SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — Republican lawmakers in New Mexico are praising a coronavirus relief bill that would deliver a one-time $1,200 check to all types of unemployed workers and up to $50,000 for certain businesses.

The bill also provides smaller stimulus checks to immigrants without legal status in the country and dependents, as well as additional funds for food banks, virus testing and contact tracing efforts.

Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham called for the one-day special session as the state faces its steepest death and infection rates, and as around $319 million in unspent federal coronavirus aid relief was expected to expire.

It also follows months of additional anticipated money from the federal government that has not arrived.

“The president’s commitment to undermining basic public health guidance and to politicizing commonsense safeguards we all can take up to protect one another and our communities have hamstrung the states that are forced, through his inaction, to take up the mantle of leadership amid these crises,” Lujan Grisham said. “Nevertheless, I had held out hope that his administration and Congress would deliver another stimulus package. Many New Mexicans had hoped the same.”

With Democrats holding large majorities in both houses, the roughly $330 million relief bill was expected to pass during the special session of the Legislature Tuesday. But support from top GOP lawmakers signaled that it could pass quickly.

“This is a much better bill,” said House Republican Minority Whip James Townsend. “I have appreciated the changes that have been incorporated into the last draft. I think they met directly some of the concerns that I had.”

The bill allocates $100 million to support businesses with 100 or fewer employees. The New Mexico Finance Authority is tasked with distributing the grants, which can be up to $50,000, and has wide discretion about whom to choose. It’s instructed to focus on the service industry.

Republican lawmakers welcomed language in the bill that instructs the Finance Authority to make sure recipients are spread out geographically, and not concentrated in the tourism and Democrat-heavy cities of northern New Mexico.

Outside the state Capitol, two dozen people gathered in opposition to the relief bill, and the health orders from the governor that have closed many businesses and mandated mask wearing. One brought a sign that said “my body, my face, my choice.”

The building is normally open to the public and buzzing with lobbyists during a legislative session but has been closed since the onset of the pandemic.

New Mexico finds itself with 130,000 people still on the unemployment rolls, the vast majority of schools closed to in-person learning, and a high unemployment rate as the global recession tamps down demand for work in oil fields and as the virus has hit the state’s other largest industry — tourism.

The $1,200 in relief checks would go also to the 1,515 people who have exhausted all of their state and federal unemployment benefits, according to the Department of Workforce Solutions. The checks comprised the largest portion of the budget, coming in at $194 million.

The statewide unemployment rate was 8.1% in October, well above the 6.9% national rate. New Mexico depleted its unemployment insurance fund in September and has begun borrowing money from the federal government to fulfill claims.

The state already owes the federal government $124 million, and that number is expected to grow to $400-500 million by next summer. Tuesday’s bill would divert any leftover federal coronavirus relief from the spring to pay down that unemployment debt.

That looming financial disaster weighs heavily on the Department of Workforce Solutions secretary, who says he gets constant phone calls, emails and pleas on social media.

“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.

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Staff writer Morgan Lee contributed reporting.

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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.