Sent to newspapers 10/9/2026
[There was an error in the original column. The Secretary of State has two different references to the PAC called The Speaker Fund, managed by the Speaker of the House: one is called the Speaker Fund; a second reference directs researchers to the Brian Egolf Speaker Fund. Egolf created it in 2020, but the current Speaker, Rep. Javier Martinez, now manages it. I apologize for the confusion. The column is now correct.]
Emerge Is For The Trial Lawyers
New Mexico saw another fundraising record this election cycle and it wasn’t the governor’s race. A legislative candidate has topped the quarter-million mark in fundraising. And she wasn’t even in the primary.
Albuquerque Democrat Lisa Curtis, with just over a month in the House District 31 race, has raised more than $260,000 since being placed on the ballot in what some call a sleight of hand in August. More than $155,000 of that came from lawyers or law firms - $93,000 of that total from just 15 maximum-amount $6,200 contributions from the trial lawyer community. Curtis is one of the most successful medical malpractice attorneys in the state.
There’s been some rumbling about the non-profit group Emerge, which is focused on building a bench of female Democratic and progressive candidates at every level of local and state government. Curtis is an Emerge graduate. Emerge has been wildly successful in New Mexico. Congresswoman Melanie Stansbury is a graduate, as is former Secretary of the Interior and current candidate for Governor Deb Haaland, along with her running mate for Lieutenant Governor, Stephanie Garcia Richard.
The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Shannon Bacon, is an Emerge graduate, as is Justice Julie Vargas. Seven judges of the State Court of Appeals are Emerge graduates. Seven state senators are Emerge graduates, including Senate Rules Committee Chair Katy Duhigg, who is a member of Curtis’ law firm, as are 26 state representatives. There are 30 judges in other jurisdictions throughout the states who have graduated from Emerge. Given that there are 39 judges on the bench who came out of Emerge, one might note that it is a lawyer-heavy crowd.
When you add in city and county officials, there are 118 elected officials in New Mexico who have gone through the Emerge program. It’s tremendous progress for women’s participation in government and I believe Emerge has boosted some highly effective and principled elected officials.
New Mexicans should also be very concerned about the heavy influence of trial lawyers on the Emerge agenda and on individual lawmakers. After the North Fund (a dark money group out of Washington D.C. that supports left wing causes), the primary funders of Emerge are the New Mexico Trial Lawyers Association and individual law firms. Trial lawyers are on the Emerge board.
And the trial lawyers are not afraid to flex. This is not a trend unique to New Mexico; Emerge organizations in California, Texas and other states also have heavy financial and governing influence from trial lawyers.
We all know that medical malpractice issues have driven health care providers out of our state as they simply cannot afford the cost of malpractice insurance premiums. The providers themselves have provided data, as well as the think tank Think New Mexico. This year, after years of failed effort, medical malpractice reform finally passed with the signing of House Bill 99 into law, which introduced tiered caps on medical malpractice and punitive damages.
Democratic Representative and Emerge graduate Marian Matthews of Albuquerque voted in support of HB 99. She was promptly primaried by 2025 Emerge graduate Abby Foster (hey, they’ve got a bench!), who has received thousands of dollars from trial lawyers, including $7,500 from Curtis and another $5,000 from one of the lawyers in Curtis’ law firm. Matthews was defeated 52-48 percent and is supporting Republican Jahnelle Garcia in the general election, primarily over the medical malpractice issue.
Campaign donations for Foster and Curtis also have come from former state representative Damon Ely, who drafted the 2021 legislation that sent medical malpractice into the stratosphere in the first place. Ely is a personal injury and legal malpractice attorney who spearheaded New Mexico Safety Over Profit, the dark money group that fights tort reform.
Speaker of the House Javier Martinez has also joined this campaign to reverse the progress made with House Bill 99. Martinez dropped just shy of $11,000 into Curtis’ war chest via his Speaker Fund.
Venue shopping is another symptom of our trial lawyer malaise. National law firms seek out New Mexico as a venue for multi-state of class-action suits, because of record-setting jury awards in personal injury and medical malpractice cases, particularly in the First Judicial District, which covers Rio Arriba, Santa Fe and Los Alamos Counties. One can argue this is in the interest of the victims – obtaining the maximum payout is doing the best job on their behalf. It’s certainly in the interest of their attorneys.
A lack of damage caps in New Mexico combined with a cultural distrust of corporations and governmental entities puts the First Judicial District in the crosshairs of many law firms as a target of opportunity for friendly juries.
Foster, Curtis, Ely, Egolf and their allies argue that unrestrained medical malpractice limits ensure the rights of victims are upheld. Victims’ rights were upheld before 2021, when Ely’s medical malpractice legislation took our fragile medical infrastructure, badly broken by the pandemic, and sent it to the bottom of the Rio Grande Gorge.
Their arguments are populist pandering, not sound policy. New Mexicans have had a hard time of it of late. Right now, the popular outrage here is data centers and water, and Curtis’ opponent, Republican Nicole Chavez, is getting hammered over data centers.
Chavez supports the development of data centers with strict permitting. This seems reasonable, especially compared to tearing down medical malpractice caps.
Let me tell you this: no data center can do nearly as much damage to the state in our current regulatory climate as another trial lawyer in the legislature will. Data centers must get through the Office of the State Engineer and the Environment Department and then local permitting.
We already have trial lawyers chairing Senate Rules and Senate Judiciary – so any tort reform bill has to get past them to get to the floor for a vote. I’m not sure they need more allies.
Possibly the most blatant example of committee chairs and chamber leadership using the Roundhouse to enhance their law practices was the passage of Senate Bill 35, which added an eleventh courtroom and judgeship to the First Judicial District to address a docket backlog. The bill was sponsored by Senate Majority Leader Peter Wirth. The docket load in the district has increased more than 400 percent over the last decade.
Wirth is a trial attorney, specializing in wrongful death and medical malpractice. At the time he filed SB 35, he had five cases on the First Judicial District’s docket. Since the upsurge in docketing for the First Judicial District, 13 of the cases have been Wirth’s. In ten of those cases he served as a personal representative for Senate Judiciary Chair Joseph Cervantes of Las Cruces – that is the cases were for Cervantes’ firm. Incidentally, one of the cases shown by Searchlight on the First Judicial District docket was for Lisa Curtis.
Neither Wirth nor Cervantes recused themselves and SB 35 passed the Senate unanimously (GOP, where were you?). We may not ever get that specialty medical appointment without traveling out of state, but ambulance-chasing will live on as a cottage industry in the Land of Enchantment.
If someone wants to start a non-profit to prepare moderate, left- and right- of center, business owners and workers for local and state office, let me know. I know some folks to refer to you. Wouldn’t it be a kick to have a legislature that looked like New Mexico?
Merritt Hamilton Allen is an executive and former Navy officer. She appeared regularly as a panelist on NM PBS and is a frequent guest on News Radio KKOB. A Republican for 36 years, she became an independent upon reading the 2024 Republican platform. She lives amicably with her Democratic husband north of I-40 where they run one head of dog, and one of cat. She can be reached at merritt@merrittocracy.news.