{"id":12714,"date":"2010-02-07T22:48:39","date_gmt":"2010-02-08T05:48:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=12714"},"modified":"2010-02-08T12:35:07","modified_gmt":"2010-02-08T19:35:07","slug":"constituents-expect-their-legislators-to-vote","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2010\/02\/constituents-expect-their-legislators-to-vote\/","title":{"rendered":"Constituents expect their legislators to vote"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Heath Haussamen<\/p><\/div>\n

I\u2019m betting that most other voters are like me: When they vote for a candidate for state representative, they expect that person to be present for important votes when possible.<\/p>\n

Of course, a 30- or 60-day session of the New Mexico Legislature is a long time to be in the Roundhouse and away from home. Our lawmakers arrive at work early, stay late, and often come in on the weekends. And they\u2019re not paid to do it.<\/p>\n

So it makes sense that doctors\u2019 appointments would cause lawmakers to miss votes sometimes. That\u2019s life.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s why I don\u2019t find it egregious that two Republican state representatives missed a close vote Friday on whether to raise the gross receipts tax by a half cent. Both had doctors\u2019 appointments and were out of town.<\/p>\n

Two Democrats, however, missed the close, contentious vote even though they were in the Roundhouse at the time.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s how it went down<\/h3>\n

To recap what I wrote previously<\/a>, House Democrats had been meeting behind closed doors for days to debate the tax-hike proposal from Speaker Ben Lujan<\/a>. The speaker knew it would be a close vote, and there was a lot of behind-the-scenes wrangling.<\/p>\n

On Friday he called his bill up for a floor vote. Democratic Reps. Danice Picraux<\/a> and Karen Giannini<\/a> were absent, having been previously \u2013 and conveniently \u2013 excused.<\/p>\n

You\u2019d assume that means they were off taking care of some important personal business, right? They apparently weren\u2019t. A search of the Roundhouse during a call of the House turned them up, and they were brought to the House floor.<\/p>\n

An angry-looking Lujan got on the phone, and Giannini and Picraux quickly vanished again. The vote was taken without them and the two Republicans who were at doctors\u2019 appointments, and Lujan\u2019s bill passed 34-32.<\/p>\n

The two Democratic representatives magically reappeared on the House floor moments later, after debate on the next bill had begun.<\/p>\n

Call me an idealist\u2026<\/h3>\n

I\u2019m the kind of person who can stomach a vote on an important piece of legislation going either way \u2013 regardless of my personal opinion \u2013 as long as the bill passes or fails because members are voting based on what they believe to be right or what they believe their constituents want. Call me an idealist, but I believe that\u2019s exactly what the U.S. and state constitutions intend.<\/p>\n

In this instance, with two Republican members missing for valid reasons, an important piece of legislation passed by two votes while two Democrats were ostensibly hiding out somewhere in the Roundhouse to avoid voting.<\/p>\n

For all we know they would have voted no and, together, had the power to kill Lujan\u2019s bill by making it a tie vote, so the speaker successfully pressured them to take a walk.<\/p>\n

I called both women on their cell phones shortly after the vote on Friday. Neither answered or returned my messages. Giannini made two appearances on the New Mexico Independent\u2019s liveblog<\/a> later that day, and both times I asked her to talk about the situation.<\/p>\n

She vanished from the liveblog both times without another word.<\/p>\n

For shame<\/h3>\n

I realize it\u2019s difficult to stand up to the speaker. He\u2019s the second most powerful official in state government and a master of behind-the-scenes politics. And he doesn\u2019t really care if things play out in full view of the public. What happened Friday was so obvious to many who were watching, but he unashamedly made it happen anyway.<\/p>\n

Such people remain in power and acting like bullies unless the members who give them those positions of authority refuse to allow it. I\u2019m pretty sure most of Picraux\u2019s and Giannini\u2019s constituents wanted them on the floor for the vote on Lujan\u2019s bill regardless of whether Lujan wanted them to be present.<\/p>\n

Instead of standing up for the people they\u2019re elected to serve, Picraux and Giannini apparently bowed to the will of the speaker.<\/p>\n

Shame on them.<\/p>\n

Haussamen bio<\/a> \u2502 Commentary archives<\/a> \u2502 Feed<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Friday, a controversial piece of legislation narrowly passed the House while two Democrats were ostensibly hiding out somewhere in the Roundhouse to avoid voting. I\u2019m pretty sure that isn\u2019t what those representatives\u2019 constituents wanted them to do.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1192,10],"tags":[107],"class_list":["post-12714","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-commentary","category-haussamen-columns","tag-roundhouse"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12714","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=12714"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12714\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12714"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12714"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12714"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}