House Minority Whip Dan Foley, R-Roswell, says House Republicans have enough votes to blast a bill that would remake the state’s troubled housing authority system out of the Business and Industry Committee if its members don’t OK the proposal when they meet at 8:30 a.m. Friday morning.
Senate Bill 519, sponsored by Sen. Mary Kay Papen, D-
The committee earlier killed its mirror bill, House Bill 997, sponsored by Rep. Janice Arnold-Jones, R-Albuquerque, and has left Papen’s bill in limbo, but Foley noted that a number of Democrats, including Speaker of the House Ben Lujan and the committee’s chair, Rep. Debbie Rodella, D-Ohkay Owingeh, signed on to Arnold-Jones’ bill before the committee killed it.
It would take all Republicans and eight House Democrats to bring the bill out of committee and to the House floor.
“Judging by the number of Democrats who signed on to House Bill 997, we believe we have ample votes to bring it to the House floor if we have to,” Foley said this evening. “As a courtesy, we’re giving them until tomorrow morning.”
Lujan says he supports the bill but doesn’t support blasting it out of committee. Most don’t believe him when he insists he isn’t trying to kill the proposal.
Foley has sponsored another bill, House Bill 1321, which would fund the investigation but not overhaul the system. Earlier this evening, Lujan allowed his bill to bypass the Judiciary Committee, to which he had assigned it, and placed it in the Appropriations and Finance Committee – its last stop before it reaches the House floor.
Foley said he prefers Papen’s bill to his own, because hers provides oversight of the system, and his does not.
“We want to get this done so we can get back to the business of building homes and putting low-income people in homes,” Foley said.