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.
New Mexico’s 30-day legislative session ended Thursday like it started: without a state budget for next year.
All the rumors, tips and assurances that had swirled around the Capitol in the final days proved wildly optimistic: the Democratic legislative leaders weren’t pulling another last-minute rabbit out of the hat like in previous years.
An anticipated state budget agreement for next year never appeared. And the last day of this year’s 30-day session, usually bristling with energy, verve and occasional flared tempers, felt like any other legislative day.
“I’m very disappointed they failed to reach an agreement,” Gov. Bill Richardson said half an hour after the end of the session. “They were very close. It was nip and tuck.”
As Richardson was saying that, state lawmakers were fleeing the State Capitol en masse to take advantage of the five-day break Richardson has given them before the special session begins Wednesday.
The Capitol was left a virtual ghost town barely an hour after session’s end. The only sign of life in first-floor hallways was a sign hanging from the door of Ron Forte, chief of staff to Sen. President Pro Tem Tim Jennings, D-Roswell: “’Tis the time to shoot the wounded and blame the innocent.”
Why so soon?
Richardson favored bringing lawmakers back quickly for a special session to build on the momentum legislative leaders made toward reaching an agreement on next year’s state budget deal, he said.
“New Mexicans don’t want to wait,” he said, but not everyone agreed on the timing.
“It would make more sense to give some of us who were upset more time to cool off,” Jennings said.
“I know they are tired,” said Richardson. “I respect their time. The sooner they come back with a little rest the better off we will be.”
Thursday’s dénouement temporarily ended weeks of wrangling by Democratic leaders in the House and Senate, who were unable to overcome substantive differences on how to close next year’s projected budget shortfall of several hundred million dollars.
The differences that scuttled a deal
In the two weeks prior to Thursday, both chambers had approved competing budgets. The philosophic disagreement that drove a wedge between them was a classic one: House Democratic leaders preferred raising revenues through tax and fee increases to the deeper spending cuts Senate Democratic leadership wanted.
The Senate proposal recommended spending $120 million less than the House plan — $5.3 billion to $5.426 billion. It also raised nearly half the revenue proposed in the House bill, generating $180 million through tax increases vs. $340 million in the House bill.
Complicating the philosophical disagreements was the sheer size of New Mexico’s money problems: few people around the Capitol can remember budget troubles this bad—even veterans who date themselves to the mid 1970s.
Add that, and an ongoing animosity between some Senate leaders and Richardson, all up and some people left the Roundhouse on Thursday with bruised feelings, including some senators.
The Senate appeared to have enough signed petitions by lawmakers to call the Legislature into an extraordinary session. The Legislature controls the agenda in an extraordinary session rather than the governor, who says what goes and doesn’t in a special session.
It was unclear whether enough lawmakers in the House would support a similar petition. Both chambers must call the Legislature into an extraordinary session. But Richardson counseled against it, saying it’s “unnecessary. It’s also very costly. An extraordinary session is 30 days and that could cost $2 million.”
A special session, which can last up to 30 days, costs $50,000 a day.
The House likely wouldn’t follow the Senate’s lead, Jennings said. “The House usually acquiesces to everything the governor wants,” he said.
How far apart were they?
It’s hard to know how really close Democratic legislative leaders were when time ran out Thursday. Jennings said Thursday afternoon that legislative leaders were moving closer, a description corroborated by House Speaker Ben Lujan, D-Santa Fe.
Lujan assessed the difference between the two sides as $50 million to $70 million dollars but there were still sticking points the leaders couldn’t resolve, he said.
”We were at the one-yard line and we just couldn’t throw that final pass to make a touchdown,” Lujan said.
Republicans for the most part watched from the sidelines as Democrats – the majority party – confronted the complex stew of challenges to craft a budget agreement. They weren’t shy Thursday about calling out Democrats for lack of leadership.
“I feel like we ended in disaster,” said House Minority Whip Keith Gardner, R-Roswell. “I mean we didn’t even get a chance to vote one the budget, to do what we are constitutionally required to do.”
Solving this year’s budget
While the Legislature failed to craft a state agreement for next year, the Legislature did manage to approve what Democratic legislative leaders called an “essential bill” to shore up this year’s budget.
The bad economy is battering New Mexico’s tax revenues. And the Legislature’s budget arm, the Legislative Finance Committee, has projected that state revenues are coming in below expectations, a notion contested by Richardson’s budget team.
But both sides agreed on the necessity of passing legislation to sweep $130 million in state money from more than 1,500 stalled brick-and-mortar projects around the state. The clawed-back money would go into the state’s nearly depleted reserves, or rainy-day fund. That way the state can draw upon the rainy-day fund if revenues are anemic in coming months.
It was a sign of how uneventful Thursday was that SB 182 was the big “budget” bill.
While Richardson gave the Legislature an incomplete in handling the state budget, he graded state lawmakers higher on non-budget issues, giving them an A-.
State lawmakers passed a bill altering the governing structure of the State Investment Council (SIC), an agency at the center of an investment scandal with ties to California and New York. Federal authorities are conducting a criminal probe and securities investigation of the SIC.
State lawmakers also curbed future double dipping, when a public retiree returns to government work and receives both a pension and a paycheck.
The Legislature also created an office in the state’s education department to identify the reasons for and develop solutions to close the “achievement gap” between Hispanic and Anglo students.
As for a bill that allows holders of concealed weapons permits to carry weapons into restaurants that serve beer and wine, Richardson said he wasn’t sure what he’d do.
Richardson said next year’s state budget would dominate the special session. But he had other unfinished business to take care of, he said.
The Legislature failed to pass a bill funding $40 million in projects around New Mexico. The Senate balked at passing the bill after the House increased funding for several projects that are Richardson priorities. The House also added a couple of projects that were not in the original bill.
Richardson said Thursday he wants to bring back that bill, and another piece of legislation that would have paid for projects around the state using general obligation bonds. Both died Thursday.
A state ethics commission bill got bottled up in the Legislature, something that Richardson noted.
“I’m disappointed that an ethics commission did not come up,” Richardson said. He admitted his office had a little heartburn with some of its provisions.
The bill had much harsher penalties for a person filing a complaint who then went public than for a public official found to have violated the public trust. Under the proposal a person filing a complaint and then going public could face a $26,000 fine and a year in jail. A public official, on the other hand, found to have violated the public trust would face a censure or public reprimand.
“The confidential clause caused us some real concern,” Richardson said. “I might put it on the (special session) call.”
The Independent’s Larry Behrens contributed to this report.
