ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. —
After Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham's 30-day ban on carrying firearms in public, representatives are now calling to impeach her.
Rep. Stefani Lord and Rep. John Block announced their plan to impeach her, saying this ban is against New Mexicans' constitutional rights.
"I was completely shocked. I mean, this is no way to address a crime issue," Lord said. "She took an oath to uphold that constitution. She needs to understand that those rights are absolute. And that's why we are impeaching her, because she has committed a crime in what she is doing."
Block agrees that this is what needs to be done.
"We need to impeach her and that's something that I don't take lightly. But unfortunately, we need to do it because if we don't start here, it's going to seep through the entire nation," Block said. "We're going to have governors all across the country think that they can just throw the Constitution in a paper shredder and see it go."
However, both Democrats from the Senate and the House say something different.
New Mexico House Speaker Javier Martinez sent us this statement. "It’s absolutely critical that city, county, and state officials continue working together to prevent firearms from falling into the wrong hands. While I have strong concerns about the effectiveness and enforceability of this approach, we need to be focused on moving forward solutions that actually reduce gun violence and make our communities safer."
President Pro Tempore Mimi Stewart also sent a statement in regard to the ban and the impeachment.
"We have a passionate governor who is fighting hard to keep the people in our state safe from gun violence. There’s plenty of room to debate the best pathways for doing that, but any talk of impeachment is counterproductive," Stewart said.
According to our political expert Brian Sanderoff, it is possible to impeach the governor, but it would be difficult. Since there is not a legislative session until January, the first step for this impeachment is to have a special session called on by the governor herself, or three-fifths of the House and Senate would need to agree to call on an extraordinary session.
"It would take a majority of the state House members 36 out of 70 in order to impeach a governor. Then, there'd be a trial in the state Senate where it would take two-thirds of the members to convict the governor," Sanderoff said.
However, Sanderoff said the current political realities would make it hard to impeach the governor.
"The Democrats enjoy large majorities in both the state House and the state Senate. In order to get a majority of the House members to impeach and then two-thirds of the state senators to convict would be highly unlikely," Sanderoff said.
Lujan Grisham's press secretary, Caroline Sweeney, sent this statement in response to the impeachment.
"These legislators are more focused on impeachment than working to develop real solutions to save New Mexican lives."
While both Lord and Block said they acknowledged there is a gun violence problem, they said this is not the way to do it. They are in the process of preparing the impeachment documents.