State lawmakers swiftly approved $162.5 million to ensure food assistance for more than 460,000 New Mexicans if federal SNAP funding stalls during a shutdown.

Patrick Lohmann, Source New Mexico

This article was originally published by Source New Mexico.

The New Mexico Legislature’s second special session ended after about four hours Monday, with both chambers quickly approving an allocation of up to $162.5 million to cover statewide food assistance through the start of next year in case it’s needed.

Acting Gov. Howie Morales also swiftly signed the bill early Monday evening.

Ultimately, the House voted 52-9, and the Senate voted 30-6, to approve a spending package with $162.5 million for SNAP going forward, plus $30 million to replenish a fund that paid for the 10 days’ worth of SNAP that ran out Monday. Only Republicans voted against the measure.

Sen. George Muñoz (D-Gallup), the Senate Finance chair, said before the vote Monday that weekly payments totaling about $20 million will go to every SNAP recipient statewide beginning Dec. 1, unless the federal government reopens and begins paying for SNAP in full by then. The bill includes a provision that automatically ends the state payments when the government reopens.

If federal funding lapses again, state funded emergency food benefits in House Bill 1 will be loaded on to New Mexicans’ EBT cards on a weekly basis until it’s restored or until the state Legislature returns for its regular session starting Jan. 20, 2026.

The spending package the lawmakers approved by a wide margin occurs amid a federal government shutdown that threatened to abruptly halt Supplement Nutrition Assistance Program payments to about 460,000 New Mexicans. 

Upon its passage, both state House and Senate Democrats issued news releases throughout the session and in statements following its end noted that the state had stepped in to counter the Trump administration. 

“Once again, our state is coming together to deliver the critical services New Mexicans cannot live without,” House Speaker Javier Martinez (D-Albuquerque) said in a news release. 

Even as a possible deal emerged Sunday evening in the U.S. Senate, state Democrats in the majority said the chaotic back-and-forth between President Donald Trump and federal judges prompted them to take it upon themselves to ensure roughly one in five New Mexicans have money to eat over the holidays. 

Health Care Authority Secretary Kari Armijo confirmed the state paid 100% of November SNAP benefits on Friday when ordered to do so by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and then was subsequently “ordered to claw that back. We are in the middle of a very confusing legal storm right now,” she said, “so the truth is, this is going to play out in the courts…We have issued those benefits in New Mexico, but we are also going to have to comply with whatever ultimate guidance we receive.”

Trump underscored the legal turmoil when his top litigator on Monday told the Supreme Court the administration was continuing its appeal of a federal ruling ordering it to pay full SNAP benefits to 42 million Americans. 

While New Mexico lawmakers committed to continuing to pay for SNAP if needed, Muñoz and other Democrats said conversations are ongoing with federal elected officials to reimburse New Mexico and other states that fronted their own funds for SNAP during the shutdown. 

One possible vehicle could be the continuing resolution used to pay back federal workers and reopen the government, leaders said. 

“States — red, blue — we all stepped up to fill a gap here, a critical gap, so that reimbursement really needs to come,” said Majority Leader Sen. Peter Wirth (D-Santa Fe)in a news conference after the Senate adjourned. 

The Republicans who voted against the measures said they did so largely because they blamed United States Senate Democrats, and particularly New Mexico’s Ben Ray Lujàn and Martin Heinrich, for the shutdown and the harm it caused. 

“When it comes to what happened in Washington, let’s be very clear,” said Sen. Craig Brandt (R-Rio Rancho). “Ben Ray Lujàn and Martin Heinrich voted to use the people of New Mexico as pawns to force the government to pay for subsidies for the unaffordable Care Act.”

Expiring Affordable Care Act health care insurance tax credits have been at the crux of the partisan division over the federal spending bill.

In response to that criticism from Brandt and others, Heinrich told Source New Mexico in a statement that Republicans “want us to pass a Republican funding bill that would result in working class New Mexicans paying thousands, even tens of thousands of dollars, more next year for their healthcare.”

Both Heinrich and Luján, along with most Democrats in the U.S. Senate, voted Sunday against a bill to reopen the government, citing the health insurance tax credits.

“We refuse to let Donald Trump bully us into choosing between a mother in Roswell feeding her kids, a couple in Española affording their health care premiums, or a VA employee in Albuquerque making their next rent payment,” Heinrich and Luján said in a joint statement following the vote.

Republicans also raised questions about New Mexico’s high status among states with the highest SNAP error rates, which are accidental over- or under-paying of SNAP recipients due to errors from applicants or state officials overseeing the program. According to state officials, the state has an error rate of 14.6%. 

Seeking ways to bring down the error rate, Republicans in both chambers introduced amendments that provide the state Health Care Authority $50,000 to evaluate ways to bring down the SNAP error rate.

The error rate could cost state taxpayers significantly. If the state does not reduce its error rate in the next few years, provisions in the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” will shift 15% of the state’s total SNAP spending onto the state, which amounts to $173 million, according to recent estimates. 

Health Care Authority Kari Armijo said the state’s high error rate is, at least in part, a product of the COVID-19 pandemic’s loosening of restrictions to receive SNAP. The state waived some reporting requirements, which was allowed but drove the error rate higher, Armijo explained in a committee hearing Monday. 

“We did that intentionally to keep New Mexicans fed,” she said. 

Democrat sponsors of the spending bill agreed to accept Republican amendments to appropriate $50,000 to evaluate the cause of the error rate. 

But Wirth also called the provisions “draconian,” saying he hopes Congress reconsiders the “error rate” penalty, which he said will hurt not only the state but also SNAP recipients. 

“Given New Mexico’s in the same position with a whole string of red states, I think Congress needs to take a deep breath and look at this and go back,” he said. “And really kind of look at the impact and the harm that’s causing.”

Patrick Lohmann is a reporter for Source New Mexico. Julia Goldberg contributed reporting to this story.