The Senate, which has been playing hardball with Gov. Bill Richardson this session, approved the state budget in a surprise move on Friday night in what appears to be an attempt to limit the time the governor has to exercise his line-item veto authority.
House Bill 2 was approved on a vote of 33-5, but significant changes mean it goes back to the House for concurrence before it can go to the governor.
The bill provides for a $5.65-billion budget, with about $5 million in changes made by the Senate after the House approved it. The Senate also approved $106 million in tax cuts.
Last year, the governor vetoed a number of projects, upsetting the Senate. The Legislature effectively overrode many of those vetoes this year by approving Senate Bill 710, sponsored by Michael Sanchez, D-Belen, which provides $82 million for capital outlay projects around the state, most of which were vetoed by the governor last year.
The governor signed the bill last week.
Early passage of the budget bill may prevent such widespread cuts this year, according to the Las Cruces Sun-News.
Any bill sent to the governor before the third-to-last day of the session must be acted on in three days, according to the New Mexico Constitution. If there’s no action, the bill goes into law without the governor’s signature. If a bill isn’t sent until the last three days, the governor has 20 days to act, and those he doesn’t sign are vetoed.
The Senate’s hope is apparently to get the bill to the governor by March 14, giving him only three days to comb through it before he has to act.
A prior version of this posting incorrectly quoted Sen. John Arthur Smith, D-Deming, as saying the move was an attempt to limit the governor’s time to veto. Smith did not say that.