New Mexico Governor Delivers “State of the Thankless” Speech

January 22, 2025

This week, New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham kicked off the state’s 2025 legislative session with a state-of-the-state address. In keeping with tradition, Gov. Lujan Grisham refused to express gratitude for the state’s oil and natural gas workers. This is the seventh speech the Governor has offered before the legislative session, and despite spending the billions provided by oil and gas workers, the Governor has not once expressed gratitude.

Although Gov. Lujan Grisham had no trouble acknowledging the billions of dollars in revenue, there was not a whisper of thanks to be heard in her speech

“But seriously, I do want to highlight many of our shared achievements today––in education, jobs, the environment, healthcare, and so much more. We’re making smart choices with record oil and gas revenues––including fortifying our general fund reserves and strengthening our pension funds––prompting Moody’s to upgrade New Mexico’s credit outlook from stable to positive. Now, we’re poised for a bond rating upgrade––a reward for investing today and saving for tomorrow.”

Just last week, Power The Future took out a full-page ad asking Governor Lujan Grisham to simply say “Thank You” to New Mexico’s oil and natural gas workers.

“Michelle Lujan Grisham is the Governor of the ‘Land of Enchantment,’ not the ‘Land of Entitlement,’ but you’d never know because of her lack of gratitude,” said Larry Behrens, Communications Director for Power The Future. “Lujan Grisham will fly across the globe to fawn over the radical environmental movement, but doesn’t have a single minute to spare to say ‘Thank you’ to the workers who make her bloated budgets possible. Leadership is about more than inflated budgets, and that’s why Michelle Lujan Grisham is only a politician.”

The political cartoon in Sunday’s Albuquerque Journal also highlighted the Governor’s inability to show gratitude.