A Senate committee has given new life to the push to open legislative conference committees to the public.
Last week, on a vote of 20-19, the Senate killed Senate Bill 288, which would have done just that. But a second bill that is slightly different was endorsed by the Senate Public Affairs Committee on a 5-3 vote on Thursday, according to the Santa Fe New Mexican.
Senate Bill 322, sponsored by Joe Carraro, R-Albuquerque, now moves to the Senate floor.
“Conference committees are small groups of lawmakers that hash out differences in the final version of legislation behind closed doors,” the newspaper quoted Carraro as saying. “I think there’s a flaw in our system when we don’t have open meetings.”
The differences in this bill, which some say give it a better chance of passing, are that it excludes conference committees from the sanctions in the Open Meetings Act, that it specifies that the public can be present but cannot participate in conference committees, and that political parties will have proportional representation on committees.
The committees are currently made up of two Democrats and one Republican from the House and Senate.
Here we go again.