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Martin Heinrich
New Mexico
“Making improvements to our background check system and cracking down on illegal gun trafficking are common-sense ways to prevent violence without punishing law abiding gun owners. We owe it to the American people to take real action to reduce gun violence in our communities.”
New Mexico Senator Martin Heinrich is a bit of an anomaly. He’s a solid Democrat: he favors abortion rights, has sponsored the Green New Deal, supports Medicare for all, and co-sponsored the original DREAM Act for immigrant youth. He’s also a gun-owner who used to be a member of the National Rifle Association.
Heinrich, 51, was raised in Missouri by working-class parents. He moved to New Mexico as a young man and worked for a time with Americorps, on a project with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, to protect the endangered gray wolf. From 1996 to 2001 he directed a nonprofit that educates young people about science and the need to care for the environment. He also advocated for the use of wind and solar power. In 2006, New Mexico’s governor appointed him as the state’s Natural Resources Trustee.
Heinrich was elected to Congress as a Democrat in 2008. In the House he opposed the war in Iraq, supported a swift end to combat operations in Afghanistan, and voted against the National Defense Authorization Act conference report because of its requirement that suspected foreign terrorists be taken into custody by the military instead of civilian law enforcement. He voted to cut taxes for the middle class, worked to make college more affordable, improved benefits for veterans, and opposed cuts to Social Security and Medicare.
He was elected to the Senate in 2012, and again in 2018. He has focused in the Senate on bills to promote conservation and the environment, as well as to benefit Native American tribal communities in New Mexico. He is the Senate sponsor of the act making Indigenous People’s Day a national holiday. He has sponsored bills to upgrade public lands, including White Sands, to the status of national parks and monuments. He leads bipartisan efforts to extend conservation programs and improve public access to public lands for outdoor recreation including hunting and fishing. He serves on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources, Appropriations, Intelligence, and Joint Economic Committees.
As a Senator, Heinrich also heads something that few of the public have heard of: the Congressional Sportsmen's Caucus. Despite the group’s retro, sexist name, it is bipartisan, with over 200 Senators and Representatives, including women.
Heinrich’s membership in the caucus is no surprise: he’s an avid hunter and gun owner. The NRA endorsed him during his first run for Congress, praising his support for the Second Amendment. But it did not donate to his campaigns for Senate, and he later gave the NRA’s 2010 contribution to charity.
Heinrich has used his love of hunting to try to bridge the political chasm between Republicans and Democrats when it comes to gun control. In the past he opposed legislation that would have reinstated the Federal Assault Weapons Ban. He supported bills to create a national standard for carrying concealed firearms across state lines, and he called for repealing an amendment that prevents government research into curbing gun violence. He supports banning bump stocks.
In 2022, Heinrich was a member of the negotiating group who succeeded in recruiting enough Republican supporters so that the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act overcame a filibuster and passed in the Senate. When signed into law just weeks after the massacre of schoolchildren and teachers in Uvalde, Texas, the Act was the first gun control bill passed by Congress in three decades.
It includes money for school safety, mental health, state crisis intervention programs, and incentives for states to include juvenile records in the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, providing a fuller background check for 18- to 21-year-olds who want to buy guns. The law also cracks down on “straw purchasing” — when one person uses another to buy a weapon. It outlaws the trafficking of guns from the United States to countries including Mexico, El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala — where most illegal weapons used to commit crimes were sent from the U.S.
Passing the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act required compromises with Republicans that many Democrats and activists complained took the teeth out of the bill. Heinrich empathized with that objection. The Act was “just a start,” he wrote, “but progress has to begin somewhere. Let’s begin here and now.”
—Debbie Nathan
Debbie Nathan is a writer and journalist in El Paso, Texas, on the Mexico border.
Policy Positions
Environmental Protections
“To ensure our public lands remain an economic engine, we must continue to protect our air from pollution, conserve our precious water resources, and work to mitigate the devastating effects of climate change. I am committed to protecting our public lands, watersheds, and wildlife for our children and all future generations to enjoy.”
Immigration Reform
“My father immigrated to the United States in search of a better life — like so many before and after him. Immigrants recognize the hope that America represents; the way we treat them when they arrive shows the world who we are. Unfortunately, for decades, our nation’s broken immigration system has fallen short.”
Gun Control
“I… have two kids who grew up doing active shooter drills that would have been unimaginable when I was their age. The level of gun violence in our country is appalling and unacceptable…. I refuse to accept the idea that we are so divided that we can’t make this situation better and that’s exactly why I have been part of these efforts to find a meaningful path forward to reduce gun violence.”
State: New Mexico
New Mexico, population 2.1 million, has the highest percentage of Latinos among all states — some 49 percent. The state legislature may publish laws in English and Spanish. In court, witnesses and defendants may testify in either language. People who speak Spanish but not English can serve on juries.
Meanwhile, New Mexico has the second-highest percentage of Native Americans of any state except Alaska (in all, some 200,000 residents). But until 1948 Natives living on reservations were not allowed to vote though they were U.S. citizens (the rationale denying them suffrage was that they did not pay taxes).
At 18 percent, New Mexico’s poverty rate is topped only by Louisiana’s and Mississippi’s. The state ranks 49th for education equality by race, and 32nd for its racial gap in income. State policies have been enacted to address chronic poverty, including an hourly minimum wage increase in 2021. The current New Mexico minimum, $10.50, is higher than that of the federal government and 34 other states. The State Legislature is currently considering providing a guaranteed basic income for residents.
New Mexico since 2018 has had a Democratic governor, Michelle Lujan Grisham. All constitutional officers are Democrats, and both chambers of the Legislature have Democratic majorities. Both federal Senators are Democrats, as are representatives for two of the state’s three federal congressional districts. Until 2008, New Mexico was traditionally a swing state in presidential races. Bill Clinton’s election in 1992 marked the first time New Mexico was won by a Democrat since Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964. Al Gore won by only 366 votes in 2000, and George W. Bush in 2004 by fewer than 6,000 votes. Since then, New Mexico has gone Democrat in every presidential election.
New Mexico has no major abortion restrictions: no waiting periods, mandated parental involvement, limitations on publicly funded abortions, or limits on maximum weeks of gestation. New Mexico has thus become a haven for abortion seekers from neighboring states where the procedure is restricted or banned, including Texas.
