Heath Haussamen
The New Mexico House of Representatives took three giant steps forward in the area of government transparency today by approving resolutions that allow the expansion of webcasting and require, for the first time, that floor roll-call votes be posted online.
The House, on voice votes that were unanimous or near-unanimous, approved:
• House Resolution 1, sponsored by Minority Whip Keith Gardner, R-Roswell, which allows the expansion of webcasting from the House floor to include video.
• House Resolution 2, sponsored by Jeff Steinborn, D-Las Cruces, which makes permanent a temporary House rule that allows webcasting of committee meetings during legislative sessions.
• House Resolution 3, sponsored by Zachary Cook, R-Ruidoso, which requires that House floor roll-call votes be posted on the Legislature’s Web site within a day of the votes being taken.
All three resolutions began the day still needing the approval of the House Rules and Order of Business Committee, but were quickly moved through the process to final passage. The New Mexico Foundation for Open Government was quick to praise the changes.
“The Legislature has responded to an overwhelming public demand for access to its proceedings,” FOG Executive Director Sarah Welsh said in a news release. “Just a year ago, webcasting was wildly controversial – now it’s a no-brainer.”
“With these new rules, we’re another big step closer to comprehensive, real-time access to our elected officials,” she said. “Imagine sitting in your living room in Silver City or Raton, and watching your representative argue the finer points of a new tax bill before a key committee… now that’s open government.”
The Senate already has video webcasting from its floor and posts its floor roll-call votes online, but it doesn’t have official webcasting of committee meetings.
Don’t expect video webcasting from the House floor to begin immediately. The next step is determining the cost of such a move. All official legislative webcasting can be found here.
The House deserves nothing but praise for approving these three rule changes today. These are huge steps toward making legislative proceedings and action available to the state’s citizens like never before. It’s a good day for open government in New Mexico.
Update, 3 p.m.
Steinborn wrote in an e-mail that his bill not only makes the temporary rule allowing audio webcasting of committee meetings permanent, but it actually mandates audio webcasting of committee meetings this session and mandates audio and video webcasting of committee meetings in future sessions. Even better!