Photo by Gwyneth Doland

Photo by Gwyneth Doland

SANTA FE — On Monday Sen. Bernadette Sanchez, D-Albuquerque, used an age-old ruse to avoid voting on domestic partnership legislation that would extend many of the rights enjoyed by married couples to same-sex and opposite-sex couples in committed relationships.

The ruse is called “taking a walk” in legislative slang. It’s when a lawmaker ducks out of a meeting or floor session to avoid taking a tough vote.

Sanchez, who was in Monday’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, stepped out just before the vote and returned just after the committee had hung up the bill in on a 5-5 tie. Effectively that vote kept the legislation from moving forward.

Sanchez denied ducking out on purpose.

“I walked out because they were waiting for members,” she explained moments after the committee had voted. “I was on an important call, on two issues actually.”

Usually when a legislative committee takes a roll-call vote, as occurred Monday, the committee clerk calls the lawmaker’s name more than once, or the chairman will hold open a vote for a few minutes to ensure that a temporarily absent lawmaker can vote.

That wasn’t the case Monday. The clerk called lawmakers’ names in alphabetical order on a motion to pass the legislation out of the committee, and after each name a ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ was heard, except in Sanchez’s case. There was only silence. That didn’t prompt the clerk to repeat Sanchez’s name. And Sen. Cisco McSorley, the chairman of the committee, closed the vote immediately after the 10 lawmakers who were present had voted.

“A 5-to-5 motion fails,” McSorley said to a roomful of supporters and opponents.

Still, no bill is truly dead until the session is over, which is why supporters of domestic partnerships, from the American Civil Liberties Union to the governor’s office, said they would keep working the issue — and why opponents were guarded in their victory.

The House has a bill similar to the one that failed to clear the Senate Judiciary Committee, supporters noted.

“We will keep lobbying, yes,” said Eric Witt, Gov. Bill Richardson’s legislative liaison.

McSorley, meanwhile, said the bill could be brought back up for a vote at any time. He didn’t say when that might occur.

Opponents of the measure, meanwhile, say they will remain vigilant.

“We will be watching them,” said Walter Bradley, a former Republican lieutenant governor who has successfully lobbied against domestic partnership legislation in the past.