SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — The legislature is meeting Tuesday to pass a bill that could put $1,200 in the hands of state residents who lost their jobs due to the coronavirus pandemic, including those whose unemployment benefits have run out.

It’s the second special legislative session called by Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham this year to tackle budgetary challenges brought on by the coronavirus pandemic. Democratic lawmakers are optimistic that they can introduce and pass the bill in one day.

If they do, the bill could be signed into law by Thanksgiving and state officials could send the $1,200 stimulus checks before Christmas.

Federal stimulus checks of the same amount earlier this year were credited by state officials for keeping residents spending and buoying gross receipts tax even as New Mexico’s main sources of revenue -- fossil fuel extraction and tourism -- nosedived.

A second round of federal stimulus expected by state legislators never came.

“We all thought that the federal government would get their act together and do a second CARES Act, but they haven’t. They don’t seem to be ready to do any of that. So, we have to step in,” said Mimi Stewart, of Albuquerque, the top-ranking member of the Senate, known as the pro tem.

When the Democrat-controlled legislature met in June, it dialed back some planned spending increases such as teacher raises which had been approved during the regular legislative session, before the pandemic hit.

Five months later, the state finds itself with around 130,000 people still on the unemployment rolls, with many set to run out of eligible state and federal unemployment next month, and 1,515 workers who have completely burned through their unemployment insurance without finding work, according to the Department of Workforce Solutions.

That looming financial disaster weighs heavily on the department’s secretary, who says he gets phone calls, emails and pleas on social media constantly.

“I hear all the stories, all the stories about how am I going to take care of my kids? How am I gonna afford my rent? How am I gonna afford my truck payment?” said Bill McCamley, a former state legislator who advised on the bill.

Democratic lawmakers say the vast majority of the $350 million relief bill would come from the state’s share of around $1 billion in CARES Act funding passed by congress and signed by President Donald Trump in March.

Lujan Grisham’s administration allocated $178 million to city, county and tribal governments and related small-business grants. Local governments are racing against a Dec. 30 deadline to get the money into their communities.

Around $750 million assigned to the state general fund during a June special session, and much of it went unspent, lawmakers say.

Tuesday’s bill would put about $194 million into the unemployment benefits and around $100 million for small-business grants, according to an outline of the plan released by Lujan Grisham. It also called for $15 million in rent relief for the state’s poorest residents.

Republican lawmakers have successfully advocated for a $10 million apportionment to expand COVID-19 testing. Because the funds would be spent into 2021, it can’t come from CARES Act funding.

Despite days of negotiations and calm on both sides of the aisle tensions flared late Friday with Democratic speaker of the House Brian Egolf telling reporters that Republicans were withdrawing support for the bill. He said he didn’t know why.

“House Republicans are negotiating in good faith to deliver relief and stability to New Mexicans. I sure hope that the Democrats are not planning another outcome like we had over the summer. The time for patting themselves on the back and applauding the actions of a Governor gone rogue, are far past us,” said House Republican Leader Jim Townsend, of Artesia.

Republican-heavy counties in the oil-rich southeast of the state like Artesia have seen some of the highest unemployment rates in the state as energy prices have tanked with the global economy.

Monday afternoon, Townsend dismissed the governor’s proposed relief measures as “band-aids and ineffective and too little, too late pain relievers.”

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Attanasio is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on under-covered issues.