The annual battle in the Senate to open legislative conference committees to the public hasn’t yet begun, but the proposal is making its way through the House.
House Bill 393, sponsored by Joseph Cervantes, D-Las Cruces, has already received a do-pass recommendation from the House Judiciary Committee — of which Cervantes is vice chair — on a vote of 12-0. It’s scheduled to be considered Wednesday by the House Appropriations and Finance Committee, where it passed on a vote of 18-0 the last time it was considered, in 2007.
Assuming the Appropriations and Finance Committee OKs it, the bill would then go to the full House for a vote. The last time the House voted on the conference-committee bill, in 2007, it passed 53-5.
Meanwhile, the Senate version of the bill — Senate Bill 150, sponsored by Dede Feldman, D-Albuquerque — is awaiting scheduling in the Senate Rules Committee, and must also pass the Senate Public Affairs Committee before reaching the Senate floor.
The proposal passed the Rules Committee on a vote of 4-2 in 2007, the last time it was considered. And it passed the Public Affairs Committee, which Feldman chairs, on a vote of 7-1. But it died on the Senate floor on a vote of 19-20 two years ago.
Close Senate votes on the issue have become a regular happening in the Legislature. Many believe the proposal will pass this year, if it reaches the Senate floor, because there are several new members who may be more favorable to it.
Conference committee meetings are currently closed to the public, including legislators who aren’t members of the committee. The committees convene when the House and Senate must reconcile differences between versions of the same proposal that both chambers have approved. Typically, committees are made up of three senators and three representatives.
I’ve expressed my support for open conference committees several times, most recently in this column.