Stansbury covers wide range of topics in town hall meeting

BERNALILLO — It was a full house at the Sandoval County Administration Building Aug. 11 when Congresswoman Melanie Stansbury was holding a town hall.

“I know many of you are probably here because you’re concerned about what’s happening in Washington, D.C., and what can be done,” she said.

Before she took questions from the room, Stansbury detailed what she was seeing in the nation’s capital.

“Right now, because of the nature of how things are going in Washington, a lot of what we see, our role is helping to educate folks about what’s going on in Washington,” she said.

The main thing she talked about was the “Big Beautiful Bill,” which Stansbury called the “Big Ugly Bill.”

“We’re working very closely with the state to try to attenuate the impacts that we know are going to be felt by New Mexicans, including to health care, food assistance, educational assistance and all of that,” she said.

Overall, Stansbury characterized the actions coming out of the White House as an “attack on our basic freedoms and democracy.”

“I have never seen a government operate the way the current administration is operating, and I’ve been in Washington for a number of years,” she said.

“In the many years that I spent in Washington, D.C. — I was there for seven years — I never saw people behave the way the current administration is behaving and the breakdown of collaborated bipartisan lawmaking and lawlessness that we’re seeing right now,” she added.

She said much of what has been ordered by the executive branch didn’t come as a surprise, however, attributing it to “Project 2025”, which was released by the Heritage Foundation during during last year’s election campaigns.

“I want to be clear: If you’re somebody whose point of view in politics align with what they’re trying to achieve, that’s one thing, but you still have to follow the law. You can’t break the law, and so one of the challenges right now is that how they’re trying to achieve their policy goals is not normal, and that’s why I often say ‘this is not normal,’” she said, harkening back to a viral sign she held up in March as President Donald Trump entered to make an address before Congress in March.

“I’m so concerned about the ‘26 election for Congress and Senate that Trump is going to do everything in his power to gerrymander, but not only that, cut Blacks off the rolls, minority, our immigrants, everybody off the rolls, and then if he loses the Senate, he’s going to create chaos, and I hope that we can do something about that,” one woman said.

Stansbury alleged that the Republicans are going to cheat in the 2026 election, including gerrymandering.

“People ask me all the time, ‘Are we going to have another election?’ The answer is yes; if they weren’t planning on having another election, they wouldn’t be trying to gerrymander. But they’re trying to cheat within the system,” she said.

She also said the Democrats have a plan to “fight back” in 2026 and will file lawsuits and more to call out “illegal activity.” She added that all House seats and about a third of the Senate are up for election.

Another constituent asked if Medicare prices will increase and by how much.

She said she doesn’t have the data of how much people will be impacted but was able to paint a picture of some of the qualitative changes people will see.

“My expectation is that the Medicare cuts are going to be more systemic than individual, meaning that, like reimbursements are going to be cut within the system. So, if you have a rare disease and you go in for a treatment suddenly, that’s not going to be covered. But I don’t think individual Medicare benefits are going to be impacted, except through what is covered, if that makes sense. That’s my understanding of it, but these provisions are so technical in the law, you need a Ph.D. in health policy to even understand this bill,” she said.

Stansbury added that she has been working with Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham to get that data released publicly so people will know how they will be impacted.

She also took the opportunity to talk about Social Security.

“The day before I flew out of Washington, D.C., I dropped a bill called ‘Hands off our Social Security.’ It’s a bill that’s co-sponsored now by dozens and dozens of members of the Democratic caucus, and it is designed to fight back against the privatization of Social Security,” she said.

“It is estimated that within the next, what eight to nine years, there’s going to be dramatic cuts to everybody’s Social Security because of the problems of not addressing the situation. What constructive solutions have you discussed and what can be held?” local resident Ramona Goolsby asked.

Stansbury’s referred to a bill that she has co-sponsored called “Social Security 2100” to keep Social Security solvent.

“I’ll be honest with you, I’m not a Social Security policy wonk, but this bill has been worked on by dozens of Social Security experts for years to solve the question around solvency, and so we’re happy to follow up and provide more information,” she said.

Others were concerned about work visas for immigrants, whether they should participate in civil disobedience, public lands and more.

She addressed some of the immigration concerns head on.

“He (Donald Trump) has made the centerpiece of his administration, mass deportation, and the Big Ugly Bill. It didn’t even talk about this new spending in that bill. There’s billions and billions of dollars in that bill for private prisons to hold immigrants that they arrest, and for processes that would support deportation, and they have set quotas from the White House. Stephen Miller (deputy chief of staff) himself set quotas for federal law enforcement that are just actually unachievable numerically. They’re saying they should be deporting 3,000 people a month,” she said.

One man had a very pointed question about the situation in Israel, asking about her stance on voting for providing weapons for Israel and the human rights concerns in that region.

“There is a lot to be said about this issue, and we will be releasing another statement in the coming days, but clearly over the weekend the current prime minister has stated his intentions to permanently occupy Gaza. That is a violation of international law and human rights, and we have to speak up and fight back against them. So that’s where I am and the Israeli people themselves are also,” she said.

The entire town hall an be watched at sandovalcountynm.gov on the meeting videos page.