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New Mexico Sen. Bernadette Sanchez
SANTA FE — Are we about to witness a repeat performance?
A bill that would give same-sex couples many of the same rights as married, opposite-sex couples appears to be in trouble as it heads to the Senate Judiciary Committee, where it died last year.
Sen. Cisco McSorley, D-Albuquerque and the sponsor of the Domestic Partner Rights and Responsibilities Act, said Wednesday that he had the votes to push the domestic partners legislation through the Judiciary Committee this time.
But McSorley’s vice chairman, Sen. Richard Martinez, D-Española, said Thursday he opposes the bill. And another Democrat, Sen. Bernadette Sanchez, D-Albuquerque, said she was undecided.
“I don’t know yet,” Sanchez said Thursday outside the Senate chamber.
With seven Democrats and four Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Martinez’s opposition gives opponents five votes assuming every GOP senator opposes the controversial bill. Five of the six Democrats appear to be in support. Sanchez, meanwhile, stands in the middle, undecided, and the likely swing vote.
Both Martinez and Sanchez, like other state lawmakers, are being lobbied hard on domestic partnerships, which would extend rights enjoyed by married couples to both same-sex and opposite-sex couples in a committed relationship.
Both state lawmakers said they were receiving numerous e-mails and calls.
“I can’t even get into my office,” Martinez said of the people waiting at his office in the Capitol to tell him how they feel.
Martinez, who voted with Republicans last year to oppose the legislation in the Judiciary Committee, said he had been besieged by opponents.
“The bottom line is I am not here to vote how I feel,” he said. “My constituents have sent me a very, very strong message telling me that they do not want me to support the bill,” Martinez said. “I represent 45,000 people, and I would say about 90 percent of them are opposed to it.”
Sanchez likewise said her in-box has been filled with hundreds of e-mails.
Sen. Sander Rue, a freshman Republican from Albuquerque, said he also was being lobbied hard by both sides. On Thursday he said he opposed the bill.
McSorley said Thursday a vote on domestic partnerships likely won’t happen in the Senate Judiciary Committee until next week. He had said Wednesday night a vote could have taken place as early as Thursday.
Supporters of domestic partnerships stress that they are not the same as marriage, or even a step in that direction. But opponents don’t find that argument persuasive.
Even if domestic partnerships are recognized as legal, they would unlock rights only under state law, supporters say. Gay couples as well as unmarried straight couples in a committed relationship who enter into domestic partnerships would not see hundreds of federal rights unlocked to them, as they are for married couples.
Under the domestic partnerships legislation, individuals would be able to enjoy medical coverage through their partner’s health insurance plan and would have the right to visit a partner in a hospital. They could also take family medical leave to care for a partner who is ill and earn property rights in a partner’s pension and inheritance rights.
