Illustration by Keith Lewis

SANTA FE — A prominent state senator used the New Mexico Legislature’s first-ever open conference committee to accuse House Speaker Ben Lujan of creating a “cloud of suspicion” by slipping an amendment into a bill to benefit a private developer.

Lujan amended a Senate bill after the House twice rebuked his efforts to help the developer by creating a loan program to help private developers qualify for government loans, said Sen. John Arthur Smith, D-Deming, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee.

Lujan angrily denounced Smith and called him a “racist S.O.B.” and “full of shit” for making the accusation. Lujan said he amended the bill to merely help a constituent.

Smith’s accusation that Lujan had acted suspiciously so enraged Lujan that he confronted the senator on the Senate floor in the middle of news media interviews.

“You are full of shit,” Lujan said to Smith. “You have anything to accuse me of. Why didn’t you come and tell me to my face or at least make the phone call?”

Smith responded, “I’m glad you feel that way, Speaker.”

The tense standoff – which followed a night in which lawmakers worked more than they slept — attracted attention as state senators, staff and others looked on as the speaker angrily denounced Smith.

“Just like you, when a constituent comes up to you and asks you to put something, that’s how it happened,” Lujan said of the amendment. “But you are accusing me. You are not worth a darn.”

“Mr. Speaker, that was your amendment,” Smith said.

“That was my amendment, and I don’t deny it,” Lujan shot back. “You are not worth a darn. That’s what’s the matter with you. You are a racist S.O.B.”

At that Lujan turned around and walked away.

Smith responded, “Thank you, Mr. Speaker.”

“You’re welcome,” Lujan said.

Lujan cites racism because Smith didn’t “have the courtesy to come and talk to me”

In a separate interview just after the session ended and before he confronted Smith on the Senate floor, Lujan called Smith “ridiculous.”

When asked where the “cloud of suspicion” that Smith had talked about had come from, Lujan said, “out of his stupid head.”

Asked repeatedly why Smith had been concerned enough about Lujan’s amendment to notify the press about it, Lujan said, “The only thing that I can know about Sen. Smith is that he is a racist,” Lujan said. “Why didn’t he come to me and ask anything? If he thought that there was anything wrong, or anything, why didn’t he have the courtesy to come and talk to me?”

When asked why he was charging Smith with racism, Lujan responded, “He accuses me of something that is completely false. … He could have had a conversation with me. … Telephones are always open.”

After the Speaker’s outburst on the Senate floor, Smith said, “You would like for people to have better control in public. But I understand when you are tired and you spend a lot of time … the Speaker is a hard worker and pours a lot into his job. We just have different viewpoints.”

Rant comes after first open conference committe

Smith said media had been asking him for weeks about the project that Lujan’s amendment is alleged to have benefited.

That’s why he had wanted to open the conference committee to the public, Smith said.

The Legislature passed legislation to open conference committees to the public but that law had not taken effect on Saturday. Smith spoke adamantly against opening conference committees earlier in the week when the Senate voted on the legislation, but on Saturday he, and other Senate leaders, decided to open the conference committee anyway.

Saturday’s conference committee opened a window into the sometimes-opaque workings of the Legislature, where powerful lawmakers routinely amend bills to ensure that their priorities are taken care of.

In this case, Lujan attempted to pass HB 820 twice in the House that would have allowed local governments and municipalities to issue bonds to finance “all or a part of the costs” of “eligible enterprises,” including private developers.

After the House rebuffed Lujan’s efforts twice on the floor, the Speaker amended SB 584 in the House Taxation and Revenue Committee. The amendment would have allowed a private developer to attempt to qualify for an existing low-interest loan program called the Public Project Revolving Fund.

The House passed that bill. The Senate, however, had heartburn with the changes in SB 584 and asked the House to remove the amendments. The House refused. That disagreement led to the conference committee.

Lujan said Saturday he amended the Senate bill because a constituent wants to build a project at the Santa Fe Railyard and asked him for help in finding financing.

“Honestly guys I have absolutely no interest in this project,” Lujan said. “It was a constituent of mine that came to ask if this could be included because they were trying to get funding to fill up that hole [at the railyard].”

In its original form, the bill that Lujan amended simply clarified that the government loan program could finance “charter schools … and nonprofits of subsidiaries of universities,” said Mark Valenzuela of the New Mexico Finance Authority, which administers the Public Project Revolving Fund.

Sen. Gerald Ortiz y Pino, D-Albuquerque, said Lujan’s amendment, had it been kept on the legislation, would have left the Legislature open to charges of possible impropriety.

“The thought was, ‘Are we somehow opening ourselves up that we are using public money for a private project,’ ” Ortiz Y Pino said during the conference committee where Smith made his accusations.

Click here to listen to Lujan’s interview with NMI and The New Mexican and here to hear Lujan confront Smith.