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…
While environmental activists played their part yesterday during demonstrations at the capitol building, going so far as to dress up as solar panels and to sing the tune of “You Are My Sunshine,” their counterparts, the anti-cap-and-trade contingency who has…
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.
The Senate sent a strong message to the Fourth Floor Monday, overriding one of two vetoes Gov. Bill Richardson used to block 2009 legislation from becoming law.
The vote was 34-8, with a bipartisan collection of Democrats and Republicans easily achieving the two-thirds of those present necessary to override.
A veto override vote is uncommon, especially during the years that Richardson, a Democrat, has worked with a Democratically controlled Legislature. According to the Legislative Council Service, Monday’s action was the first time the Senate had ever voted to override Richardson on legislation. The House of Representatives has done it once, in 2004.
But tension between some state lawmakers, including certain legislative leaders, and Richardson has reached a boiling point in recent years. And some saw Monday’s vote as a chance for the Legislature to exert its independence from the Richardson administration while others viewed it as a political dig at the chief executive.
The Senate’s action doesn’t overturn Richardson’s veto. For that to happen, the House of Representatives must also vote to override the governor’s veto of the legislation.
And that wasn’t looking like a sure bet Monday afternoon.
House Speaker Ben Lujan, D-Santa Fe, has long been Richardson’s strongest ally in the Legislature. Minutes after the Senate’s action, Lujan told the Independent that he wasn’t sure if the House would get to the override, citing their imperative to pass a state budget.
“I don’t know that we’ll have time to address the override,” he said.
The last time the Legislature as a whole overrode a governor’s veto was in 2002 when Republican Gary Johnson was governor.
The governor’s office did not return a call Monday afternoon seeking a response to the Senate’s action.
Richardson’s decision to pocket veto SB 531 last year incensed many state lawmakers. The move came even though the bill had passed unanimously in both the House and Senate.
The 2009 bill created a mechanism by which state agencies are required to share confidential data with the Legislative Finance Committee, the Legislature’s budget arm.
The information sharing would go toward helping state lawmakers understand, and scrutinize, everything from how money is spent on state contracts to whether Medicaid fraud is a bigger problem than rates seem to indicate, supporters said Monday.
Many supporters on Monday said the bill would give the Legislature a better tool by which to perform oversight of state government.
But not all lawmakers agreed.
A passionate debate ensued on the Senate floor about what the override effort was really about: the Legislature exerting its oversight power over the executive branch or a political dig at Richardson.
“We want to get the governor. That’s what this is about,” said an impassioned Phil Griego, Democrat of San Jose. “This is being done to embarrass the governor.”
Added Sen. Carlos Cisneros, D-Questa: “I wouldn’t trust any member of a committee to keep this information confidential. We are politicians. … Just because the law says not to disclose, believe me, they will disclose.”
Cisneros and Phil Griego made their pleas for their colleagues to oppose the override effort despite the fact that both voted for the bill last year.
Supporters argued, however, that the bill would re-calibrate the balance of powers between the executive and legislative branches.
“I have no desire to embarrass the governor,” said Sen. Clint Harden, R-Clovis. “I believe simply that … this is a legislative check and balance.”
“This is our oversight responsibility. This is what we are up here for,” said Sen. John Ryan, R-Albuquerque.
Sen. Gerald Ortiz y Pino, D-Albuquerque, for one, said the legislation would help state lawmakers see what the state got for its money, especially in the area of health care.
“We need to know what we are buying with these managed care contracts,” Ortiz y Pino said. “It’s unfortunate that we have to take this vote, but we’ve been driven to it.”
The tension between the Legislative Finance Committee and state agencies over lack of sharing data has simmered for years. But last month, The Independent revealed, in an exclusive story, that an Attorney General’s report shows the state had hindered Medicaid fraud investigations.
The Fraud Division reported allegations of HSD and Health Department stonewalling and “sterilized” disclosures of Medicaid data to investigators in its 2009 annual report to the Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
A spokesman for the state Attorney General’s office said that the state’s stonewalling of the agency’s Medicaid fraud investigations violates federal regulations.
The AG’s allegations were forwarded to the U.S. Center for Medicaid and Medicare Services (CMS), the agency that administers federal Medicaid funding to the state, Inspector General spokesman Mark Wilson told The Independent Monday.
Sen. Tim Keller, D-Albuquerque, revived SB 531 to attempt an override after the Independent’s story about the AG’s office running into problems.
Matthew Reichbach and Larry Behrens contributed to this report.
