Gov. Lujan Grisham to call second special session over SNAP funding

SANTA FE — For the second time in two months, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham is calling legislators back to the Roundhouse for a special session prompted by federal funding concerns.

The Governor’s Office said Thursday the latest special session will take place Nov. 10, and will be limited to appropriating more state funding to pay for food assistance benefits for more than 460,000 state residents.

The move comes one week after Lujan Grisham announced the state would use $30 million in stopgap funding to cover the cost of SNAP benefits for a 10-day period.

“We acted fast in October when the Trump administration abandoned New Mexican families, and now the Legislature is coming back to finish the job,” Lujan Grisham said in a statement.

“We are fortunate that several years of economic prosperity and sound fiscal management have enabled us to support New Mexicans in this time of need,” the governor added. “However, we will not be able to fund these state supplements forever. Republicans in Congress need to come back to the table to end the longest government shutdown in American history and get everyone back to work.”

However, the governor will not be present for next week’s special session, as she recently left the state to attend a two-week United Nations climate change conference in Brazil.

With the governor out of the country until Nov. 18, Lt. Gov. Howie Morales will serve as acting governor during the special session, according to the Governor’s Office.

Lujan Grisham also called legislators back to Santa Fe for a two-day special session last month. That session ended with the Democratic-controlled Legislature approving bills aimed at helping rural hospitals and temporarily averting steep health care premium increases for some state residents.

Legislators also approved the $30 million in funding the governor used to foot the bill for keeping the SNAP benefits intact.

Democrats say they’ll ‘step up again’Lawmakers could approve up to $250 million in additional emergency funds during the latest special session, which is expected to last for just one day. That would make enough funding available to last until the start of a scheduled 30-day legislative session in January, several legislators said.

Top-ranking Democratic lawmakers expressed support for the special session on Thursday, describing it as a necessary step.

“The Legislature is ready to step up again to ensure our families have the food assistance they need,” Senate Majority Leader Peter Wirth, D-Santa Fe, said in a statement.

House Speaker Javier Martínez, D-Albuquerque, blamed President Donald Trump for failing to fully fund the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program that provides food assistance to more than 20% of New Mexico residents during the ongoing shutdown.

“While the federal government shutdown drags on, we are going to keep showing up to work, so we can protect our people from the chaos and cruelty coming out of Washington, D.C.,” Martínez said.

However, leading Republican legislators blamed New Mexico’s two Democratic U.S. senators — Martin Heinrich and Ben Ray Luján — for the state’s food assistance predicament. Heinrich and Luján have joined most other Senate Democrats in staunchly opposing a GOP-backed plan to reopen the federal government.

“We are being called into another special session because Senators Luján and Heinrich are refusing to fund SNAP benefits for the neediest New Mexicans,” said House Minority Leader Gail Armstrong, R-Magdalena.

“I would much prefer the governor use her authority and influence to urge our Senate delegation to end this crisis by voting to reopen the federal government,” Armstrong added. “Instead, they are holding vulnerable New Mexicans hostage for political leverage.”

Federal shutdown backdropThe federal government is 37 days into the longest shutdown in U.S. history because Congress has not passed annual appropriations bills to keep it funded.

The Republican-led U.S. House of Representatives passed a temporary funding bill in September that would keep the government funded at the current level, but the bill has yet to make it through the Senate, where Democratic votes are needed to pass it.

Democrats are pushing for the temporary funding bill to address expiring health insurance subsidies. Without the subsidies, health insurance costs will go up for many Americans on Affordable Care Act plans.

After the program’s annual appropriations ran out this month, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said it could not legally use a roughly $5 billion contingency fund to keep SNAP funded in November, leaving 42 million Americans without food assistance. But two federal judges disagreed.

Judges in Massachusetts and Rhode Island ruled last week that the Trump administration must use the contingency fund to pay for SNAP benefits, and could use its ability to transfer other funds to fully cover November benefits — roughly $8 billion.

The Trump administration said earlier last week it would use just the contingency fund to partially pay for SNAP benefits and that the process could take weeks. In Rhode Island, U.S. District Judge John J. McConnell Jr. ruled Thursday that the administration must find money to fully fund November benefits.

But the Governor’s Office has said it plans to forge ahead with the state-level plan as the court cases play out.