Fiscal impact reports (FIRs) are prepared by the Legislative Finance Committee (LFC) for standing finance
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are used for other purposes.
F I S C A L I M P A C T R E P O R T
SPONSOR Soules
LAST UPDATED
ORIGINAL DATE 02/17/2025
SHORT TITLE Rights of Children, CA
BILL
NUMBER
Senate Joint
Resolution 8
ANALYST Chilton
ESTIMATED ADDITIONAL OPERATING BUDGET IMPACT*
(dollars in thousands)
Agency/Program
FY25 FY26 FY27
3 Year
Total Cost
Recurring or
Nonrecurring
Fund
Affected
SOS
No fiscal
impact
$30.0 to $50.0
No fiscal
impact
$30.0 to $50.0 Nonrecurring Election Fund
Legal Costs if
Enacted
See Fiscal
Implications
Reforms if
Enacted
See Fiscal
Implications
Parentheses ( ) indicate expenditure decreases.
*Amounts reflect most recent analysis of this legislation.
Duplicates appropriation in the General Appropriation Act
Relates to appropriation in the General Appropriation Act
Sources of Information
LFC Files
Agency Analysis Received From
Secretary of State (SOS) Early Childhood Education and Care Department (ECECD) Public Education Department (PED) Health Care Authority (HCA) Department of Health (DOH)
SUMMARY
Synopsis of Senate Joint Resolution 8
Senate Joint Resolution 8 (SJR8) would add a section to the Bill of Rights, Article II of the New
Mexico Constitution, enumerating the following list of rights for children:
A. Right to timely, accessible healthcare;
B. Right to solution-focused, culturally sensitive behavioral healthcare for the child and
family;
C. The right to nutritious and adequate food;
D. The right to safe shelter, with plumbing, heating, electricity, and internet service;
E. The right to transportation;
F. The right to be in a community with home visitation services beginning at birth;
G. The right to early learning programs; Senate Joint Resolution 8 – Page 2
H. The right to community schools, including school-based medical, dental and mental
health services;
I. The right to youth mentorship programs;
J. The right to appropriate training for eventual employment.
The joint resolution provides that the amendment be put before the voters at the next general
election (November 2026) or a special election called for the purpose of considering the
amendment. The amendment would only be effective if approved by voters. The provisions of
SJR8 would not take effect until the Legislature enacts laws to implement the amendment.
FISCAL IMPLICATIONS
Under Section 1-16-4 NMSA 1978 and the New Mexico Constitution, the Secretary of State
(SOS) is required to print samples of the text of each constitutional amendment in both Spanish
and English in an amount equal to 10 percent of the registered voters in the state. SOS is required
to publish the samples once a week for four weeks preceding the election in newspapers in every
county in the state. Further, the number of constitutional amendments on the ballot may impact
the ballot page size or cause the ballot to be more than one page, also increasing costs. The
estimated cost per constitutional amendment is $35 thousand to $50 thousand, depending on the
size and number of ballots and if additional ballot stations are needed.
The constitutional amendment proposed by SJR8 would contain unusual language that would
make it ineffective without additional legislative action. This restriction means the constitutional
amendment, even if adopted by voters, should have no fiscal impact on its own. However, it
could trigger an avalanche of litigation focused on the legitimacy of the limiting language and
remedies for providing the enumerated rights, with or without the enactment of additional laws.
This litigation could cost the state billions of dollars. The Public Education Departments spends
about $500 thousand a year on litigation related to the Martinez-Yazzie lawsuit over the
constitutional right to a free and sufficient education. The rights that would be provided in SJR8
would involve at least seven state agencies.
Providing the rights themselves would come with a much higher price tag. Public school reforms
related to the Martinez-Yazzie lawsuit have increased spending by about $1.6 billion so far. The
Children, Youth and Families Department (CYFD) comments on the high cost of implementing
these rights, giving the example of just one portion of the right delineated in Subsection D:
In 2022, there were approximately 527,861 children in New Mexico. The average
number of children per household is 1.94, so there were approximately 272,093
households with children in New Mexico in 2022. If internet access in a home costs
$50/month, that would be a cost of $163 million annually to ensure childhood access to
internet in addition to costs for building additional infrastructure needed to obtain internet
access.
Senate Joint Resolution 8 – Page 3
SIGNIFICANT ISSUES
The Health Care Authority discusses the difference between rights and entitlements and notes the
proposed constitution would create ongoing obligations that could not be changed even if other
circumstances change:
Rights are generally understood as being inherent in personhood or citizenship that the
state cannot restrict or take away (e.g. freedom of speech, due process of law, etc.).
Entitlements, however, are established by legislation and must be provided by the state or
some other entity (e.g., healthcare, education, etc.) Entitlements, because they are created
and provided by the state, do not usually get constitutional protection. The "rights"
enumerated in this resolution may be entitlements programs and services. Once such
legislation is passed, however, the rights would exist in perpetuity. Any future attempt by
the Legislature to alter how those rights are provided or funded may potentially face a
constitutional challenge, making it difficult to respond to changes in economic or social
conditions that the proposed bill cannot anticipate.
The Early Childhood Education and Care Department notes the enumerated rights would make a
long-term difference:
Improving the quality of life for every New Mexican begins with a world-class cradle-to-
career education system. Investments in early childhood education and care yield
substantial long-term benefits for individuals and society—a 13 percent annual return on
investment through improved outcomes in education, health, and economic productivity.
The Public Education Department (PED) challenges the conclusion that the rights would result in
better outcomes:
The presence of these as rights in SJR8 assumes that these specific programs will have a
positive effect upon children’s lives, an assumption which may warrant further
examination. Their presence also assumes that they have been selected from among other
specific programs because the positive effects of these outweigh the potential good of
other potential programs. Other potentially beneficial programs have not been included
among the rights in SJR8 and included programs may prove less effective than
anticipated.
CYFD agrees the rights enumerated in SJR8 could improve the lives of New Mexico children
but, as written, could be ineffective:
Ensuring the basic necessities set out in the Bill of Rights is key to the success of children
in New Mexico, but the amendment is far too broad and lacks the necessary enforcement
mechanism to do anything but cause confusion. Without these necessary pieces, SJR8
would likely not achieve its desired outcomes.
PED suggests SJR8, given it could not take effect without additional legislative action, creates a
framework for rights:
Gaps are substantial between current provisions in law for New Mexico children and the
vision for laws supporting children as articulated in the joint resolution. Unlike [previous
similar proposed constitutional amendments], SJR8 would not immediately grant new
rights to children upon passage. Instead, it would create a framework for rights that will
only take effect once the legislature enacts detailed implementation laws. This would
allow lawmakers to control the timing and scope of implementation.
Senate Joint Resolution 8 – Page 4
However, PED notes the proposed right to “acquire all the skills needed to maintain quality
employment” is focused on an outcome of a sufficient education, already a constitutional right,
and could require adjudication to resolve.
In the 2024 New Mexico Kids Count Data Book, which catalogues measures affecting children’s
health in New Mexico and compares them with U.S. rates, the Annie E. Casey Foundation
concludes:
State lawmakers have made … policy changes that will benefit New Mexico’s children
and families. These include a statewide paid sick leave policy so parents can stay home to
take care of a sick child, an historic expansion of childcare assistance so parents have
safe, affordable environments in which to leave their children while they work, and the
extension of postpartum healthcare through Medicaid to help support new parents during
some of the most important months in their new child’s life. New Mexico also continues
to expand early childhood care and education services such as home visiting and
prekindergarten.
In addition to expansions in early childhood care and education services, our cradle-to-
career educational system can be improved. We need to ensure that our K–12 student
population—which is one of the most racially and ethnically diverse in the nation—is
receiving culturally appropriate education. Studies show that when children are
connected to their cultures and communities through their curriculum, they are more
engaged in school, which leads to better outcomes. And while the state has made college
education much more affordable, we still fall behind much of the nation in directing more
of our financial aid to those students with the most need.
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