By Nicole Maxwell
Posted: January 18, 2024
New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez announced on Jan 10, that his office was undergoing a rebrand.
Torrez said the New Mexico Attorney General’s Office would be renamed to the New Mexico Department of Justice to be more closely aligned with the verbiage in state statute wherein the state attorney general is head of a state department of justice.
“I thought it was incredibly important to reaffirm for all of you and to our constituents and the people that we serve, that there is in our system of government, an agency that is wholly dedicated to advancing the interests of justice. It is an agency by design that should not be defined by whoever sits in the chair,” Torrez said.
Torrez said the change was one way his office has worked to broaden its mission and “to recapture a sense of purpose and sense of focus on critical issues from public safety to behavioral health.”
An example of these changes is the case Torrez filed against Meta, Facebook and Instagram on Dec. 5. The case is in Santa Fe County District Court and no hearings have been set.
Torrez’s office filed the case “not only for the harm that was found by our agents on those platforms, and the danger present to children in New Mexico, but the danger presents to children all over this country,” Torrez said. “And it’s an example of the kind of work that we’re going to be focused on or the intersection between what affects us here locally…and has an impact nationally and it also will be, I think, an example of what we are trying to recapture as an institution.”
Torrez mentioned the political splintering between the major political parties.
“The fact that even though I’m a Democrat, my favorite president in the history of this country is Abraham Lincoln and I am thinking more and more about what Lincoln said when he reminded his country, ‘We are not enemies, and we must be friends,’” Torrez said. “The better angels of our nature have to lead us to a commitment that’s beyond anything else. We’re going to try and meet the challenges that we face. I think it’s incredibly important for us, in this moment, to think about the role that a Department of Justice— broadly oriented agency— that puts the interests of the most vulnerable first and foremost, and the role that (it) has to play.” The Attorney General’s Office website has undergone an overhaul featuring the new name and a new interface intended to be more user-friendly.
Nicole Maxwell is a Politics/Legislative Reporter with New Mexico Political Report. This story was originally published by New Mexico Political Report.
