Neri Holguin

A political battle over control of New Mexico’s dominant party played out on the Senate floor Tuesday over an unexpected issue: an Albuquerque woman’s nomination to a state board. Confirmations in the Senate are usually uneventful and state lawmakers usually speak glowingly of the nominee. But that wasn’t the case Tuesday, when the state Senate rejected the nomination of Neri Holguin to the state Environmental Improvement Board by a vote of 17 to 25.

“I don’t think a person who works on political campaigns should be confirmed. It’s a conflict of interest,” said Sen. Bernadette Sanchez, D-Albuquerque.

Holguin managed the 2008 political campaigns of senators Tim Keller and Eric Griego. The duo knocked off then-Democratic senators Shannon Robinson and James Taylor in the June primary in what was considered a victory for progressive voters. In November of that year Tim Eichenberg defeated Republican Diane H. Snyder

The political upheaval split Democratic lawmakers into rival fractions. And it led incumbent lawmakers from both political parties to charge that several nonprofits had improperly influenced the legislative elections.

The losing lawmakers sued the nonprofits, a complaint later dismissed by state courts. Meanwhile, the state filed a lawsuit to force the nonprofits to disclose the origin of the money that had paid for what they said were educational mailers critical of the state lawmakers who later lost. A federal judge shot down the state’s lawsuit last year, and the state has appealed.

Holguin couldn’t be reached for comment Tuesday.

The strained feelings bubbled up on the Senate floor following Tuesday’s vote in which several Democrats joined most Republicans to reject Holguin’s nomination.

“Suddenly to develop scruples is disingenuous and incredibly hypocritical,” Sen. Gerald Ortiz y Pino, D-Albuquerque, said, chastising his colleagues for questioning possible conflicts of interest.

Added Sen. Eric Griego “We have lobbyists who represent corporations on these boards. We have industry folks on boards. I think this is a reason why we need webcasting and why people need to know what happens up here. I’m learning a lot more about this body the more time I spend here.”

Sen. Tim Keller, D-Albuquerque, also chimed in.

“To see this done just because she has done campaign work that was above board–we took it out on [this] woman,” Keller said.

Those comments drew a response from lawmakers in the rival faction.

“We are being questioned as far as this vote,” replied Bernadette Sanchez. “I knew what I was doing when I voted against this person on this board. We have a right to vote no on this.”

Sen. President Pro Tem Tim Jennings, D-Roswell, said he voted for Holguin but was troubled by what he called nonprofits interfering in political campaigns.

“It’s about the spirit of fair play,” Jennings said. “Corporations and businesses, if they make donations, they have to report contributions. But then they don’t apply to nonprofits. Some of the things that have happened is that nonprofits have used government money to influence elections.”

The nonprofits have repeatedly denied contributing money to political campaigns.

Also in play in Holguin’s nomination is an ongoing battle over state environmental regulations.

An organization has requested that the Environmental Improvement Board roll back New Mexico’s emissions to 25 percent below their 1990 levels by 2020 — far below anything being considered at the federal level and something critics say would devastate the state’s economy.

Holguin has sat on the environmental board for months. But at least some senators didn’t think that was a good thing.

“I was little afraid of politicizing this extremely important board,” said Sen. John Ryan, R-Albuquerque. “I don’t think having another person with an agenda would improve that board.”

Meanwhile, state agencies would get fewer dollars and several hundred jobs would disappear from state government.

That mixture of spending cuts and tax hikes was part of a $5.276 billion state budget proposal that the Senate passed  25 to 17 early Sunday morning to help close a projected shortfall of several hundred million dollars next year.

The lawmakers passing the proposed spending plan was bi-partisan, with nearly half the Republican caucus joining nearly 20 Democrats to support the budget proposal.

The passage of the state budget came after a marathon floor session in which lawmakers deliberated for more than six hours on one spending bill and three tax measures that together made up a state budget package.

Overall, the Senate plan trims spending by roughly $120 million and raises revenue by about $180 million.

“There was no delight in putting together this budget,” said Sen. John Arthur Smith, D-Deming. “The pain is spread throughout the state of New Mexico.”

Not many lawmakers were happy with the budget package, although a majority voted for it.

“I don’t think this budget will work,” Sen. Cynthia Nava, D-Las Cruces, said, predicting that the spending plan would lead to layoffs and cuts to important programs.

Sen. Vernon Asbill, R-Carlsbad, agreed, but for different reasons. He opposed the state budget, he said, because lawmakers didn’t tackle the bloated state government before trying to raise taxes.

More than a few lawmakers, however, acknowledged that there were no good scenarios available to them as they tackled the worst budget situation to hit New Mexico in decades.

“The Senate Finance Committee is doing a damn good job,” said Sen. Clint Harden, R-Clovis. “We got a mess laid in our laps.”

The Senate proposal is the latest plan produced by the Legislature as state lawmakers try to close the state’s biggest budget shortfall in decades.

The Senate’s plan differs from a competing state budget proposal passed by the House earlier this month. The Senate proposal recommends spending $120 million less than the House plan — $5.3 billion to $5.426 billion. It also raises nearly half the revenue as proposed in the House bill, generating $180 million through tax increases vs. $340 million in the House bill.

The House and Senate must agree on a spending plan and send it to Gov. Bill Richardson for his signature. But lawmakers are running out of time, with only five days to go in the legislative session to produce a state budget.

While the Senate proposal differed in many ways from the House budget, the most vigorous debate Saturday night revolved around the tax measures that help pay for some of the proposed spending in the Senate state budget.

The biggest levy would tax many foods for the first time in years, including tortillas and white bread, yogurt, spaghetti, hot dogs and white rice.

The proposal, SB 10, which passed 23 to 19, would extend the state’s gross receipts tax to many foods as defined under the Women Infants Children program.

Lawmakers who preferred taxing wealthier individuals and out-of-state corporations through what is called combined reporting vigorously opposed the food tax, saying it would disproportionately affect the poor, several said.

“Let the poor be damned,” said Sen. Gerald Ortiz y Pino, D-Albuquerque.

Added Sen. Eric Griego, D-Albuquerque: “I wonder what else we will find to kick the working families.”

But supporters said it was needed to balance the Senate’s budget proposal

“It actually prevents us from making additional cuts to education … to our seniors. And hopefully it will have a health benefit, in preventing obesity,” said the sponsor, Sen. Bernadette Sanchez, D-Albuquerque.

Sen. Dede Feldman, D-Albuquerque, touted that possible future health benefit as the reason she supported the food tax.

“This will be a boon to New Mexico’s health,” Feldman told her colleagues. “This is what you mother told you to eat. It is a tax on salt, sugar white flour and processed foods.”

Other tax measures to pass would raise the state excise tax on cigarettes by $1 per pack  and non-resident owners of so-called ‘pass through entities’ — for example, business partnerships — would pay withholding taxes on net income earned in New Mexico, according to the legislative analysis.

On the spending side, the Senate proposal recommends more cuts than the House.

It trims 1,000 positions across state government, about 250 more than proposed in the House bill.

Public education, meanwhile, would get $53 million less than in the House proposal. Public education is the state’s biggest ticket item.

Both the Senate and House proposals, however, call for directing more dollars to public education than this year.

The House is proposing $2.319 billion compared to the Senate’s $2.268 billion. This year the state will spend just over $2.1 billion for public education because the Legislature trimmed education spending during an October special session dedicated to addressing the state’s sorry financial state.

Meanwhile, spending on higher education in the Senate proposal comes in $6 million lower than in the House bill. Both proposals dramatically cut spending on higher education from this year’s levels of $816 million.

Other agencies in the Senate proposal facing reductions from this year’s spending levels include the state Department of Health, at $10 million, and the state’s Children Youth and Families Department (CYFD). CYFD would see a decrease of $3 million.

New Mexico courts would experience a $2.6 million reduction.

Some agencies, however, would see funding increases under the Senate proposal. The Corrections department would get $2.5 million more. The state’s share of Medicaid – the government’s low-income health insurance program – would jump from $578 million to nearly $601 million, the handouts show.

Senators voted 27-15 to approve Sen. George Muñoz‘ SB 40 that would allow those with concealed weapon permits to bring their guns into restaurants that serve beer and wine, unless a restaurant opts out of the program.

Legislators attempted to amend the bill five times, though each amendment was shot down. Sen. Peter Wirth, D-Santa Fe, citing law that already makes it a petty misdemeanor to carry a firearm while intoxicated, attempted to add language to make it a fourth-degree felony to have “a sip of beer” while carrying a concealed weapon into a restaurant. The amendment failed by a vote of 16-24.

If SB 40 passes — it must clear the House and get Gov. Bill Richardson‘s signature — restaurant owners who do not want to allow concealed weapons into their establishments are allowed to opt out by posting signs that indicate they do not allow concealed weapons.

Fearing that restaurant owners may not be aware of the change Sen. Tim Keller tried to amend the bill requiring restaurants that allow the weapons to post signs stating concealed weapons are allowed.

A strong opponent of SB 40, Sen. Stephen Fischmann, D-Las Cruces, said Keller’s amendment “makes the difference between whether I can vote for this bill or vote against this bill.”

Fischmann’s opposition came from a belief that currently consumers do not know that weapons are allowed in many establishments and that his constituents disagree with the current policy. He added that his concerns extended to the legislative tendency to “respond to an interest group, rather than what the public wants, “adding that, “if you put up a sign, you give a clear picture to consumer about what they’re walking into and what’s going on.”

Sen. Eric Griego, D-Albuquerque, who offered two failed amendments, agreed with Fischmann’s concerns about interests groups, telling The Independent, on our live blog that this was, “part of a national campaign by the NRA to broaden the use of concealed weapons.”

Both of Griego’s amendments focused on the liability issues facing restaurants that allow concealed weapons in their establishment. The first would have made them liable, along with the gun owner, in the case of an incident involving a concealed weapon. The second would have immunized a business against liability in the case of an incident if they posted signs stating that concealed weapons were not allowed in their restaurant.

Griego’s amendments led to lively discussion, with Sen. Majority Leader Michael Sanchez, D-Belen, answering a question posed by Sen. Dede Feldman, D-Albuquerque, that it is legal to carry a concealed weapon into state buildings, including the Roundhouse, but not schools and court houses.

Feldman asked if anyone in Senate chambers was currently carrying a weapon.

“It seems like we’re on the road to a complete deregulation of concealed weapons,” she said, adding, “I suppose common sense is fading here, but I urge the body to oppose this legislation.”

On the opposite end of the spectrum Sen. David Ulibarri, D-Grants, said, “if  people were allowed to carry guns we would have less crimes,” a sentiment later echoed by Sen. Kent Cravens, D-Albuquerque.

Cravens noted “concealed weapons are already there,” and said that carriers of concealed weapon often offer protection.

An amendment that would have required the carrier of a concealed weapon to alert the manager of a restaurant of his weapon, introduced by Sen. Gerald Ortiz y Pino, D-Albuquerque, also failed.

Photo by Robert Terrell

State government retirees who return to work after July 1 could temporarily lose their pensions under legislation headed to the Senate floor.

The state also would stop paying the employer’s contribution to the retiree’s pension, as is the current practice.

The legislation (SB207), which passed the Senate Finance Committee on Tuesday, is a proposed solution to the practice of double dipping. That’s when state retirees return to work, collecting both a pension and a paycheck.

Critics have pointed out that the state can’t afford double dipping during such bad financial times. Some estimates are that it costs the state several million dollars a year at a time that New Mexico confronts a budget shortfall of several hundred million dollars next year.

Under present rules, in many cases the state continues to contribute to the pension accounts of double dippers, and those contributions eat out of the state’s main account, the general fund.

Other critics say that double dipping keeps younger workers from moving up the job ranks because retirees inhabit them.

The legislation sponsored by Sen. David Ulibarri, D-Grants, wouldn’t affect the roughly 800 double dippers already collecting a pension and a paycheck, officials said. But it would set out new rules for state government retirees who return to work after July 1.

Many of those state government retirees would face a choice if they return to work, particularly if they haven’t retired with a full pension.

The individual retiree could opt to temporarily stop receiving his or her pension while they collect a paycheck. Or the individual could opt to re-enter the pension system, meaning they would in effect un-retire, and earn more service credit toward qualifying for a full pension.

In most cases, a state worker qualifies for a full pension after working 26 years and eight months.

Ulibarri’s bill would exempt certain retirees who return to work from temporarily giving up their pensions. Public safety officers and firefighters who retired with a full pension wouldn’t have to give them up, Ulibarri told lawmakers.

Several state lawmakers expressed unease with Ulibarri’s bill, particularly because it wouldn’t stop those retirees currently double dipping.

Sen. Gerald Ortiz y Pino, D-Albuquerque, also worried that it would provoke a surge in state workers who would retire to take advantage of the current rules, which require a retiree only to wait 90 days before returning to work. Ulibarri’s bill would extend that sit-out period to a year.

“Won’t we experience a surge in retirements?” Ortiz y Pino asked.

Ortiz y Pino also pointed out that current retirees would fall under the more lenient rules if they were to return to work prior to July 1 – they wouldn’t have to temporarily give up their pension.

Paul Ritzma of Gov. Bill Richardson’s office told lawmakers that the governor had contemplated changing the rules on those already collecting a pension and a paycheck. But to “retroactively take that away would result in a lawsuit,” Ritzma said.

Richardson vetoed a bill that passed the Legislature last year that would have affected current double dippers. It would have capped how much retirees returning to work could earn at $30,000. It also required retirees to sit out 12 months after retiring before returning to work.

Sen. Sue Wilson Beffort, R-Sandia Park, said Tuesday she would support Ulibarri’s bill this year, but wanted legislation to take care of those already double dipping.

“We’ve got to have another bill,” Beffort said.

Sen. John Arthur Smith, D-Deming, told Ulibarri “I don’t think the bill does a whole lot to solve the problems.”

“You have no guarantees that the people who voted for this will vote” for this on the Senate floor, Smith told Ulibarri.

Sen. McSorley speaks to supporters

Approximately 100 people turned up at the New Mexico state capital Monday to support domestic partnership bill (SB 183) expected to be heard in the Senate this week.
Reps. Brian Egolf and Mimi Stewart and Sens. Cisco McSorley and Gerald Ortiz y Pino joined Equality New Mexico Interim Executive Director Jordon Johnson and Episcopalian priest Daniel Gutierrez in support of the bill, which would offer domestic partners rights similar to those of married couples.

“This will go through the House,” Egolf assured the crowd, “the Senate is where the fight is.”

Stewart told the crowd that because the Senate didn’t want language equating domestic partnership to marriage, that language was removed from the 800-plus page bill.

The next step for SB 183 is a Tuesday afternoon joint committee meeting of the Senate Judiciary and Senate Public Affairs committees. McSorley, in anticipation of lengthy debate, asked his colleagues in the Senate to attend the Tuesday meeting in order to allow supporters to be present and to avoid redundant questions in future meetings.

Janice Bruce-Hightower, who told The Independent that she met her partner 10 years after it became legal for blacks and whites to marry, was concerned that if her partner of 27 years were hospitalized she wouldn’t have the right to visit her.

For James Brethour, this issue and the rights of property after death were what brought him to the capitol today.

“For married couples property is transfered automatically,” he said, “but I have no guarantees of that, or even of being able to visit the hospital.”

While legal concerns were on the minds of many of the attendees, acceptance of LGBT people was the main motivation for rally organizer Wenda Watch. “The big challenge we face is fear,” Watch told The Independent. “People are scared that their kids are going to get beat up like Matthew Shepard did. They think their kids will choose this lifestyle, and it really is fear for children. They think allowing domestic partnership is one more step to making it okay to be LGBT.”

Nearly half of those in attendance in support of domestic partnership were young people. High school students Lilly Lawrence-Metzler, Emerald Lueras and Jasmine Ramsey, and college student Kody Moore, came to the rally as representatives of local queer-straight alliances. Though years away from being worried about healthcare costs and rights, Lawrence-Metzler told The Independent that the students came because they felt everyone deserves equal rights.

“We’re lucky enough to go to schools that are accepting,”  Lawrence-Metzler said, “but not everyone our age has that.”

Father Gutierrez asked that anyone still opposed “look into the eyes of each one of us to the simple compassion that drives each of us,” adding that “Christ came to release the oppressed,” and saying “there is no better example than here.”

The New Mexico Conference of Catholic Bishops has been the bill’s largest opposition.

• Gerald Ortiz y Pino raised $22,032, spent $10,621.79 and had $11,410.21 on hand at the end of the reporting period that lasted from May to October, according to his report.

• Linda Lopez raised $16,830.10, including a $7,000 contribution from Westland Corp. (SunCal). She spent $3,168.40 and had $13,661.70 on hand, according to her report.

There are also fundraising reports online for Republican candidates for lieutenant governor and candidates for other statewide races. You can view those reports by clicking here.

Not all are yet online. If any more especially interesting ones pop up, I’ll write about them.

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The candidates in the race for Lieutenant Governor are Santa Fe County Sheriff Greg Solano, Albuquerque state Sens. Linda Lopez and Gerald Ortiz y Pino, and state Rep. Jose Campos of Santa Rosa. Former state Democratic Party Chairman Brian Colón and veteran politico Lawrence Rael are raising money but haven’t officially announced — thought both Colón and Rael look to be included in the Santa Fe Democratic Party’s count of seven.

Law student and former Naval officer Matthew Padilla is also considering a run.

The debate began during consideration of a bill that would address this year’s budget shortfall when Sen. Mark Boitano, R-Albuquerque, proposed an amendment that would have appropriated $7,000 for the purpose of setting up a Web site to broadcast Senate proceedings over the Internet. The Senate has already spent more than $30,000 to purchase the necessary equipment and installed it, but legislative leaders had the equipment taken down recently, arguing that the budget crunch prevented any further expenditures for webcasting.

Ultimately, Boitano withdrew his amendment after others stressed the need to approve the emergency budget fix without a controversial issue bogging it down. That was preceded, however, by an interesting debate.

It’s the Senate Committees’ Committee that has rejected the will of the bipartisan majority of senators and refused to begin webcasting. Sen. Gerald Ortiz y Pino, D-Albuquerque, was critical of that.

“We simply need our leaders to do what we’ve asked them to do,” Ortiz y Pino said. “… The money is there. We just need to tell the Committees’ Committee, ‘The money is there. Get it done.’”

But some senators aren’t ready to concede that point and spent time today debating the merits of webcasting.

“You think the debates are long now. Wait until they’re televised. You’ll never get out of here. People will pontificate,” said Sen. Phil Griego, D-San Jose. “… They will want to grandstand and become their district’s movie star.”

On the other hand, Sen. Rod Adair, R-Roswell, said webcasting would help ensure less pontification.

“If there’s any incentive not to look ridiculous, not to bore the world to death, not to talk for two hours, it is knowing that the people of New Mexico can see,” Adair said.

Sen. John Arthur Smith, D-Deming and the sponsor of the budget bill being considered, said he worried that the debate on webcasting was taking the focus off the financial condition of the state.

“There is, in fact, an emergency,” Smith said.

It was at that point that Boitano withdrew his proposed amendment to the budget bill, but he said he will introduce a separate bill to provide the funding and hopes to begin webcasting live from the Senate in the next couple of weeks.

Adair argued that money isn’t the real reason the Senate hasn’t begun webcasting.

“We either have the will or we don’t have the will to do it. It’s not about money,” he said. “… It’s just about doing the right things in terms of open government.”

GOP jumps into debate

Meanwhile, the Republican Party of New Mexico jumped into the debate over webcasting today by delivering instant coffee and mugs to Democrats on the House Rules and Order of Business Committee and urging them to support House Resolution 2, which would give chairs of House committees the discretion to decide whether to allow webcasting of their meetings.

The coffee was given in response to a previous comment by Rep. Ray Begaye, D-Shiprock, who said he worried that webcasting would allow opponents to capture and use video of him sleeping for political gain. Begaye later said he supports webcasting.

Also today, former state Rep. Rory Ogle, R-Albuquerque, sent a letter to lawmakers urging them to begin webcasting or broadcasting proceedings on television. He wrote that the Legislature has a responsibility “to provide the citizens of New Mexico with every opportunity to participate or observe the Legislature while you are in session.”

By the way, it should be noted that I would not have been able to listen to the Senate debate and write this blog posting from my office in Las Cruces without the live audio webcast from the Senate floor brought to us all by KUNM-FM.