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SANTA FE — Tim Jennings may have retained his spot as Senate president pro tem Tuesday. But that doesn’t mean the factionalism vexing the Senate Democratic caucus is over.
Jennings defeated fellow Democrat Carlos Cisneros by a vote of 23 to 19 shortly after noon Tuesday to keep the New Mexico Senate’s top job.
But questions remain on how the fallout of their contest will affect the upper chamber during the 60-day legislative session.
Will the divisions exposed in Tuesday’s vote, which saw 19 of the chamber’s 27 Democrats back Cisneros, continue to fester throughout the next two months? If so, will that lead to a fractured Senate too weakened to stand up to Gov. Bill Richardson as in the past?
Jennings is considered more conservative than Cisneros on many social issues. Prior to Tuesday’s vote, many advocates for domestic partnerships, for example, privately predicted that the legislation would hit rougher sledding with Jennings in leadership than Cisneros.
Many lawmakers said it’s too early to tell what effect the Democratic infighting will have on the chamber as a whole.
As for those Democrats who openly opposed him, will Jennings exact retribution, as some predict?
Sen. Dede Feldman, D-Albuquerque, for one, was preparing for the worst Tuesday afternoon.
Minutes after the Senate had adjourned for the day, Feldman and three staff members huddled on the chamber floor, next to her desk. Feldman had supported Cisneros, an act of open defiance that she said likely would cost her the chairmanship of the Senate’s Public Affairs Committee.
“Those are my staff,” Feldman said of the three people with whom she met. “They are out of a job.”
A second later, Feldman retreated from her statement. “I’m not sure I’m going to lose [the chairmanship],” she said. “But they [the staff] don’t know. And I don’t know either. They are in limbo.”
A call to Jennings to ask if plans were in the works to strip some Democrats of committee chairmanships was not immediately returned Tuesday night.
Earlier in the day, Jennings had appeared ready to put the divisiveness of the leadership battle behind him. Moments after he had bested Cisneros for the Senate post, Jennings said to the 42 senators sitting in the chamber: “While there might be a little divide, that’s over. I am a Democrat, and I am here to represent this body.”
He went on to explain that it was his job “to make sure this chamber is run in a fair and equitable way.”
As president pro tem, Jennings has the power to name members to a legislative committee tasked with the responsibility of selecting committee chairmen and to fill out each committee with its membership.
It was unclear when that panel, called the Committee on Committees, will make its decisions. But it likely will come in the next few days.
Jennings’ strategy Tuesday of relying on a bipartisan coalition — the Republican Senate caucus and a smattering of his fellow Democrats — to keep his post is not common in legislative workings, but it’s not rare either. The New Mexico state Senate has a history of such scenarios, the last time it happened being in 2001, when ex-Sen. Richard Romero ousted then-President Pro Tem Manny Aragon with the help of the Republicans.
And while Cisneros corralled 19 Democratic votes, Jennings found support in an unlikely place: Two of the seven freshman Democrats sided with him — Sens. George Muñoz and John Sapien.
Feldman said she hoped that time would heal the divisions in the Democratic caucus.
But there were signs that it might take some time.
Sen. Howie Morales, D-Silver City, acknowledged Tuesday afternoon that he likely had angered some of his Democratic colleagues by supporting Jennings in his bid to keep the Senate president pro tem job.
“It may not have been the most popular vote that I had to go with, but I thought it was the right vote for my constituents,” Morales explained.
His vote came down to two things, he said: his loyalty to Jennings and regional representation.
Jennings helped him get up to speed during last year’s 30-day session when Morales joined the Senate shortly after being chosen to fill the seat left vacant by the death of Senate President Pro Tem Ben Altamirano.
Altamirano’s death left the state’s southwestern edge without one of it most powerful champions in the Legislature, Morales said. And that led to his second concern.
If Cisneros had won the Senate president post, Sen. John Arthur Smith, D-Deming, could have been turned out as chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, Morales said. That could have cost the southwestern edge of the state much-needed seniority in the Democratic leadership.
“I’m not sure there would have been a change, but I know the way I voted would has ensured that [Sen. Smith] would still continue” as Senate Finance chairman, Morales said.
