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.
More than one New Mexico state lawmaker this week pegged a coming calamity to July 1, the effective date of a $5.3 billion state budget, and the more than $270 million in various tax hikes and revenue-generating measures, state lawmakers passed during this week’s special session.
But no one knows the true measure of the coming discomfort.
The state budget may trim roughly $100 million on paper, but it leaves the details of how to reduce expenses to state agencies.
So, assuming the governor signs all these bills, how will life change in New Mexico after July 1?
Will longer lines form at motor vehicle offices thanks to a 4.2 percent reduction at the state Taxation and Revenue Department?
Will there be fewer teachers greeting students this August? Advocates warned of that while opposing budget cuts of nearly 2 percent to public education.
Meanwhile, how will New Mexicans like paying more at grocery stores starting July 1? That’s the day New Mexico’s 100 or so municipalities will again start to tax purchases of food after five years of exempting it.
The same bill that restores the food tax to municipalities closes a long-used tax deduction used by people who itemize state income tax returns, meaning they will pay more to the tax man too.
Smokers also will feel the pinch, as the price of a pack of cigarettes will rise thanks to a 75-cent hike to the state’s 91-cent cigarette tax.
Few lawmakers were in a particularly good mood Thursday after passing the slew of measures to address next year’s projected shortfall of several hundred million dollars.
“This session perhaps was the most difficult session we’ve faced,” House Speaker Ben Lujan, D-Santa Fe, told a restless bunch of House lawmakers anxious to get home Thursday, the last day of the special legislative session.
“We take no pleasure in increasing taxes,” Lujan said. “We have been able to minimize against cuts to education.”
House Minority Whip Keith Gardner, R-Roswell, went further, calling the Legislature’s answer to the tough economic times a “patch job.” He predicted lawmakers would return to Santa Fe as early as June for another special session to finish up the job they left undone.
“Once again, the only people who made it out of here was the status quo of government,” Gardner said Thursday moments after the House had adjourned. “We’re not willing to cut our expenses. We’re willing to force the taxpayers to pay for our wants, wishes and desires.”
Gov. Bill Richardson, meanwhile, was measured in his reaction to what the lawmakers had produced.
The governor praised lawmakers for adopting “a balanced approach to closing the deficit,” a package that relied on “targeted spending cuts with revenue increases that don’t hurt our ability to create jobs,” according to a statement issued by his office Thursday afternoon.
But the governor regretted that lawmakers raised taxes. “I am especially concerned that the Senate insisted on including a food tax, which is regressive and hurts working New Mexico families, as a part of this package,” the statement said.
A tough, tough session
The budget and revenue-generating bills the Legislature approved marked the culmination of a weeks-long struggle by legislative leaders to craft a budget package that enough lawmakers could support.
That goal proved elusive throughout the 30-day legislative session, prompting Richardson to call them back into special session Monday.
The special legislative session started slowly Monday, peaked in the middle and ended anti-climatically Thursday.
Most of Monday lawmakers congregated behind closed doors or loitered around the Capitol. Hanging in the balance was a tentative budget deal reached among legislative leaders over the weekend.
By Tuesday afternoon the various measures representing the budget package – the $5.35 billion spending plan, the big revenue package and the cigarette tax — appeared ready for a vote.
In a burst of activity and stamina the Legislature sometimes can pull off state lawmakers approved both the $5.3 billion budget and $240 million revenue measure in a 24-hour period.
That feat led some observers to believe the Legislature could ride the momentum and finish Wednesday night.
That didn’t happen. The Legislature spent most of Thursday on a cigarette tax hike projected to raise $33 million and two bills that fund brick-and-mortar projects around the state.
A slow day with hints of drama
The only real drama emerged during a Senate floor debate involving a $45 million bill to fund projects around the state.
Sen. Nancy Rodriguez, D-Santa Fe, tried to amend the legislation to give $100,000 to the New Mexico School for the Deaf in Santa Fe.
The House had removed the $100,000 earmarked for the School for the Deaf and put it toward a proposed charter school in Albuquerque. Called Sign & Language Academy, it’s for children who are deaf, are going deaf or use sign language because they can’t speak, state officials said.
But several minutes into the debate stirred by her proposed change Rodriguez changed her mind, saying she had decided to withdraw her amendment. Her change of mind came after House Speaker Ben Lujan visited her on the Senate floor.
Several of Rodriguez’s Senate colleagues then rose to accuse Lujan of “intimidation” and “arm twisting” to get Rodriguez to withdraw her amendment.
“I was scandalized by what I saw on the floor. I apologize to Sen. Rodriguez for not saying something then,” said Sen. Jerry Ortiz y Pino, D-Albuquerque.
Added Sen. Rod Adair, R-Roswell: “This was a bad scene for the state Senate.”
“That was the most unfair scene I’ve seen,” said Sen. George Muñoz, D-Gallup, who sits next to Rodriguez.
But Rodriguez said Lujan didn’t try to intimidate her.
“The Speaker … made a commitment very clearly that the funding for the School for the Deaf would be restored” from federal stimulus dollars, Rodriguez said. “I’ll be watching for that. That’s very important to me.”
After Rodriguez’s change of heart the bill passed the Senate. Then that chamber launched into a three-hour debate of the proposed 75-cent cigarette tax hike.
That tax hike eventually passed the Senate, which quickly adjourned. The House then passed the same bill, and almost as quickly adjourned too.
Then, like that, the special session was over.
