Congresswoman Stansbury Hosts Tenth Telephone Town Hall

AUDIO LINK: The full telephone town hall recording can be accessed here.  

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – Yesterday evening, U.S. Representative Melanie Stansbury (N.M.-01) held her tenth telephone town hall to hear directly from constituents across New Mexico’s First Congressional District about their concerns and priorities.  

Nearly 2,800 New Mexicans tuned into the telephone town hall during which Rep. Stansbury outlined key legislation moving through Congress, discussed her work to deliver for our families and defend the values New Mexicans hold dear, and answered questions directly from constituents. 

“I’m so grateful and honored that so many of you joined us here tonight. Whatever your challenge, your issue, your thought, your dream, we want to hear from you,” said Rep. Stansbury. “My work in Congress has always been focused on building a better life for New Mexico and our communities. Please know that my office is here a resource, and we’re here to serve everyone in our state, no matter your need or where you live, and it is truly my honor and my joy every day to wake up and serve our communities.” 

Rep. Stansbury answered questions from constituents during the hour-long telephone town hall, with topics ranging from behavioral health and public safety, reproductive rights and abortion access, the defense of our democracy and good government, and the important work she has done to protect New Mexico’s lands and waters. 

The full audio recording of the town hall can be found here.   

Rep. Stansbury’s opening remarks as delivered can be found below:  

Good evening to everyone who's joining out there tonight! This is Melanie Stansbury, and I am your Congresswoman serving in New Mexico's First Congressional District. And I'm really grateful and honored that so many of you joined us tonight.  

Our primary focus for tonight's town hall is just to give you all an update about the work that we've been doing in Congress and to hear from all of you about the things that you care about, about your priorities, and what you would like to see our office focus on in this Congress.  

Now, if you're getting this call and you're wondering “Am I in your district, or am I in someone else's district?” If you received this call, you are in the First Congressional District, and because of redistricting last year, our district now stretches across the entire central and eastern part of the state, and includes a major part of Albuquerque, but stretches from Rio Rancho and Sandoval County and the North, Sandia Pueblo all the way down to Ruidoso and the northern parts of Roswell and Lincoln County. It goes out to Mescalero and across the East Mountains out to our communities like Santa Rosa and Guadalupe County, and of course in the metro area here in Albuquerque.  

So if this is your first time hearing from me, I want to just take a moment to say welcome to our district and to introduce myself a little bit. I'm a native New Mexican, I was born and raised here in New Mexico. I was born in Farmington and I grew up in Albuquerque, the North Valley and the west side. And like so many of our families. I grew up in a working family and my family owned small businesses. My mom was a seamstress and I grew up working for our family's irrigation company. So I grew up digging trenches and bussing tables and working on sewing projects, and I think that like so many families out there, ours really struggled to make ends meet. And it's growing up here in New Mexico, my love for the land, for our people, for our communities, and that struggle that has really shaped my life of service.  

I started my career as a science educator. I worked for a number of years on water resources and drought planning issues. I had the opportunity to work in Congress and in the White House. And when I moved home, I ran for office, started my own small business and was elected to become your Congresswoman in the summer of 2021, and was reelected this November. My work serving in Congress has always been focused on our communities, and about building a better life for New Mexico and for communities. Since taking office in the Summer of 2021, which is now 20 months ago, I've rolled up my sleeves and gotten to work to deliver for communities.  

In particular, I want to share with you some of the major wins that we had at the end of the Congress in December since we haven't had a town hall in several months. In particular, we were able to get through really crucial authorizing language to pass the New Mexico Education Enhancement Act. This is legislation that will allow our Legislature at the state level to make the largest investment in early childhood education ever in the history of our state. Now, you all voted to pass the Constitutional Amendment that made it possible in November, and then it had to go to Congress for approval. And currently, right now in the Legislature, they're working on the budget to make that investment. When they are hopefully successful in appropriating those dollars, we will be the first state in the country to have a 100% universal early childhood education and care program. So it really will be a game changer for our state.  

I was also really deeply proud to be able to secure over a billion dollars during my time serving in Congress for our district and community projects, particularly for infrastructure projects. And, in this last year, with a special focus on community projects to really address and tackle the biggest issues inside our communities. That includes public safety, addressing the mental and behavioral health crisis that so many of our family members are experiencing, homelessness, the fentanyl crisis, support for veterans’ issues, especially veterans’ homelessness, economic development, and helping our young people have more opportunity. And so we helped to secure over $28 million in community projects that went all across the district to help with programs that invest in our communities.  

We, also in December, secured over $90 million to replace a Tribal school at the To’Hajiilee community, which is a chapter in the Navajo Nation that was in our district before redistricting, and we're incredibly proud and excited about that appropriation. We just had a celebration at To’Hajiilee last week, and this funding will help to rebuild a nearly 100 year old school for the community that will serve the community for generations to come.  

In addition to that, we worked across the delegation to secure almost $4 billion in funding to help families who are impacted by the Hermit's Peak and Calf Canyon wildfires, and are working very closely with the state and our federal partners to make sure that those dollars actually reach the families who were impacted by those fires. And we are just working every single day to pass meaningful legislation at the federal level.  

I wanted to take a minute, in addition to talking about some of our big wins that we brought home, to talk about the biggest expansion of benefits for our veterans since the GI Bill. And for those of you who served our country, thank you for your service. We'll talk a little bit more about the PACT Act, which massively expands the opportunity to help serve our veterans and provide health care to folks who were exposed to toxins over the course of their service to our country.  

In addition to all of that work that we've already done, we're starting to gear up for the next Congress for some of the big bills that will be coming down the pike, including the Farm Bill. Every several years, Congress shapes a giant bill, which includes all sorts of investments to help support our farmers and ranchers and producers, and ensure that our hard-working farmers and ranchers have the tools and resources they need to feed our communities. That includes income and food supports, especially for our rural and low-income communities. And, of course, it is a really important resource when it comes to making sure that our rural communities have access to broadband and infrastructure and things like that. So we're currently working to collect ideas for the Farm Bill and listen to our producers and farmers and ranchers across the district.  

We've also been working a lot on climate change and drought and water issues, as we see here in New Mexico. I'm glad to see that work; I've worked on water my entire career. We're working to help protect tribal water rights, and then address the needs of our acequias and our land grants, and of course, ensure that there's sufficient water for farmers and ranchers and communities. And that's one of my biggest priorities.  

As we look forward at this Congress, we know that there's a lot of work ahead. Right now, we have a divided Congress, with the Senate being in Democratic control and the House being in Republican control. And that means that we are going to face some big battles, and at the forefront of those battles is making sure that we have government accountability, that we're protecting our democracy and democratic institutions, and that we're fighting for the rights of our communities, including LGBTQ+ rights, that we're going to defend our Social Security and Medicare benefits, and, of course, to protect reproductive rights for our communities.  

So those are some of the big battles up ahead, in addition, of course, to the budget battles that have been so prominent in the news. But for me, the most important thing is to hear from all of you. 

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