This article has been updated.
The Senate could vote today on whether to open conferences committees and other legislative meetings to the public, and it’s even possible you’ll be able to watch the debate, if it happens, online.
I wrote earlier this week that the question was whether Majority Leader Michael Sanchez, D-Belen, would challenge an unusual procedural move and try to reassign Senate Bill 737, sponsored by Dede Feldman, D-Albuquerque, to the Senate Rules Committee instead of scheduling it for a vote on the Senate floor. Sanchez answered that question late Friday when he left the bill on the Senate floor.
And it’s No. 25 on the agenda for today’s Senate session.
It may or may not come up for a vote today. If it does, it’s possible that live audio and video of the debate on the transparency proposal will be webcast. The Santa Fe Reporter has a photo of the webcasting camera that was installed in the Senate on Saturday following Friday’s vote approving video webcasting. We’re just not sure when the camera will be turned on.
Even if the official Senate video webcast doesn’t begin on Sunday, you can listen to an audio webcast of the floor session, which is scheduled to begin at 1 p.m., by clicking here or here.
Two other bills that would open conference committees to the public — Feldman’s Senate Bill 150 and House Bill 393, sponsored by Rep. Joseph Cervantes, D-Las Cruces — have been languishing in the Rules Committee. Because of that, Feldman used Senate Bill 737 and an unusual procedural move last week to force a Senate floor vote on the issue.
Feldman replaced what’s called a “dummy bill” — one that contains no actual legislation but can be replaced with a committee substitute after the deadline for new legislation passes — with a mirror of House Bill 393, which had already passed the House. The dummy bill had been assigned only to the Senate Public Affairs Committee, which Feldman chairs, and the committee quickly sent the replacement bill to the Senate floor.
It would not have been uncommon at that point for Sanchez to send the replacement for the dummy bill to the same committee to which similar bills had been assigned.
Since he didn’t do that, it’s now a matter of the bill being called up for a vote. Might happen today, might not. Time will tell…
Update, 3:20 p.m.
The Senate didn’t actually convene until about 3 p.m. Sanchez just listed 12 bills on today’s agenda that he plans to hear first, and Feldman’s bill isn’t among them. I’m guessing it won’t be heard today. I’ll let you know if that changes.