Issues

Chris knows that a systemic approach is needed to address healthcare in New Mexico.

She believes that state government can and should play a more effective  role in improving citizens’ lives. One area that she has fought for is improving access to, and availability of, healthcare including behavioral  and addictive treatment and prevention services. With recent on-going efforts at the federal level to undermine the Affordable Care Act, Chris has advocated for the State to ensure protections for our residents. The NM State Legislature has passed legislation to protect New Mexicans with preexisting conditions. Chris knows that we must continually find ways to ensure that all New Mexicans have access to necessary and affordable healthcare.

Chris believes that we should take a holistic approach to this goal. We need to  redesign communities and schools to integrate health and well-being into  their missions. All New Mexicans must have reliable access to primary  care and preventative services, as well as specialty care. We know that  spending money and energy on wellness up front saves money in the long  term, but we haven’t been doing this as well as we could as a state.

To achieve this goal, we start at the beginning by supporting young  families. This includes an array of programs and policies. In addition  to universal access to excellent early childhood programs, we need to  increase support for state health department offices, and school-based  centers. These programs are charged with the responsibility of working  with communities to implement preventative health initiatives, promote  health and well-being and conduct early screening for health issues as  well as to respond to public health threats. Rural residents are in  desperate need of basic health and other services; we must devise  strategies to ensure that all New Mexico residents have access to  primary care providers and emergency services.

Chris is often asked whether she supports a single-payer health system. Her  answer is yes. To ensure maximum economies of scale, the better approach  is a national single payer system. However, given the lack of  leadership on this issue at the national level, she supports moving toward  such a system on the state level. As a first step, she endorses recent New  Mexico House and Senate Memorials calling for a study of ways to  increase access to Medicaid. Medicaid and Medicare are successful  programs that we can build into a single-payer system.

It is obvious that uniform access to health care and health security  across geographic and socio-economic barriers is a complex issue with  few easy fixes. Crafting successful legislative solutions to this  problem will require focused leadership, a broad view, and intense  collaboration among the various interests.

There is no simple solution to the problems of crime and criminal  justice in New Mexico. In spite of decades of “tough-on-crime”  legislation and a record prison population, we find ourselves again  facing an increasing crime rate. New Mexico and the United States still  have huge numbers of people in jails and prisons, including a surprising  increase in the number of women. Nevertheless we can fix it.

Chris subscribes to the old adage, “insanity is doing the same thing over  and over and expecting a different result.” Our criminal justice system  is not producing the results we seek, so we must do something different,  look for a new approach. That means abandoning the simple notion that  ratcheting up penalties will deter criminals. It means eliminating laws and rules that continue to punish offenders upon release by keeping them from meaningful work and denying them opportunities to participate in the community. Research suggests that we can rehabilitate many offenders  and make them into productive citizens, reduce the load on the criminal  justice system, and make our families and communities safer at the same  time.

A new approach means doing research into the causes of crime and  recidivism, and instituting evidence-based programs that divert young or first-time, low-level, or non-violent criminals into treatment,  supervision, and training programs. It means dedicating resources to  develop and sustain those programs, especially expanding them into rural New Mexico where they are largely non-existent. It means recognizing  that life patterns are created in early childhood and that early  childhood education and counseling for disadvantaged children is  critical to keeping them out of the juvenile and adult justice systems.  And it means dedicating new resources to the whole system to bring crime  under control. 

Investing in children and diverting them from the  criminal justice system not only means reductions in the expensive  prison system, but most importantly, gives our young people an  opportunity to flourish beyond a life of cyclical crime and poverty.

All elements of the criminal justice system are overwhelmed,  under-staffed, and under-funded. We created an independent Public  Defender, but the office was immediately swamped by a caseload so  enormous that the Chief Public Defender refused to accept new cases in  one district. District Attorneys are underfunded: the DA in Albuquerque  had to ask for an emergency appropriation of $5 million to meet rising  crime there. The Magistrate Court system is also underfunded. The  various courts continually loan clerks to one another to keep up with  their caseloads, and many courts cannot keep staff because they cannot  compete with other employers for salary.

The District courts are swamped: prisoners are sometimes kept in jail  awaiting trial for so long that the wait exceeds the possible sentence, and prisoners have been known to plead guilty to get out of jail. The Department of Corrections at any given time has hundreds of  prisoners who are eligible for release on parole or probation but are  being kept in prison because the treatment or residence programs they are required to attend as a condition of release do not have available  space. Police departments are also overwhelmed. Many departments simply  can’t respond to all calls for service, and some ask people to file  their complaints by e-mail. Limited budgets impede many departments’  recruitment efforts. Police departments should be able to pay wages  sufficient to attract the college-educated professionals we need.

A felony conviction has collateral consequences that may be a ticket  to a lifetime of poverty and disenfranchisement. The New Mexico  Sentencing Commission has identified 71 instances of such consequences  embedded in the New Mexico statutes. In addition, felons are not  eligible for federal student loans, federally subsidized housing, and  other federal benefits. It does not make sense to release people from  prison and leave them without the ability to earn a living, find  housing, or support their families. New halfway houses and transitional  residences are far cheaper than prison cells, and behavioral health and  drug treatment programs provide value to communities far beyond the  prevention of crime. Providing early childhood programs will pay off in  ways too numerous to describe here.

The legislature must abandon the failed, simplistic, tough-on-crime  approach and start reducing sentences for non-violent crimes,  decriminalizing minor drug and traffic offenses, and reversing the code  changes that escalated hundreds of misdemeanors to felonies. We must  encourage law enforcement to raise recruiting standards for police and  provide them tools and services to divert first-time, non-violent  offenders into treatment and job training. Diverting low-level offenders  from jail and prison saves the system money; helping them become  self-sufficient means their families will not be on the welfare rolls  and their children will not continue the cycle of crime and poverty. We  must adequately fund prosecutors, public defenders, police, courts, and  corrections to make the criminal justice system speedy and efficient.

We can do this!