Gov. Bill Richardson is considering serving up a TIDD combo plate to lawmakers in a special session later this year, and that could put some House members from Las Cruces in a tough spot.
Two very different proposals to use the controversial tax increment development district financing to fund projects died in the legislative session that just ended.
One would have provided up to $7.25 million to fund redevelopment of Las Cruces’ downtown by committing a percentage of gross receipts tax revenue collected in the area to repay bonds. It’s a project that’s a local-government effort.
The second, a proposal to provide $408 million for the massive SunCal development on Albuquerque’s west side, is a developer-driven project to build an entirely new development.
The Las Cruces bill passed the Senate unanimously but died in the House as the session expired because the speaker refused to call it up for a vote. The second and more controversial bill also passed the Senate but died in the House on two tie votes on the last day of the session.
Now the governor is considering combing them into one bill and presenting them to lawmakers in a special session that will be called to deal with the budget in the fall, according to the New Mexico Independent.
“I haven’t finally decided to do it,” the Independent quoted Richardson as saying during the signing of another TIDD bill in Albuquerque on Wednesday. “But I am considering it.”
Instrumental in SunCal TIDD’s defeat
That has some questioning whether combining the two bills would be all about forcing the Doña Ana County House delegation to give SunCal its TIDD, which has failed to gain legislative approval two years in a row.
The Las Cruces-area House members were significant in the defeat of the SunCal TIDD last month. Four of the seven voted against the bill on the first vote and, the second time, voted against the motion to reconsider the first vote. A fifth — Rep. Joni Gutierrez, D-Las Cruces — skipped the first vote but voted in favor of reconsideration on the second vote. And a sixth — Rep. Nate Cote, D-Las Cruces — voted against the bill the first time but was absent for the second vote.
Putting the bills together might pressure some of those Las Cruces-area lawmakers to reconsider their SunCal TIDD votes, some say, because voting against it would also kill a proposal that would direct millions of dollars to a high-profile project in Las Cruces. And getting some of them to flip their votes might be enough to get the SunCal TIDD through the Legislature.
“Why else would you combine them other than to get a better result?” Sandy Buffett, executive director of Conservation Voters of New Mexico, was quoted by the Independent as saying. Her organization was among those that led the charge to defeat the SunCal TIDD.
If the governor does decide to put TIDDs on the call for the special session and find a legislator to introduce these two bills as one, lawmakers wouldn’t necessarily be forced to vote on them together. Other legislators could also introduce the bills separately.