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The Santa Fe Reporter covers the Santa Fe County commission’s decisions regarding county-wide health programs.

The Farmington Daily Times reports on the status of Farmington construction projects, which were on the rise in January.

KOB writes that increased traffic violation fees in Bernalillo County would fund the Metropolitan Detention Center to pay for overcrowding.

The Carlsbad Current-Argus highlights the Carlsbad mayoral candidates as they faced-off during a public forum earlier this week.

The Luna County Sheriff’s Office has started a new program targeting sex offenders, says The Deming Headlight.

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“Someone would lose their livelihood for shaking their finger at their wife,” he said.

The bill’s sponsor, Rep. Nate Cote, D-Doña Ana, disagreed, saying the bill only pertained to those who had actually been convicted of domestic violence. The bill had been amended in the House Judiciary Committee, he explained, to ensure that the bill only applied to those convicted of the crime. Speaker of the House Ben Lujan later pointed out to Rehm that he voted for the bill in that committee hearing. Rehm replied that if he voted for the bill in committee, it was a mistake as he is not in favor of the bill.

Rep. Powdrell-Culbert, R-Corrales, said HB 17 was “a needless piece of legislation,” citing the lengthy test potential law enforcement officers must take before being accepted into police academies and which she said would weed out those with violent tendencies.

Cote made the point that it was important to ensure domestic violence offenders weren’t on the police force because police officers were the “first responders” to domestic violence calls. HB 17 adds to a federal law that prohibits the carrying of firearms for certain domestic violence crimes, including aggravated stalking and aggravated assault.

Rep. Dennis Roch, R-Tucumcari, attempted to add an amendment to HB 17 that would make the law apply only to felony convictions. “The smallest misdemeanor conviction cannot be put on par with the greatest felony conviction in this matter,” Roch said.

Cote, who pointed out that there are misdemeanor offenses on the books already that remove certifications from law enforcement offers responded by saying, “I wouldn’t confuse other misdemeanors with domestic violence, which is a serious problem, “adding that his bill would help “to protect the citizens of New Mexico.”

The amendment, which failed, was also opposed by Rep. Ken Martinez, who said misdemeanor battery was important to include and that “any attempt to take misdemeanors out really guts the bill,” as misdemeanor battery is defined as “temporary painful disfigurement,” ie. bruises, scratches, etc.

Here is a short video of Cote explaining the intent of the bill:

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.

The Act would create an office within the Public Education Department to specifically focus on “measuring the gap, analyzing it, and closing it, systematically,” according to its sponsor in the Senate, Sen. Bernadette Sanchez, D-Albuquerque. A Hispanic Education Advisory Council made up of “citizen-stakeholders” would also be created, she said, to support the efforts of the office.

UPDATE: The Senate Finance Committee decided to not make the Hispanic Education Act wait–it  passed that committee late this afternoon on a vote of 7 to 2.  The HEA now waits on floor votes in both houses.

“There’s a lot of unknowns we can’t predict,” Smith said.

Smith also said that the tax increases passed by the House will not survive in the Senate.

“If you’re asking for a tax increase then have the same amount cut,” he said, adding that a large part of House Bill 2, the appropriation bill passed by the House, depends on federal dollars that aren’t yet a sure thing.

Smith earlier told the Independent that the Senate Fiance Committee should begin to take up HB 2 on Tuesday, and likely be done with it by later in the week.

“I’ve been working on being a congressman, not campaigning,” Teague said in an interview at the Roundhouse in Santa Fe.

He said he’s been working hard for his constituents, traveling the 2nd Congressional District in Southern New Mexico that he represents and holding almost 100 public forums and meetings.

“As a congressman, you’re supposed to represent the people, and the way you do that is to talk to them and listen,” he said.

Teague was in Santa Fe to announce that he’s introduced federal legislation designed to encourage additional states to collect DNA from people arrested for felony crimes so it can be checked against DNA gathered from unsolved crimes.

Teague did say when he starts actively campaigning for re-election he’ll have to focus outside the population centers in the district – Las Cruces and Roswell – but also said Las Cruces is very important to the race because it has nearly a third of the district’s voters.

He said “hard” campaigning will begin in March or April.

“But the first thing we’re going to do is represent the people,” Teague said.

Sen. Smith said he hopes to start in on House Bill 2, the appropriations bill, on Tuesday or Wednesday at the latest. Then he says HB 2 should be out of Senate Finance by the latter part of the week.  Once that is done, Sen. Smith said, the domestic partnership bill (SB 183) will not be first on the agenda.

State Reps. Jeff Steinborn, Right, and Janice Arnold-Jones talking during today’s vote on the webcasting memorial. (Photo by Heath Haussamen)

The House easily passed a memorial today that, if also approved by the Senate, will direct legislative staff to begin webcasting interim committee meetings held around the state.

The debate on House Joint Memorial 15, sponsored by Rep. Jeff Steinborn, D-Las Cruces, was mostly cordial. The memorial passed 65-2 with only Democratic Reps. Eliseo Lee Alcon and Andrew Barreras voting against it.

“I think it’s important, Mr. Speaker, because of course during the interim we develop our budgets, we develop policy,” Steinborn said during debate on the memorial.

Two amendments were added to Steinborn’s resolution before it was approved. The first, from Republican Rep. Janice Arnold-Jones, changed the wording of the resolution so that it would direct, rather than request, that Legislative Council Service begin webcasting. The second, from Majority Leader Ken Martinez, stripped wording in the bill that would have provided for archiving of video and audio taken during interim committee meetings.

Martinez has consistently argued against archiving. New Mexico isn’t a state whose courts considers legislative intent in addition to the actual wording of legislation, so he has said it’s important to not create permanent records other than the actual legislation.

Steinborn accepted the amendment so the memorial would be consistent with House rules that don’t allow archiving of webcasting from the floor and regular committee meetings.

His memorial allows for the reality that webcasting won’t be possible in some rural areas where the necessary technology isn’t available. Some $35,000 has been included in the budget bill that already passed the House to purchase the equipment for webcasting.

Arnold-Jones, who Steinborn called the pioneer of webcasting in the Legislature, thanked him for taking it to the next level.

“I am just so pleased that you have taken this forward,” she said.

The memorial now heads to the Senate.