The 2025 New Mexico legislative session is in the books and the politicians, staffers and lobbyists have cleared out of the Roundhouse. On the final day, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham and Republican legislators were critical of what they said was a lack of public safety legislation to come out of the session.
Santa Fe New Mexican columnist Milan Simonich appears on the latest episode of “Around the Roundhouse” to share his take on what went down. Guest host and New Mexican state government and policy reporter Margaret O’Hara chats with Simonich to learn his biggest takeaways.
Simonich offers a critical view of Democratic leadership, saying there seemed to be a lack of focus on making progress on some of the key issues that were highlighted heading into the session, including public safety. He says a special session, which the governor and some Republicans have called for, would be a waste of time unless there’s a real strategy that’s been laid out in advance.
It wasn’t quite all negative, though. Simonich closes by talking about a couple of positive developments he saw come out of the session.

'I'd like to see more hope': GOP write-in U.S. Senate candidate Larry Marker shares vision for New Mexico
39:58

Secretary of state candidate Amanda López Askin touts experience combatting election deniers in N.M.
28:02

Sen. Harold Pope Jr. says ‘it’s about the people’ in race for N.M. lieutenant governor
26:28