Gov & Politics NM congressional delegation say Republicans could have avoided shutdown — if they had wanted to

Federal Dems say loss of federal workforce will be ‘devastating’ for New Mexico
New Mexico’s five-member Congressional delegation on Wednesday during a virtual news conference described the federal government shutdown as “entirely preventable,” an “elaborate smokescreen” and proof of Congressional Republicans’ “failure to govern.”
All five members — all Democrats — said they remained in Washington, D.C., prepared to find a bipartisan agreement that would allow the government to operate. The federal government started shutting down early Wednesday after Congress failed to approve a funding bill before the new fiscal year began.
Affordable Care Act tax credits,set to expire at the end of the yearwithout congressional intervention, became a sticking point in negotiations. New Mexico lawmakers intend to address that issue during a special legislation session that also kicked off Wednesday. The session also will focus on shoring up Medicaid and federal food assistancedue to cuts made to both in the Republican federal budget bill.
U.S. Sen. Martin Heinrich called the impasse and shutdown “entirely preventable” during Wednesday’s news conference.
“Republicans obviously are in control of the House,” Heinrich said. “They’re in control of the Senate, and they hold the White House. They had every single lever that they needed to negotiate a deal, and all Democrats have asked for was to protect New Mexicans and Americans across the country from higher health care costs.”
Heinrich noted thatduring events in Las Cruces last weekhe heard “from doctors and community leaders and parents…that if we don’t do something right now, hard working New Mexicans will be forced to choose between paying rent, paying utility bills, paying their car payment, or paying for their health care.
In other words, “hardworking people are going to suffer,” he said. “It’s irresponsible…Donald Trump and the Republicans in Congress have spent the last nine months driving up health care costs and fueling inflation, and now they’ve manufactured a new crisis, the shutdown of our federal government, and the effects will be devastating.”
U.S. Sen. Ben Ray Luján emphasized that Trump is “making a choice to fire hard working employees and make this as painful as possible for the American people. It’s his choice. The president could choose not to do the things that he’s doing today, or he can choose to inflict pain, and he’s been clear that he’s going to choose to inflict pain on the American people.”
U.S. Rep. Melanie Stansbury, who represents the state’s 1st Congressional District, noted the contrast between Washington, D.C. and New Mexico.
“New Mexico is really a split screen right now,” she said. “In Washington, D.C., you have a Republican-controlled Congress and White House that is refusing to negotiate, to keep the government open, to keep our federal workers employed, and refusing to fix the health care of millions of Americans who will lose health care in the coming weeks if they don’t act. Meanwhile [in New Mexico], you have a Democratic-led state Legislature and governor who have called a special session today to try to fix what Republicans broke at the federal level.”
As for the shutdown, Stansbury, added, Republicans “wanted” it to happen. “They have been planning for this for months,” she said, “but they are trying to create an elaborate smoke screen that makes the American people think that they’re trying to act when everything that they’ve done has set the mechanics up for a shutdown so that they can carry out their policies that they laid out in Project 2025 — that is what is actually happening here.”
Project 2025 refers to a conservativeroadmap to Trump’s second term that U.S. Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought played a key role in creating.
“Part of what the OMB director is doing is using this as an opportunity to shut down work in offices that they don’t support,” Stansbury said.
All five members said New Mexico will feel the impacts of the federal shutdown.
“Almost 18,000 service members in New Mexico are at risk of not getting paid on time,” Heinrich said. “The same goes for our nearly 30,000 government employees who are at risk of not being paid until the shutdown is over and we don’t know how long this is going to be. Farmers won’t be able to access new loans. Families living in rural communities will not be able to get loans either. During hunting season, when many of you have already planned your annual fall harvest to fill your freezer, our public lands employees will be limited in the services that they can provide, or even the maintenance that they can complete. For most people, these are scary prospects. That’s part of the point: They want to sow fear and confusion, but the bottom line is that people are going to get hurt.”
All the members reiterated their commitment to finding common ground with their Republican counterparts, but “I’m not going to bend the knee or sell out New Mexicans,” U.S. Rep. Gabe Vasquez, who represents the southern part of the state in Congressional District 2, said.
Bottom line, U.S. Rep. Teresa Leger Fernández, of the 3rd Congressional District, said: “Republicans control the government…their failure to pass a funding bill is the Republicans’ failure to govern. I know people keep asking: Who will be blamed for the shutdown? I think that’s the wrong question. I think the real question is: Who feels the pain? And who will feel the pain if we don’t address the healthcare crisis?”