Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham and New Mexico’s early childhood agency say a legal effort to halt the state’s free childcare expansion to all families is “moot” after the Legislature put the program into law.
Lujan Grisham’s administration submitted a response Friday to a complaint filed in April by Republican gubernatorial candidate and cannabis entrepreneur Duke Rodriguez and other plaintiffs; the complaint seeks to invalidate the regulations underpinning free, universal childcare.
“Any possible controversy is already over,” the state’s response said. “The Legislature has resolved every single issue Petitioners raise. Senate Bill 241 — now in effect — expressly authorizes the very program components Petitioners attack.”
The petitioners, who include state Sen. Steve Lanier, R-Aztec, and Sandoval County father Zachary Anaya, argue Lujan Grisham’s executive branch essentially went about the childcare assistance expansion in the wrong way by creating the regulations in November, several months before the Legislature voted to approve funding for the program.
A state judge ruled in late April the governor’s administration must pause the childcare initiative or present an argument for why it should not be permanently halted.
A hearing on the matter — the next step in the case — is scheduled June 11.
The legal challenge comes amid other growing pains for New Mexico’s free, universal childcare system, which expanded eligibility for state-subsidized care to all families regardless of income. Analysts from the Legislative Finance Committee found the Early Childhood Education and Care Department started overspending almost immediately after the expansion, a side effect of unforeseen enrollment increases.
Capacity issues persist, too. A recent investigation by The New Mexican found the state has made progress toward a truly universal system, adding more than 1,300 childcare slots between December and April. But data published in December by the Early Childhood Education and Care Department estimated the true need is more than 10 times that, with New Mexico short more than 15,000 childcare seats for children under 6.
In their response to the lawsuit, however, state officials argued Senate Bill 241 — a bill passed earlier this year that updated eligibility requirements for the state’s childcare assistance program and will allow the state to draw up to $700 million over five years to cover expansion costs — cleared up any questions of statutory authority. The state’s response said the law instructed the early childhood department “to operate the Program exactly as it is now operating it.”
The state’s response also argued the Early Childhood Education and Care Department “acted squarely within its delegated authority” in administering the childcare assistance program and promulgating rules for it.
“What they present as a constitutional crisis is nothing more than a political disagreement,” the state’s response said.
However, Rodriguez argued legislation drafted after the fact doesn’t address the “biggest flaw” in the state’s path toward a universal childcare system: “What was the legal authority that existed before Senate Bill 241?”
“If you make a claim for mootness and say, ‘Well, the problem has been fixed,’ that doesn’t resolve the unlawful actions taken in the fall of 2025,” Rodriguez said.
Governor’s Office spokesperson Michael Coleman declined to comment further on the case Monday.
“We think the filing speaks for itself,” Coleman wrote in an email. “We are confident in the merits of our case.”
