Our Justice Shouldn’t Be Capped
As Executive Director of Equality New Mexico, I am deeply concerned by proposals to cap punitive damages for corporate health care entities. These efforts are being sold as “reasonable” solutions to complex problems, but New Mexicans should be clear-eyed about what they really are: a move to protect powerful corporations by limiting accountability — and a move that will hit marginalized communities hardest.
Punitive damages exist for a reason. They are not about frivolous lawsuits or personal profit. They are about deterrence and accountability. When corporations act recklessly, knowingly cause harm, and put profits over people, they should face consequences that affect their bottom line; that is where punitive damages are most useful. When we cap punitive damages, we send a message that corporate harm has a price limit — that no matter how severe the misconduct, accountability can be calculated and absorbed as just a cost of doing business.
For LGBTQ people, this is not abstract policy. Many LGBTQ New Mexicans already face barriers to safe and respectful health care: being denied care, misgendered, dismissed, or forced to fight just to be treated with dignity. Transgender and nonbinary people experience especially high rates of medical discrimination and mistreatment. When harm happens, the legal system is often the last line of accountability and justice. Weakening that system means fewer protections for people who already have the least power.
We should also pay attention to what is happening beyond health care. In New Mexico, Blackstone, a nearly 200 BILLION dollar corporation, is actively attempting to acquire PNM, our largest utility — a move that would place a critical public service under private equity control. At the same time, massive data centers are being promoted as the future of our economy, often with generous incentives and limited transparency, while serious questions remain about water use, infrastructure strain, and whether these projects will truly benefit local communities. Again, the ones who will be most disproportionately impacted are communities already in the margins.
So we have to ask the obvious question: how long will it be before we’re told that limiting punitive damages against those corporations is the only way to keep New Mexicans working? Right now, the claim is that capping punitive damages for corporate health care entities is the only way to address a doctor shortage. Is it really such a leap to imagine lawmakers soon arguing that shielding private equity firms, tech companies, or energy corporations from accountability is the only way to bring any jobs to New Mexico?
That argument is a lie — and a dangerous one. It asks New Mexicans to give up hard-won rights instead of demanding real solutions. It shifts responsibility away from corporations and onto the people harmed by their decisions. And once that logic is accepted, it does not stay contained.
We have seen this fight before. New Mexicans worked for years to pass the New Mexico Civil Rights Act so that government entities could be held accountable when they violate people’s rights. That law was grounded in a simple truth: accountability matters most when power is uneven. Efforts to cap punitive damages undermine that principle. They move us backward toward a system where powerful entities are protected from consequences, while ordinary people are told their harm has a ceiling - or better yet, to stay silent..
For LGBTQ people, the stakes could not be clearer. Our protections have never been freely given. We have had to claw and scrape for basic rights — in employment, housing, public spaces, and health care. Those protections mean little if corporations cannot be held fully accountable when they harm us. A system that caps punitive damages turns discrimination, neglect, and abuse into manageable risks for corporations, while leaving LGBTQ people to bear the cost.
Equality New Mexico rejects the idea that corporate comfort should come before human dignity. We reject the false choice between jobs and justice, between access to care and accountability, between economic development and civil rights. New Mexico’s future should not be built on shielding corporations from responsibility — it should be built on protecting our people.
We can solve real problems without giving corporations a free pass. And we must. Because once accountability is weakened, it is always the most marginalized who are asked to pay the price.