Press Releases

Congresswoman Teresa Leger Fernández released the following statement after House Republicans voted to elect Representative Mike Johnson as Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives. Congresswoman Leger Fernández voted for Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, as she did for the past four rounds of Speakership votes.  

“Today, House Republicans elected Mike Johnson as Speaker of the House. We know that he supports a nationwide abortion ban. He is an architect of the effort to overturn the 2020 election.  He has repeatedly called to privatize social security. He voted against keeping the government open three weeks ago,” said Rep. Leger Fernández. 

“He won this position after almost a month of chaos and turmoil where moderate Republican candidates were quickly derailed if Marjorie Taylor Greene, Matt Gaetz or former President Trump spoke against them.

Speaker Johnson’s extreme proposals would hurt New Mexico and the country.  His conference pushed a partisan Agriculture Appropriations bill that would cut funding to 2007 levels. How can a mother feed her kids with a budget from 2007?

They want to take food from the mouths of babies and children and income from the pockets of our local farmers and ranchers.

Their Agriculture proposal would also cut funds for electric co-ops. That would raise energy prices for 268,403 residents in New Mexico’s 3rd District. These kinds of proposals are bad for New Mexicans. 

Speaker Johnson’s conference would cut essential investments in American children instead of making sure that the richest corporations and individuals would pay their fair share in taxes.  

They will defend the rich and powerful corporations, while we push to bring down the costs for our New Mexican families, like bringing down health care and drug costs. 

We urge the new Speaker and Republicans to abandon their extreme ideas and instead work with Democrats in a bipartisan manner to pass laws that actually help our New Mexico communities,” she concluded. 

The Congresswoman hosted a press conference with Rep. Melanie Stansbury and Rep. Gabe Vasquez to discuss the future of legislation in the House. A recording of the press conference is available here.