On the bottom floor of the state Capitol in Santa Fe — beneath the public galleries and art displays — the walls are lined with portraits of former legislators.
Overwhelmingly, those lawmakers were men.
The first woman to join their ranks was Bertha Paxton, a Doña Ana County Democrat elected in 1923.
“I just cannot imagine what she went through as the only woman in the House in 1923,” said state Rep. Reena Szczepanski, a Santa Fe Democrat in her second term and the House majority leader.
Things have changed in the century since Paxton’s election. Women now occupy 55% of the seats in the Legislature, outpacing the national average by more than 20 percentage points, according to data from the Center for American Women and Politics. New Mexico is second only to Nevada in its percentage of lawmakers who are women.
Legislators cite another change that coincided with the female majority: The Roundhouse began shifting away from its reputation as a stereotypical “boys club” and what one lawmaker described as a “culture of silence” for women when it comes to speaking out about sexual harassment they have experienced.
Parenting is political, too, for many female lawmakers, since women often bear the majority of child care responsibilities. In 2024, nearly 1 in 10 New Mexico legislators were mothers of children under 18, according to data from the Vote Mama Foundation. Their dual roles as parents and lawmakers bring unique perspectives to the Roundhouse — and unique challenges, like additional child care needs.
Several candidates unseated longtime incumbents in 2024, bringing in a new batch of lawmakers, many of them women and some of them mothers. After widespread reckonings on sexual harassment and with new blood in the building, the Capitol is becoming a place of relatively equal-opportunity politicking.
“I think the Roundhouse today is a place where — no matter where you come from, no matter who you are, whether you’re male or female — it is about the ideas, and that has taken a long time to achieve,” Szczepanski said.
“If you have good ideas, if you can champion them with excellence,” she added, “you are going to be heard, and you are going to have a chance to get your ideas into law.”
Rep. Yanira Gurrola, D-Albuquerque, appointed to the Legislature in 2023 — just one week before the start of session that year — said she feels supported by her colleagues in the Roundhouse.
“The way that they embrace me and mentor me and back me up in everything — it was a different experience. I don’t think I have experienced something like that, so supportive, in my past jobs, in my past commitments. So it has been, actually, a great experience,” she said.
Nathan Burton/The New Mexican
She added, “That’s the reason that I’m staying: because I don’t feel alone in doing all this.”
‘It’s about power’
The Roundhouse hasn’t always been a friendly place for women, Szczepanski acknowledged.
When she first started working at the Capitol about two decades ago as director of the New Mexico affiliate of the Drug Policy Alliance, Szczepanski said, there were far fewer women in its halls as lawmakers, but also fewer women serving as advocates and lobbyists.
Nationwide, only about a third of state lawmakers are women, according to data from the Center for American Women and Politics. That figure has been steadily creeping upward since the 1980s but remains a far cry from 50-50 gender parity.
The percentage of female state lawmakers in New Mexico has surpassed the national average since 1997, when women made up more than a quarter of the Legislature. The U.S. did not reach that milestone until 2017.
A variety of perspectives in the Roundhouse has been helpful, Szczepanski said.
“Speaking for the House, we’ve become very results-oriented, very focused on: What is the impact we’re trying to achieve, and how can we achieve it?” she said. “And I have to think that’s in no small part due to evening out and having adequate representation of women.”
Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham said she believes more women with political power in New Mexico has brought greater attention — and greater policy change — to issues that disproportionately affect women and families. In a recent interview, she pointed to her administration’s focus on improving reading education, safeguarding abortion access and greatly expanding eligibility for no-cost child care.
There’s an assumption, Lujan Grisham said, women are “going to care about caregiving and children and schools, and maybe not so much the economy and in tax policy … and that’s just nonsense.”
“They’re all related,” she said, “and the strength and economic power of a family has everything to do with the mom, the woman.”
Senate President Pro Tempore Mimi Stewart, D-Albuquerque, has held a key leadership position for several years, but she still recalls feeling somewhat alone when she joined the Legislature more than 30 years ago, after winning a seat in the New Mexico House of Representatives.
“I just had to fight really hard to be heard,” she said. “Of course, that’s the experience of most people, women or men, when they start because you don’t really know what you’re doing.”
House Minority Leader Gail Armstrong of Magdalena, who is the first woman to lead the House Republican caucus, said she’s been treated “fairly equal” during her time at the Roundhouse. In general, she argued, bad behavior in the building has more to do with personalities than gender.
“Whether you’re male or female, it’s about power, and people sometimes don’t know how to harness that in a way that is conducive to making New Mexico better,” Armstrong said.
‘Culture of silence’
The Legislature in 2018 revised its sexual harassment policy for the first time in a decade, adding outside oversight of investigations into complaints against lawmakers.
One lobbyist in 2017 said years earlier a legislator had offered his vote on a bill in exchange for sex; another lobbyist said in 2018 a lawmaker had sexually harassed her and retaliated when she rebuffed him. Female political consultants, candidates and lawmakers also said they had been on the receiving end of sexual harassment.
More changes came in 2023, when a bill designed to ease the process for coming forward with a harassment complaint passed both chambers. It was co-sponsored by Szczepanski and Stewart, along with Rep. Christine Chandler, D-Los Alamos, and Sen. Joseph Cervantes, D-Las Cruces.
The measure came after a group of women had accused former state Sen. Daniel Ivey-Soto, D-Albuquerque, of harassment and sexual misconduct in 2022, spurring calls for his resignation or ouster. First to come forward with allegations was Marianna Anaya, an Albuquerque Democrat who joined the House of Representatives this year but was a regular in the Roundhouse for several years prior as a lobbyist.
She often had heard about sexual assault and harassment at the Capitol.
“So when it happened to me,” she said, “I felt really compelled to come forward and talk about it because of what I had seen in terms of a culture of silence, with women fearing coming forward and what it would do to their career or their reputation.”
Anaya publicly accused Ivey-Soto of groping her years earlier and then retaliating against her by stalling a bill she supported. Advocacy groups later said several other women had come forward accusing the senator of a range of offenses, including bullying behavior. It was not the first time he was accused of such blustering; a year earlier, Senate colleagues had called him out for what they described as an abusive personal attack on Stewart during a late-night debate. Some lawmakers called the aggressive behavior misogyny.
While a legislative ethics committee launched an investigation into the allegations Ivey-Soto faced in 2022, the secret process ended without a resolution.
Ivey-Soto rejected calls to resign from the Senate but stepped down from a committee chairmanship. He lost his 2024 bid for reelection to a Democratic primary challenger.
Ivey-Soto did not respond to requests for comment for this story.
The law passed in 2023 got rid of what Anaya called a “gag rule” that had prevented accusers of speaking out after filing ethics complaints.
“I think that over the years, we’ve done a really good job of making sure that women are safer in the Roundhouse, that we are breaking down the culture of silence, that we are making rules and procedures that allow people to come forward in a safer way,” Anaya said.
“Things will always need improving, but I think the change has been drastic, given so many women in office and so many women who are willing to change the culture of the Roundhouse,” she added.
Miranda Viscoli, co-president of New Mexicans Against Gun Violence, was one of the women who came forward in 2022 with allegations against Ivey-Soto. She alleged in an opinion piece published in The New Mexican he had berated her in 2017 moments before she was set to testify before lawmakers — pointing his finger in her face and cursing at her.
She said in a recent interview she was more surprised by the aftermath of her complaint at the time of the incident — that Ivey-Soto remained in office.
“So many of us spoke honestly about how he was behaving, and it was repeatedly ignored. And that, to me, was what was most disturbing,” Viscoli said.
She added, “It didn’t help our work to come out and speak up — if anything, it hurt us. I’m still living with that. I’m glad I did it, but it hurt us.”
Threats of abuse
Amid a rise in political violence nationwide, women in public office have faced higher risks than their male counterparts of more severe abuse, threats involving their families, and sexual or gender-based abuse, the Brennan Center for Justice found in a 2024 report.
The Brennan Center argues rampant abuse threatens a free and fair democracy: About half of the female officeholders surveyed said they were less willing to run for reelection or higher office as a result of the abuse.
Szczepanski faced a bomb threat to her home in September, as did Senate Majority Leader Peter Wirth, a fellow Santa Fe Democrat.
Though it was not the first threat she had received, it was certainly the most serious, Szczepanski said. And while she still feels safe in Santa Fe, the experience made her feel “more vulnerable” and more aware of the risks to people around her.
“One of the most frustrating parts of experiencing a serious threat was: I signed up for this,” Szczepanski said. “I decided to run for office — and I absolutely love being able to serve in this way — but … this was an incident that impacted my family, my friends, my neighbors, the entire Santa Fe community.”
A few years ago, a series of shootings targeted the homes of Democratic county commissioners and state lawmakers in Bernalillo County.
The first shooting took place in December 2022 at the home of Bernalillo County Commissioner Adriann Barboa.
The homes of former Bernalillo County Commissioner Debbie O’Malley; state Rep. Javier Martínez, who is now the House speaker; and state Sen. Linda López were targeted in the following weeks.
While no one was injured in the attacks, López told The Associated Press three bullets passed through her 10-year-old daughter’s bedroom. Other bullets penetrated a garage door and damaged a wall.
The mastermind behind the attacks, failed Republican state House candidate Solomon Peña, was convicted earlier this year on 13 criminal counts and sentenced to 80 years in prison.
After 20 years in the House and nearly 11 in the Senate, Stewart — one of the state’s longest-serving lawmakers — said she thinks about safety differently than some of her colleagues.
“People know where I live,” she said. “I’ve been in the phonebook — remember phonebooks? — forever. My address has been in the public forever.”
A recent rash of political violence, including the deaths of Minnesota state Rep. Melissa Hortman and conservative activist Charlie Kirk, has inspired discussion among lawmakers, Stewart said.
“Am I concerned about it? Yes,” she said.
Las Cruces Democratic Sen. Carrie Hamblen said the recent attacks on politicians prompted her to install more cameras at her home.
As an LGBTQ+ woman, she’s received hateful, homophobic messages on her social media pages, she said. She hasn’t directly felt unsafe during her years as a lawmaker, she added, though she’s always keeping an eye out.
“I think queer people have an inherent superpower of knowing when environments are safe for them and when environments are not,” Hamblen said.
LGBTQ+ politicians
Hamblen said she feels she has a different experience than other women in the Roundhouse — in part because she is more masculine-presenting. She calls it “butch privilege.”
“I feel like my male colleagues have a tendency of treating me kind of like one of the guys,” Hamblen said. “And so I am able to navigate things differently than my more feminine counterparts — straight or queer.”
Consequently, she sees it as her role to open the doors for her more feminine-presenting colleagues, ensuring they have access and their voices are heard.
“I do feel that it is a responsibility as somebody that has that access — and as a white woman who has that access — to use that to make sure that everybody has at least a seat at the table and can try and be heard,” she said.
Sen. Liz Stefanics, a Cerrillos Democrat, paved the way for New Mexico’s LGBTQ+ lawmakers; she became the first openly gay member of the New Mexico Legislature after winning her first election in 1992. At the time, she was one of only 75 openly gay or lesbian elected officials in the United States.
She recalled her early experience in public office: “There was pretty much open license to say pretty hateful things,” she said.
During her first term, Stefanics was also one of a minority of women in state politics. “There weren’t very many women whose voices were at the table, let’s put it that way,” she said.
Stefanics, who served a single term in the 1990s and then returned to her seat in 2017, said female legislators now make it a point to look out for each other. She recalled an incident a few years ago when she called out a male Democrat — she didn’t name him — for what she described as “badgering” Stewart as she introduced a bill in the Senate.
“We now don’t let things happen to each other,” Stefanics said.
Parenting while lawmaking
Almost 10% of female state legislators in New Mexico were moms to kids under 18 in 2024, according to data from the Vote Mama Foundation.
That’s slightly above the national average of 8%, but still under the percentage of women who have minor children nationwide, which sits at around 18%. The organization hypothesizes structural barriers may be keeping mothers of young children out of elected offices.
Motherhood didn’t deter state Rep. Elaine Sena Cortez, a first-term legislator and Hobbs Republican whose priorities are “God, family and New Mexicans.”
When she ventured to the Roundhouse early this year for her first legislative session, Sena Cortez’s toddler, Layla, moved up to Santa Fe with her.
Throughout the year, Layla has traveled with her mom to committee meetings in Taos, Las Vegas, Santa Fe and Albuquerque — and even farther afield to Alaska, Washington, D.C., and Washington state.
“She’s the most cultured, well-traveled 3-year-old,” Sena Cortez said.
Even before she was elected, Sena Cortez had to balance family duties and politics. She spent her first campaign for a legislative seat pregnant with Layla, running against Larry Scott in 2022. After losing the primary to incumbent Scott, she ran again in 2024, that time with a baby in tow — and won.
Now Layla is a welcome face at the Roundhouse. Sena Cortez said fellow legislators and staff are friendly to kids; her office mate, Rep. Harlan Vincent, R-Glencoe, has even offered himself as a backup nanny.
But there are gaps. There are no play areas in the Roundhouse, Sena Cortez said, and some of the restrooms in the building don’t have changing tables. Child care comes with high costs.
She and her husband — whom she described as her “rock” — rely on a handful of travel nannies, she said, but the per diem for state legislators doesn’t cover the full cost of child care. This year, the couple paid $2,500 for child care during the 60-day session, not including meals, travel and housing expenses for their nanny, Sena Cortez’s mother-in-law.
It’s expensive, Sena Cortez said, but “worth it.”
Although she and her husband made it work for their family, she said, it could be helpful for others running for office to set up a child development center in the Roundhouse.
“If we want to have legislators that actually represent the people, you’re going to have legislators who have families and who have young families,” Sena Cortez said. “That is what the New Mexican looks like, is a mom, is a dad, it’s a legislator who has a family.”
Being a mother informed how she approaches her role as a legislator, she said.
“I always felt like I was a strong advocate for my community,” she said. “But when I became a mom, I feel like my advocacy went up a whole new level, because the same mama bear approach I have with my own daughter, and protecting and advocating for her, I feel the same type of protection and advocacy for my district.”
Armstrong, a mother of four and grandmother of 13, said her family keeps her going as the New Mexico House’s top Republican.
“I don’t need this job, but I care about those 13 grandchildren so much that I want to make a difference and teach them that — whether you’re a man or a woman — anything is possible,” she said.
Her role as a lawmaker also opened up new opportunities. After years as a stay-at-home mom, joining the New Mexico Legislature gave her an identity beyond that of wife and mother, Armstrong said.
So when her son asked one recent day whether she was happy with her choice to pursue public office, Armstrong responded, “I’m happy that I have something that’s mine — which I didn’t have for a lot of years.”
She added, “My payment for all of those years being the stay-at-home mother and supporting my husband and my children is now I get to be state Rep. Gail Armstrong. And so, yes, I’m happy that I did it.”
Correction: An early version incorrectly referred to Rep. Reena Szczepanski as a senator.