Maybe New Mexico should build a border wall.
Abortion rights opponents in Texas dictated terms and pressured officials in New Mexico municipalities to pass ordinances restricting clinics, according to public records — potentially as part of a bigger legal strategy.
Emails show former Texas Solicitor General Jonathan Mitchell and Mark Lee Dickson, founder of the “Sanctuary Cities for the Unborn” initiative, succeeded in influencing local governments in rural parts of the state — despite warnings and hesitation from local officials.
In late 2022 and early 2023, the New Mexico cities of Clovis and Hobbs passed ordinances saying people have no right to violate the Comstock Act of 1873, a previously obscure federal statute that bans the mailing of abortion pills or abortion-related materials. They were later joined by Eunice and Edgewood, and Roosevelt and Lea Counties.
There are some variations among the six ordinances: Lea County’s ordinance specifies financial penalties for violations; the Roosevelt County and Edgewood ordinances allow a private citizen to sue and win monetary damages; and the Clovis, Hobbs and Eunice ordinances impose new licensing requirements on abortion clinics.
Emails obtained via public records requests show Mitchell and Dickson approaching local New Mexico governments to pitch versions of the ordinances.
A legal nonprofit called Democracy Forward brought the emails to light, and Source New Mexico independently verified the records through interviews with local officials and our own records requests.
The emails also show influence and control: Mitchell required any changes to the Clovis ordinance be approved by him, he was providing free legal advice to Eunice about amending the ordinance, and Dickson directed the language of the Hobbs ordinance.
Hobbs Mayor Ed Cobb said in a phone interview that it’s “not unusual for us to be provided information,” adding that the city has taken input from outside attorneys on other ordinances in the past.
“That doesn’t necessarily mean that we copy and paste it, but it’s not prohibited,” Cobb said.
The ordinances now face a challenge at the New Mexico Supreme Court, because they throw up regulatory roadblocks for abortion clinics by barring them from having drugs for medication abortions shipped from other states through the mail. And a 2023 statute gives the state — not local governments — the final say on reproductive health care.
New Mexico’s Democratic Attorney General Raúl Torrez is prosecuting the case against the local governments. He’s asking the justices to nullify the ordinances, and to go even further by setting legal precedent to ensure abortion rights under the New Mexico Constitution.
This was from a couple of weeks ago, so there may have been some updates, I haven’t looked. Mitchell is the attorney behind the mifepristone lawsuit, though that’s only one of his many forays into forced birtherism. If there’s a terrible lawsuit out there being pushed by wingnuts, he’s probably involved. Dickson is the guy behind the various abortion “sanctuary city” ordinances who is now also focused on “travel bans” in localities along the highways from Texas into New Mexico. Their explicit goal, as Mitchell says in this story, is to get a case about the Comstock Act before the Supreme Court, with the idea being that SCOTUS would declare that Comstock is the law of the land and that it fully bans all abortion-related activities, and probably lots more things as well. Obviously, they’re the life of any party.
That was part one of a two-part series. Here’s part two.
Documents show the N.M. cities of Hobbs, Clovis, Eunice and Edgewood working with former Texas Solicitor General Jonathan Mitchell and Mark Lee Dickson, founder of the “Sanctuary Cities for the Unborn” initiative.
The documents also include engagement letters for Lea and Roosevelt Counties from Mitchell after the New Mexico attorney general challenged the ordinances in court, but the letters are not signed by anyone at the counties. Still, both counties’ votes to pass the ordinances are listed on Dickson’s website, presented as examples of his movement’s reach.
The emails were initially requested under the state’s Inspection of Public Records Act by Democracy Forward, a legal nonprofit. Source NM independently verified the records through interviews with local officials and our own records requests with the local governments.
Records show Mitchell and Dickson pitching the measures, directing their language, overseeing changes, and in exchange for adopting them, offering to defend the local New Mexico governments in court for free.
In a phone interview on Monday afternoon, Dickson declined to say how he and Mitchell can afford to do this work pro bono, and declined to identify who, if anyone, is paying them for their time.
“The Lord takes care of all the behind the scenes,” he said, adding that there are a lot of people on board who understand these ordinances as a stepping stone to ending abortion in America. Among the volunteers, he highlighted the Thomas More Society, a Chicago-based anti-abortion rights law firm.
[…]
Two local legal experts said it’s highly unusual for someone from outside of New Mexico to come in and dictate the terms of a draft ordinance. In fact, it’s “never happened before,” said Frank Coppler, a Santa Fe-based lawyer who practices municipal law.
“It’s not just unusual. I’ve never heard of it before, and I believe I’ve kept track of this kind of municipal law for the last 50 years,” he said.
Coppler is one of a pool of several attorneys working on contract to represent Edgewood. He said he advised the town’s elected commissioners last year not to adopt Mitchell’s ordinance, but they didn’t follow his advice.
Municipal councils and commissions “can’t delegate their legislative power to somebody else. That notion is crazy,” he said. “Because they’re elected to be the legislators — not a lawyer from Texas, not a lawyer from New Mexico.”
Verónica Gonzales is an associate law professor at the University of New Mexico whose professional work often relies on interpreting language in local government charters and ordinances.
She agreed that legislative authority rests solely with commissions or councils, which aren’t required to seek input from anyone else necessarily. They can, of course, hire third-party attorneys to review something they’re working on, or run it past their city attorney. What’s strange in the case of Clovis, for example, is that this appears to have worked the other way around, according to the records, with Mitchell providing the first drafts and approving changes for commissioners along the way, she said.
“It signals to me, as a lawyer, that those individuals are really trying to exert pressure and influence in this community.”
Pretty sure if the money is followed, it will take you to some even darker places. I am confident that the New Mexico Supreme Court will rule against these jokers. The real question is what SCOTUS will do. We ought to have a plan for that.
It’s interesting how people call it ‘forced birth’ like there’s no consequences in the choices people make. They could’ve marketed a better term at least. Bill Burr’s point is excellent on this subject.
Please don’t expect a response on this comment, only observational.