I am writing today to announce the closure of the New Mexico Independent. After three and a half years of operation in New Mexico, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news…
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Roughly one quarter of University of New Mexico students are unimpressed with the state’s flagship public school, according to a survey that questioned college students about their higher education experiences.
On Friday afternoon, the Senate increased the amount of capital outlay–also known as “pork”–legislators will have to give up, with Lt. Gov. Diane Denish casting the tie vote to move the bill forward.
The amendment to the big budget bill the Senate is hoping to approve today, introduced by Sen. Eric Griego, D-Albuquerque, instructs the Legislative Council Service, the Legislative Finance Committee, and the Department of Finance and Administration to identify $150 million in additional unexpended capital outlay money that can be voided, over the amount included in the House budget bill the Senate is considering, HB 17.
During the floor debate, Griego said it averages to about $1.5 million per Senator and $1 million per Representative, and would allow them to eliminate cuts to public schools and higher education, and reduce cuts to state agencies.
After the amendment passed–with Denish breaking a 20-20 tie vote–Griego introduced another amendment that would reduce to zero any cuts to public schools and higher education, and that would reduce cuts to other state agencies in the House bill from 7.6 percent to 3.5 percent.
That second amendment was then put on hold so that some Senators have time to think through Griego’s ideas.
We wrote about Griego’s budget ideas a couple of days ago. The effect of his amendments is a reduction in cuts to recurring expenditures, plugging the deficit from additional non-recurring sources of revenue. Many senators agree with this approach because they want to consider cuts to recurring expenditures in conjunction with possible ways to raise recurring revenue. The Governor has barred legislators from raising revenue during the special session.
The passage of the amendment threw the House and Senate staff into a flurry of activity as they tried to figure out what it meant.
“Now we’re going to be here for an extra day or two,” Sen. Majority Leader Michael Sanchez, D-Belen, said.
UPDATE: That flurry of activity led to an almost melt-down on the Senate floor, with Sen. John Ryan, R-Albuquerque, initiating a vote to reconsider the capital outlay bill. The ensuing highly emotional debate had Senators charging that the leadership was trying to shut down amendments so that they could end the special session. Sen. Bernadette Sanchez, D-Albuquerque, said it was wrong for legislators to be barred from considering revenue raising bills, and to not include the majority of legislators in the decision-making process, and to then bar amendments on the floor offered to make the budget bill better. You can read about the play by play on NMI’s transcript of our liveblog at about the 2:30ish mark.
Sen. Michael Sanchez stepped in as the debate got increasingly heated, and asked all the Democrats to vote for the amendment again, which would pull back $150 million in capital outlay. It passed on a 21-19 vote.
Voting No on the second round: Adair, Asbill, Beffort, Cravens, Duran, Harden, Ingle, Jennings, Kernan, Leavell, Lopez, Morales, Munoz, Neville, Papen, Payne, Rue, Ryan, Sharer.
Voting Yes: Campos, Cisneros, Eichenberg, Feldman, Fischman, Garcia, Eric Griego, Phil Griego, Keller, Lovejoy, Martinez, McSorley, Nava, Ortiz y Pino, Pinto, Rodriguez, Bernadette Sanchez, Michael Sanchez, Sapien, Smith, Wirth.
Lt. Guv. Denish released a statement shortly afterward about her tie-breaking vote.
“During these historically challenging economic times, we simply must work together and cut pork out of state government. That’s why I was proud to cast the tie-breaking vote on this effort to cut $150 million in capital outlay projects. This is an important step towards the long-overdue reform we need of the capital outlay process, but it’s only a start. These types of special projects represent the kind of spending that we simply can’t afford,” she said.
