The Block The Bombs Bill – H.R. 3565. Two New Mexico Representatives Weigh In, In Support

Old Town Plaza. Las Vegas, New Mexico. (R. Prince photo)

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by Susan Small

The Block the Bombs bill, H.R. 3565 has 49 cosponsors as of September 9, 2025. Congresswoman Delia Ramirez of Illinois introduced the bill on May 21, 2025.

The Block the Bombs bill would prevent the most destructive and indiscriminate weapons, including bunker buster bombs, 2,000 lbs. bombs, JDAMs, 120mm tank rounds and 155 mm artillery shells from being provided by the US to Israel.

These weapons are what has and is leveling Gaza and killing thousands of civilians, mostly women and children.

Melanie Stansbury and Teresa Leger Fernande, two of New Mexico’s three representatives, signed as H.R. 3565 cosponsors just days ago after months of constituent requests, meetings and pressure to join this congressional effort limiting the US weapons being used to kill Palestinians. Constituents continue to try and persuade New Mexico’s third representative to cosponsor the Block the Bombs bill.

A recent vote by one of the largest caucuses, the Congressional Progressive Caucus, to endorse the Block the Bombs may give a boost to efforts limiting American supply of weapons, possibly facilitating movement towards a ceasefire.

There’s safety in numbers, so United States congressional representatives can weigh any possible AIPAC support they may lose by cosponsoring H.R. 3565 balanced against the votes they may gain in November 2026 if they stand up and put America’s interests over Israel’s genocide.

Regarding Israel, the US has consistently ignored its own Leahy Law, first passed in 1977, which prohibits US assistance to countries if there is credible evidence that “gross violations of human rights” is happening. The recent September 16, 2025, publication of the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel (COI) finding that Israel has committed genocide in Gaza hasn’t been recognized by this administration as sufficient to limit the US weapons provided to Israel.

The COI genocide announcement is grounded in evidence which the world has heard and seen for the past two years. It’s only the complicit governments refusing to hear and to see.

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Note: None of the members of Colorado’s House of Representatives have signed on to H.R. 3565 – although in a recvent meeting with Denver/Boulder Jewish Voice for Peace, Diana DeGette, did commit to working for opposing funding U.S. arms sales to Israel as a budget item.