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Senate Majority Leader Michael Sanchez (Photo by Heath Haussamen)
After saying yesterday that a vote on whether to open conference committees and other legislative meetings to the public would “probably” come Wednesday night, Senate Majority Leader Michael Sanchez delayed a hearing on the bill again.
It’s the fourth straight day that Senate Bill 737, sponsored by state Sen. Dede Feldman, D-Albuquerque, has been ready for a floor vote but was skipped by Sanchez, a Belen Democrat who controls what gets heard on the New Mexico Senate floor.
The announcement that the bill wouldn’t be heard Wednesday night was made by Feldman on a liveblog hosted by the New Mexico Independent.
“I don’t know what his intentions are,” Feldman wrote about Sanchez on the liveblog. “When I said it really was too late at this point for this bill to make it through, he reminded me that things can move very fast here.”
Feldman said Sanchez told her the bill wouldn’t be heard Wednesday night because the Senate might consider the budget. She described herself as “frustrated as ever.”
Is it really too late for the bill, as Feldman fears? Time will tell. Moments after Feldman made her comments on the liveblog, Sanchez spoke on the Senate floor, saying he was addressing a senator who he refused to name, and essentially said anything can still happen.
Though there’s no certainty he was addressing Feldman and her conference committee bill, that appeared to be exactly what he was doing.
The history
Senators last voted on opening conference committees in 2007, when they defeated the proposal twice, each time by one vote. Sanchez voted against the proposal both times. Earlier this week, in a committee, he voted in favor of giving a do-pass motion to another bill that would open conference committees to the public, but that’s a vote to move the bill to the next committee, not necessarily a vote in favor of enacting it.
Changes in the Senate’s makeup that resulted from last year’s election have many believing the bill is more likely to pass this year. Many believe that’s why Sanchez is reluctant to bring Feldman’s bill up for a vote on the Senate floor.
Conference committees are groups of usually three House members and three Senate members who are tasked with reconciling differences between versions bills that have passed both chambers.
In addition to opening conference committees to the public, Feldman’s bill would open many other currently closed legislative meetings, including executive sessions of the House Appropriations and Finance Committee. Exempt from the bill would be investigative or quasi-judicial meetings — such as impeachment proceedings — and political-party caucus meetings.
