This week's guest on REPORT FROM SANTA FE is Senator Jeff Steinborn, D-Dona Ana, discussing hot topics at the current legislative session. Steinborn served in the NM House of Representatives from 2007-2010, from 2013-2016, and was then elected to the NM Senate in 2016. He holds the powerful post of Vice-Chair for the Senate Rules Committee and also is a member of the Senate Public Affairs Committee.

Senator Steinborn has put forth some very popular ideas regarding New Mexicans love of the outdoors - this session he has bills establishing a New Mexico outdoor recreation division and legislation changing the name of the Game and Fish Department to the Wildlife Department. He has put forth legislation banning coyote killing contests in New Mexico.

The Senator gives an update on the Rio Grande Trail, which he started with a law passed in 2015 creating a Rio Grande Trail commission to plan a statewide recreation trail from the Colorado border down to Texas. They got a federal grant to create a Master Plan and are working on the first hundred-mile section of the Trail.

Jeff Steinborn is active in the area of voting and lobbying reforms, and he has introduced bills reducing the time a voter has to register to vote before he can participate in an election. One bill supports same day registration so that voters can register up to the day of an election. Jeff has bills closing some of the loopholes in our state lobbyist disclosure laws and other needed transparency topics.

New Mexico has some of the weakest, shortest-length statutes of limitations for sex crimes against children. Steinborn has introduced legislation that provides for an unlimited statute of limitations for sexually abused kids. He addresses a more literal form of toxic menace with bills that tighten radioactive waste oversight and disposal.

The senator has energy bills allowing for local choice in energy providers and getting more state buildings powered by renewable energy sources. Other legislation includes reform in the process of choosing regents at the state's universities, and some needed health care legislation.