{"id":1004,"date":"2006-12-15T16:03:00","date_gmt":"2006-12-15T22:03:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/2006\/12\/incredible-power-at-stake-in-house-speaker-race\/"},"modified":"2006-12-15T16:03:00","modified_gmt":"2006-12-15T22:03:00","slug":"incredible-power-at-stake-in-house-speaker-race","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2006\/12\/incredible-power-at-stake-in-house-speaker-race\/","title":{"rendered":"Incredible power at stake in House speaker race"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>The weekend before House Democrats choose one of the most powerful people in state government will be colored by private phone calls, closed-door meetings, deals and other political wrangling. <\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Lots could happen before Monday\u2019s vote. House members are anxiously awaiting articles about Speaker of the House Ben Lujan that may run in newspapers this weekend.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

The Santa Fe New Mexican<\/a> will profile Lujan and take a look at his career. Many sources have also told me the Albuquerque Journal<\/a> plans to run an article looking at ties between Lujan and former Region III Housing Authority Director Vincent \u201cSmiley\u201d Gallegos, but I\u2019ve been unable to confirm that.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>If there\u2019s any doubt that that the stakes are high, lawmakers tell me a multitude of lobbyists, the governor and even the president of the Navajo Nation may be involved in pushing House Democrats to vote for either Lujan or Ken Martinez at Monday\u2019s caucus meeting.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

The House speaker is a powerful position.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

\u201cPeople should care about the speaker because he is the leader of the legislative branch and the most powerful person in the entire Legislature,\u201d said Rep. Al Park, D-Albuquerque. Park wanted to make clear that he was speaking as the House parliamentarian and was not commenting on the race between Lujan and Martinez<\/st1:place><\/st1:city>.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

The Senate has powerful leaders too, but the duties are divided in that half of the Legislature. The Senate president leads a committee that makes committee assignments, but the majority leader controls the docket.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

In the House, the speaker controls everything. He or she decides who sits on what committee, which committees get to hear bills and how many committees will hear a bill before the full House votes on it. He or she assigns office space, staff and parking spaces to House members.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

All that colors the fact that that House drafts the annual budget before it goes to the Senate for approval.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Though the Senate president is fourth in the line of succession to the governorship and the speaker is fifth, in practice, the speaker is more powerful. That makes him or her arguably the second most powerful person in state government.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

The speaker is certainly the most powerful person in state government who isn\u2019t elected to that position by the voters.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Rep. Mary Helen Garcia, D-Las Cruces, said there\u2019s also a difference in the cultures of the two legislative chambers. She said Democratic senators more openly disagree with each other. Debate is encouraged. In the House, she said, there\u2019s a tendency to line up behind the speaker.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

\u201cSo we have to elect someone who will involve us in the decision making,\u201d said Garcia, a supporter of Martinez<\/st1:place><\/st1:city>. \u201cI strongly believe that we shouldn\u2019t have an autocratic leader that tries to dictate to us.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Garcia and other Martinez<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> supporters say Lujan has been such a dictator.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

But others say he has been a leader who has worked with the governor to accomplish a lot. The House has certainly gone along with the governor\u2019s agenda more than the Senate in the last four years.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Most House members weren\u2019t expecting Martinez<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> to challenge Lujan this year. The shock of what\u2019s happening has created deep divisions among House Democrats, and some wounds could exist for years, though Democrats will likely present a united front behind whoever is elected speaker when they emerge from Monday\u2019s meeting.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Until then, the vote count is nebulous, and the only agreement is that it\u2019s extremely close. A few House members are keeping how they\u2019ll vote secret. Some say the weekend\u2019s news articles could end up tipping the balance on way or the other.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

No other House Democrats I contacted for this article were willing to speak on the record. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The weekend before House Democrats choose one of the most powerful people in state government will be colored by private phone calls, closed-door meetings, deals and other political wrangling. Lots could happen before Monday\u2019s vote. House members are anxiously awaiting articles about Speaker of the House Ben Lujan that may run in newspapers this weekend. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1004","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1004","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1004"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1004\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1004"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1004"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1004"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}