What does the federal government shutdown mean for New Mexico?

The entrance to the world-famous caverns at Carlsbad Caverns National Park was shuttered to visitors after the federal government shut down Wednesday. A message splayed across many federal homepages, including state national forests, read: “The Radical Left Democrats shutdown the government.”

While the exclaimers — which scholars say tread a legal gray area — and partial closures at national parks and monuments may be the most obvious sign of a shutdown for the general public, many federal government employees will go unpaid until the standoff in Congress comes to an end.

New Mexico has more than 22,000 federal civilian employees, many of whom will be sent home from work or expected to work without being paid until the shutdown ends. The state also has 22,000 active duty and reserve military personnel, who will be expected to work without pay.

Nationwide, roughly 750,000 federal workers are expected to be furloughed and some could be fired by the Trump administration, according to Associated Press reporting.

Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought has told House Republicans he plans to implement mass layoffs within the next day or two, Politico reported.

Two government employee unions have already filed a lawsuit challenging the layoff threats.

Essential services continue during a shutdown, such as the Postal Service, Medicare and Medicaid, Social Security payments, veterans benefits and disaster aid. Air traffic controllers and Transportation Security Administration (TSA) agents still go to work, although, like many other federal employees deemed essential, they typically don’t get paid during a shutdown.

The U.S. Postal Service funds itself instead of relying on congressional appropriations, so letter carriers still get paid during a shutdown.

While Congress regularly threatens a shutdown during negotiations over spending bills, the last actual shutdown was during President Donald Trump’s first term. It stretched 35 days from December 2018 into January 2019, making it the longest shutdown in history.

The federal government’s fiscal year ended in September, and Congress has not passed the 12 appropriations bills that fund most of the federal government. The Republican-led House passed a stopgap funding bill in September that would continue funding federal agencies at the same levels into November and add extra funding for security.

But the proposal has been repeatedly voted down in the Senate, where it needs 60 votes to pass. Democrats have their own temporary funding proposal that would include extending federal subsidies for health insurance and reversing Medicaid cuts signed into law this summer.

The blame game

Both parties are pointing blame for the shutdown at each other.

“Real people are suffering right now because of Democrats’ temper tantrum, and it needs to stop,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune said Thursday on the Senate floor.

All five members of New Mexico’s all-Democratic congressional delegation have voted against the Republican bill. Democrats “cannot rely on a pinky promise,” that health insurance subsidies will be extended later if they pass the Republican temporary funding measure now, said Rep. Teresa Leger Fernández, D-N.M.

“Republicans have been trying to kill the Affordable Care Act for 14 years, and so now they want to tell us, ‘Oh no, no, we can deal with that later,’” Leger Fernández said.

New Mexico GOP Chair Amy Barela called out Rep. Gabe Vasquez, D-N.M., specifically for voting against the House Republican bill. Vasquez is running for reelection in the most competitive congressional district in the state.

“His reckless decision risks paychecks for our service members, police and Border Patrol agents,” she said in a statement.

Vasquez placed blame for the shutdown on “Republicans’ unwillingness to come to the negotiating table.”

“I’m going to keep fighting until we have a funding bill that works for everybody, that works for New Mexicans, that protects their health care, and I’m still willing to work across the aisle to do it,” Vasquez said.

What has been halted in NM?

Although many federal employees will be sent home from work, many of the services New Mexicans rely on will still be open, at least in the short term.

The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children, also called WIC, is currently open and serving all clients, but the program has less than two weeks of federal funding remaining. In New Mexico, WIC helps provide food for 45,515 women, infants and children every month.

“The New Mexico Department of Health is working to ensure that New Mexicans will continue to be able to rely on this essential program,” said Department of Health spokesman Robert Nott. “We are identifying other funding sources in the agency to support the WIC program during this time.”

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, is operating as usual. The Health Care Authority manages the food assistance program in New Mexico, and staff do not expect immediate impacts to SNAP or Medicaid, said spokeswoman Marina Piña.

The National Park Service is trying to keep parks accessible, and critical functions that “protect life, property and public health,” will remain in place, according to an NPS spokesperson. That means visitors will still have access in many locations, and law enforcement and emergency response personnel will still be on duty.

Roads, lookouts, trails and open-air memorials will generally stay open, according to an NPS shutdown contingency plan. But 9,000 of 14,500 NPS staff will be home from work.

Carlsbad Caverns National Park has closed the caverns, park roads, ranger tours and services, and the visitor center and gift shop.

White Sands National Park is not allowing backcountry camping at the moment, and appears to still have a safety corridor in place on one of its roads. Park staff did not respond to an emailed request for comment and park phones are down.

National forests and grasslands will remain open to visitors and wildland firefighting and disaster response will continue, according to a U.S. Department of Agriculture spokesperson. That could change depending on the length of the shutdown.

Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., has asked Interior Secretary Doug Burgum to classify Interior employees as essential during the shutdown to help prevent issues like toilets going unserviced, trash accumulating and leaving park resources unprotected.

The United States District Court and Clerk’s Office will remain open and all court operations will continue as scheduled, although the court will issue further guidance if the shutdown extends beyond Oct. 17.

The shutdown could delay investigations of pollution at military sites in the state, according to New Mexico Environment Secretary James Kenney. Sites where the scope of the pollution has already been determined are less likely to be disrupted.

Work to clean up Superfund sites that already have funding appropriated should continue, but progress on sites like the Carlisle Cleaners Superfund site, where the scope of pollution and a potential way to address it are still being investigated, is less predictable because of the shutdown, according to NMED.

The shutdown also delays mediation between the state and federal Departments of Justice around cleaning up PFAS contamination from Cannon Air Force Base, because the lawyers handling that mediation are considered nonessential, Kenney said.

Sandia and Los Alamos national laboratories have enough funding appropriated to continue operating.

Hatch Act

The boundaries of the Hatch Act are being pushed by agency messaging during the shutdown, according to a University of New Mexico law professor.

Multiple federal agencies have messages on their official websites blaming Democrats for the shutdown.

“The Radical Left Democrats shutdown the government,” read a message at the top of U.S. Forest Service websites on Wednesday, including Carson, Santa Fe and Gila national forest pages in New Mexico.

“The Democrat shutdown will cause real harm to American farmers, ranchers and rural communities. President Trump has made it clear through his support of H.R. 5371 that he wants to keep the government open and support those who feed, fuel, and clothe the American people,” a USDA spokesperson said in a statement.

The messages are in a kind of gray zone for the Hatch Act, a law passed in the 1930s that prohibits federal employees in executive branch agencies from participating in political events, according to UNM law professor Josh Kastenberg.

“I’m not comfortable saying you have a clear-cut violation, but I am comfortable with saying right now the response is in that gray area where ... the executive branch ought not to tread because it’s creating precedent,” Kastenberg said.

Explicitly blaming another politician for the shutdown would be a direct violation of the Hatch Act, he said. But pushing the limits of the Hatch Act is part of a larger dynamic of the executive branch invading the other two independent branches of government, he said.

“I think if we look at it on the whole conduct of the White House and its treatment of certain members of Congress when it testifies or the judicial branches, it’s part and parcel of a breaking of a significant norm, and that norm is important for the overall trust in government,” Kastenberg said.

New Mexico’s senior senator thinks the nation is “in new territory.”

“I was driving down the street yesterday in Washington, D.C., and there was a giant propaganda poster with a picture of the president hanging from one of the federal buildings,” Heinrich said. “Like, that’s the kind of stuff that you typically see in Third World countries with tin-pot dictators. So I’m not surprised. But what I can tell you is what works, and having written appropriations bills for three different subcommittees now, what works is when Republicans and Democrats get together and compromise.”