Richardson threatens to hold special session in May

Gov. Bill Richardson is threatening to call a special session in May to deal with universal health care, saying he’s not pleased with the progress of Senate leaders who had agreed to work toward consensus in exchange for delaying the session until the summer.

“The governor has tried to work with Senate leaders to move this issue forward and forge an agreement on health care before a special session,” Richardson spokesman Gilbert Gallegos said. “But Senate leaders have only met once, and there has been no progress whatsoever. The governor will now meet with House leaders, and he is inclined to hold a special session in May.”

House Speaker Ben Lujan could not be immediately reached for comment.

Every member of the Legislature is up for re-election this year, and a number are facing contested primaries on June 3. Several lawmakers in Las Cruces, Albuquerque and Roswell are facing tough primary contests. A special session weeks before that would put a great deal of pressure on those lawmakers to compromise quickly so they could get back to campaigning.

The House approved a rewritten – and some said watered-down – version of Richardson’s universal health-care plan during the regular session earlier this year, but the Senate refused to touch it. Richardson said immediately after the session that he would call lawmakers back and was inclined to do it immediately.

But Senate leaders and Richardson put aside an increasingly contentious relationship to meet in February, and emerged from that meeting agreeing to form a working group to try to build consensus. In exchange, Richardson agreed to delay the special session until at least mid-June.

Senate Finance Chair John Arthur Smith, D-Deming, said the working group has met twice – once with Richardson staffers and once with Legislative Council Service to line up experts to testify and coordinate dates. He said the second meeting didn’t include Richardson’s people because it was only organizational.

He also said he still holds to the argument he made to Richardson in February – the state can’t know whether it has money to pay for universal health care until revenue forecasts are released in June. That’s one reason Senate leaders sought the delay of the special session.

“I’ve said from day one I would dearly love to have universal health care, but I just don’t know how we’re going to pay for it,” Smith said. “I’m not wanting to move until I see what those revenues are.”

Smith said he can understand the governor’s frustration, but he said he hasn’t seen “anything in the national outlook to generate optimism” about the economy.

“He’s going to have to do whatever he thinks he has to do, and of course the Legislature will have to do whatever we think we have to do,” Smith said.

Smith said there’s another potential problem on the horizon: The federal government has yet to approve an extension of Medicaid funding for the University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center. If that funding isn’t approved by mid-May, the center is set to lose $48 million, Smith said. The state Legislature might have to meet in special session to consider what to do about that, if it becomes a reality, he said.

This posting has been updated to clarify the fact surrounding the funding for the UNM Health Sciences Center.