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How chaotic is the leadership battle in the state House of Representatives at the moment? Have you got a hour or so to run through all the scenarios?
Here goes:
House Speaker Ben Lujan, D-Nambe, has reportedly reached out to some Republicans to shore up support in his bid to continue his run as speaker of the House, Heath Haussamen at NMPolitics.net reports today.
But so has Rep. Thomas Garcia, D-Ocate, Haussamen adds. Garcia, going into his third term as a state lawmaker, has been rumored for a couple of weeks as someone who was contemplating a coalition with Republicans to wrest control from Lujan as speaker. Haussamen reports that House Minority Leader Thomas Taylor, R-Farmington, told him Saturday that Garcia has indeed reached out to some Republicans about a possible coalition.
Garcia joins Rep. Joseph Cervantes, D-Las Cruces, on a list of Democratic state lawmakers whose names have been mentioned as potential threats to Lujan’s leadership.
Recent electoral results have shifted power in the House, which is causing the behind-the scenes battle for power. Democrats lost eight seats in the Nov. 2 elections, shaving their margin of control as a majority party in the chamber from 45-25 to 37-33, which is why GOP lawmakers ostensibly are being courted so heavily.
It’s unclear how supportive the newly empowered House Republicans are of a power-sharing agreement with Democrats, if it should come to that. I guess we’ll see in coming days if things progress that way.
There’s a reason the House Speaker post is at the center of all the political scheming. Whoever is Speaker of the House is the single most powerful lawmaker in the Legislature. That person controls if, and when, legislation comes up for a vote in that chamber and how easy or difficult a path a particular bill faces to win passage. The speaker assigns bills to House committees to vet the legislation. Some committees are viewed as the killing fields depending on the legislation.
The Speaker also selects lawmakers to lead House legislative committees, meaning the Speaker has an instant base of power beyond the inherent authority of the position. Committee chairpersons often support the person who put them in those powerful posts.
House Democrats will meet this weekend to decide who they will support as leader as a caucus. As many of the sources in Haussamen’s post tell him, it’s too confusing at the moment to know what will happen given all the potential scenarios.
