The legislative committee that crafts the budget shelved a bill last night that would open conference committees to the public because most of its members don’t like that it would also shine light on their own closed-door meetings.
Would you believe that the House Appropriations and Finance Committee actually had the gall on Wednesday to table a bill that would open legislative conference committees and some other currently closed-door meetings to the public?
That even in these times, when the Richardson administration is dogged by pay-to-play allegations, when the former Senate president has admitted to using the legislative process to help steal millions of dollars in taxpayer money, when scandal after scandal after scandal is further jading an already skeptical public, the majority of members of the committee voted to shelve a proposal that would increase transparency and public confidence in the Legislature?
I didn’t believe it when I first heard it. After all, the committee’s members gave the same proposal a do-pass recommendation on a vote of 18-0 the last time it came before them, in 2007.
But it’s true. This time, the committee tabled the bill. The reason, apparently, has nothing to do with conference committees, which are the meetings of three House members and three Senate members who are tasked with reconciling differences between versions bills that have passed both chambers.
The appropriations committee’s tabling of the bill apparently has to do with its own closed-door meetings — the executive sessions it holds periodically when its members decide there’s a compelling reason, usually while they’re crafting the state’s budget, to shut and lock the doors and do their work in secret. Or, at least, that was the reason some members gave for opposing the bill on Wednesday.
You see, House Bill 393, sponsored by Rep. Joseph Cervantes, D-Las Cruces, wouldn’t just open conference committees to the public. It would open to the public any legislative meeting at which a quorum of members is present, except investigative or quasi-judicial meetings — such as impeachment proceedings — and political party caucus meetings.
So the bill would require that those currently closed-door sessions of the House appropriations committee be open to the public.
Sure, open meetings — just not ours
Some committee members who voted to table Cervantes’ bill on Wednesday indicated they may be willing to reconsider the bill if it is altered to exempt their own closed-door meetings.
It’s almost as if those committee members are saying, “Sure, transparency is good. Legislative meetings should be open to the public — just not our legislative meetings.”
Which is why I used the word “gall” to describe the committee’s tabling of the bill in the opening sentence of this column.
This is the committee that crafts the state’s budget of several billion dollars each year. This committee is ground zero for negotiations on who’s going to get their bread buttered at the expense of the state’s taxpayers.
Conference committees come at the very end of that process. The House Appropriations and Finance Committee’s secret meetings come at the beginning.
This clinging to secrecy creates the appearance that the majority of the committee’s members — those who voted to shelve the Cervantes bill — have something to hide. Perhaps they’re making secret deals to ensure programs that employ their family members get funded. Perhaps they’re making sure that their campaign contributors’ programs get the money they need. Maybe these secret meetings are at the heart of the nepotism and pay-to-play problems that plague state government.
We don’t know, because we don’t currently get to see what happens in these meetings. And that is absurd.
There’s no good argument against open meetings
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: There’s no good argument against opening legislative meetings such as conference committees to the public. The business of forming public policy should be conducted in full view of the public. It’s that simple.
The committee left the onus on Cervantes to bring a revised bill back to them if he wants. I called Cervantes Wednesday evening to ask if he’s going to try to revive his bill by watering it down and adding an exemption for the appropriations committee meetings.
“I think I need to talk to individual committee members and have a better understanding of their concern with the bill as written,” Cervantes said.
He shouldn’t have to do that. The House appropriations committee should approve the bill as written and agree to let the light shine in on its own process. Otherwise, in Santa Fe’s scandal-plagued culture of secrecy, the committee’s work — the genesis for the entire state budget — lacks integrity.
I don’t yet have the record of how each committee member voted, though I’m told the decision was largely party-line, with Republicans generally supportive of the bill. If I get a better breakdown of the vote, you’ll see it here.
Update, 1:15 p.m.
The vote was 10-4 in favor of tabling. Here’s the breakdown, according to The Santa Fe New Mexican’s Steve Terrell:
Voting to table
Ray Begaye
Brian Egolf
Joni Gutierrez
Rhonda King
Patty Lundstrom
Danice Picraux
Kiki Saavedra
Don Tripp
Lucky Varela
Jeanette Wallace
Voting against tabling
Richard Berry
John Heaton
Larry Larranaga
Kathy McCoy
Absent
Antonio Lujan
Richard Vigil
Nick Salazar
Don Bratton