New Mexico’s Attorney General ruffled some feathers earlier this week after releasing a formal legal opinion concluding that a state law that reserves 10% of big-game hunting licenses for hunters who hire outfitters violates the state Constitution’s Anti-Donation Clause and unfairly advantages wealthy out-of-state sportsmen.
As was requested by Democratic lawmakers back in April, AG Raúl Torrez’s opinion sets to examine a 2011 statute that requires the Department of Wildlife to set aside 10% of overall draw licenses for applicants under contract with a registered New Mexico outfitter. Their concerns, they say, are that the outfitter set-aside is leaving state residents “excluded from any opportunity to harvest healthy wild game as big game draw odds worsen year after year for residents.”
Outside of that 10%, state law dictates that 84% of all tags are to be earmarked for in-state resident use while the remaining 6% are set aside for unguided nonresident hunters.
Torrez is targeting the outfitter preference specifically, stating that it fails the constitutional test given that it conveys exclusive commercial access to a public resource without adequate consideration in return. Back in 2012, a federal injunction eliminated earlier statutory requirements that individual outfitters employ New Mexico residents and invest in the state, leaving only a standard registration fee (typically $500 a year) in exchange for preferential access. The attorney general’s office described the remaining fee as grossly disproportionate to the commercial value of the tags.
In the 2022–23 hunting season, more than 90% of the approximately 1,584 elk licenses issued through the outfitter pool went to nonresidents, according to data from a New Mexico Wildlife Federation analysis cited in the opinion. Competition for elk tags in New Mexico remains intense with more than 102,000 people applying for roughly 22,800 tags in the 2025–26 draw.
“For generations, hunting elk on our public lands hasn’t just been a sport in New Mexico. It’s been a way of life,” Torrez said in a statement. “That tradition is being sold out from under working New Mexicans. Right now, a broken system lets wealthy out-of-state hunters buy their way to the front of the line while our own families wait year after year for a tag.”
Jesse Deubel, executive director of the New Mexico Wildlife Federation, welcomed the conclusion, stating that the organization “...always believed the outfitter set-aside is illegal”, a sentiment that was echoed by tribal leaders and resident-hunter advocates.
On the other side of the opinion, outfitters have generally disputed the findings. Kerrie Romero, representing the New Mexico Council of Outfitters and Guides, said the tags are issued to hunters, not to outfitters, and that guided nonresident hunters generate substantial economic activity in rural communities. Romero noted that nonresidents pay higher license fees that help fund wildlife management and said the industry intends to challenge the opinion.
For now, the opinion is not binding and does not immediately alter the draw. Torrez is urging the Legislature to repeal or reform the set-aside during its 60-day session that begins Jan. 19.
“My office is not going to let an unconstitutional program keep shortchanging New Mexico families indefinitely. If the Legislature doesn’t act,” Torrez said. “We will look at every tool available to this office, including going to court to stop it.”
