to visit Texas.