This is the Cato Daily podcast for Saturday, April 24th, 2021.

I'm Caleb Brown.

New Mexico has done away with qualified immunity for almost all public officials.

How did they do it?

New Mexico House Speaker Democrat Brian E-Golf says it was a difficult lift, but one that

is necessary to give New Mexicans the clear ability to get legal relief after their rights have been violated

by public officials. We spoke earlier this week. New Mexico has an interesting distinction in that two libertarian wish list items New Mexico has done legislatively

and that was eliminating civil asset forfeiture in the state and most recently eliminating qualified immunity

for almost all public officials and that's a distinction they're worth making.

How did this come together? Well I think for these two

wish list items as you put it they make good common sense to a lot of people. We in New Mexico are proud that we have a

multicultural state that we respect each other, we listen to each other, we want to make sure that we take care of one another.

Along with that are some of the Western American

values of personal responsibility and accountability and you see that come

through in many many things that we do here in New Mexico with the elimination of

civil asset forfeiture. I think we wanted to get rid a policy that was straight up unfair. You get pulled over, you are not convicted. Sometimes you're not even charged with a serious crime, but

whatever personal property you had in your vehicle now belongs to the police when you say that to

legislators when you describe that circumstance people don't really understand how that's possible.

Yeah, they don't believe it and then you have to keep explaining it.

That's exactly right, you know, when we have policy that is just bananas,

you have to explain it over and over again

because you have to get over that hump in credulity.

...