{"id":128649,"date":"2016-02-18T12:05:51","date_gmt":"2016-02-18T19:05:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=128649"},"modified":"2016-02-20T19:47:40","modified_gmt":"2016-02-21T02:47:40","slug":"relatively-productive-cooperative-session-comes-to-an-end","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2016\/02\/relatively-productive-cooperative-session-comes-to-an-end\/","title":{"rendered":"Relatively productive, cooperative session comes to an end"},"content":{"rendered":"

A driver’s license fix<\/a> that makes New Mexico compliant with the federal REAL ID Act, gives\u00a0immigrants without legal status a way to drive legally, and ends a bitter five-year political battle.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>

Heath Haussamen \/ NMPolitics.net<\/p>

For a 30-day session — one during which shifting economic forecasts necessitated a rewrite of the fiscal year 2017 budget — the session of the New Mexico Legislature that ended Thursday was arguably productive. From driver’s licenses to the state’s finances, Democrats and Republicans worked together to find compromise.<\/p><\/div>\n

A proposed amendment to the state Constitution<\/a> that would let judges hold\u00a0some people accused of violent crimes in jail without bail while awaiting trial, give people accused of nonviolent crimes a way to get out of jail even if they can’t afford bail, and save counties millions of dollars on jail costs each year.<\/p>\n

Upgrades to the state’s campaign reporting system to make it more accountable\u00a0and accessible<\/a>\u00a0— albeit without any funding<\/a> to implement the upgrades.<\/p>\n

Oh, and in a year that will be remembered for the affect falling\u00a0oil prices had on the state’s coffers, a budget. A $6.2 billion budget<\/a> that makes some cuts and sweeps funds to temporarily prop up spending but avoids tax increases and job losses.<\/p>\n

For a 30-day session — one during which shifting economic forecasts necessitated a rewrite of the fiscal year 2017 budget — the session of the New Mexico Legislature\u00a0that ended Thursday\u00a0was arguably productive. From driver’s licenses to the state’s finances, Democrats and Republicans worked together to find compromise.<\/p>\n

That’s especially noteworthy given that all 112 state legislative districts are up for grabs in November.\u00a0On many issues, election posturing took a backseat to solving problems. Even Gov. Susana Martinez, a\u00a0Republican, and Senate Majority Leader Michael Sanchez, a Democrat\u00a0—\u00a0whose disdain for each other is palpable\u00a0—\u00a0toned down the rhetoric and got things done.<\/p>\n

That was apparent as the session wound down Thursday. During\u00a0a discussion of a memorial<\/a> that\u00a0urges state agencies “to protect declining bee populations,” Sen. Cliff Pirtle, R-Roswell, referenced “the\u00a0spirit of this legislative session, which has been a compromise session.”<\/p>\n

The issues\u00a0on which lawmakers found bipartisan compromise also included legislation to make more readily available a drug to reverse opioid overdoses<\/a>, a bill to clarify regulations for ride-booking companies<\/a> like Uber and Lyft,\u00a0and a proposal\u00a0to expand voting rights to some 17-year-olds<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The tension that often characterizes the final day of sessions — which is\u00a0constitutionally mandated to end at noon — was absent in the 2016\u00a0session’s final hours. Lawmakers were aware they’d accomplished much of what they went to Santa Fe to do, and they weren’t frantically racing the clock.<\/p>\n

“This is the calmest last day I’ve seen in 20-something years,” Sanchez said Thursday on the Senate floor. “I don’t know that I’ve ever seen it this calm before.”<\/p>\n

Working ‘with many stakeholders’<\/h3>\n

During the session, which was primarily focused on the budget, Martinez and House Republicans also got some of the tough-on-crime bills they wanted. The Legislature sent\u00a0bills to strengthen child pornography penalties<\/a> and crack down on repeat DWI offenders<\/a> to the governor early\u00a0Thursday. And, at a time when the U.S. Congress appears\u00a0incapable of acting on any legislation related to guns and gun deaths, New Mexico’s state lawmakers approved a\u00a0bill that requires the state to report\u00a0mental health records<\/a> to a federal background check system used by firearms sellers.<\/p>\n

Perhaps the most tense moments of the session came when Attorney General Hector Balderas opposed an\u00a0amendment to the\u00a0child-porn bill<\/a>\u00a0that exempted\u00a0kids 14 to 17 years old who engage in the consensual exchange of explicit photos<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But Balderas appeared to be standing largely alone. The attorney general\u00a0was chastised by one senator on Wednesday\u00a0who said he\u00a0“has not been helpful to this process” — and senators then voted to kick the attorney general’s staffers off the Senate floor<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The child-porn bill, with the amendment Balderas opposed, passed\u00a0both chambers unanimously early Thursday, illustrating how policymakers from both parties were able to find compromise on many issues this session.<\/p>\n

The bill’s\u00a0sponsor, Rep. Sarah Maestas Barnes, R-Albuquerque, said she had “worked hard this session, with many stakeholders, including Governor Martinez and Senate Floor Majority Leader Michael Sanchez, to enhance penalties for manufacturing, distribution and possession of child pornography, because protecting our children is a top priority.”<\/p>\n

Lawmakers\u00a0couldn’t always find agreement. Many Democrats were\u00a0upset that the governor didn’t allow consideration of their job-creation bills. And they criticized\u00a0Martinez for pushing\u00a0criminal-penalty legislation\u00a0they said wouldn’t do much to combat crime and\u00a0would increase prison costs during a budget crunch.<\/p>\n

Democrats successfully stopped some of Martinez’s tough-on-crime bills.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe governor refused to help New Mexicans looking for jobs and kids hoping for a better education,”said Joe Kabourek, Democratic Party of New Mexico executive director. “Instead she put the full weight of her office behind politically motivated legislation.”<\/p>\n

More to be done<\/h3>\n

Two bills to fund public-works projects passed with little fighting<\/a>\u00a0— a dramatic improvement over last year’s capital outlay battle that\u00a0required a special session<\/a> to resolve — but not before Sen. Joseph Cervantes railed for nearly an hour<\/a>\u00a0on the Senate floor Wednesday against the capital outlay bill. The bill was\u00a0altered\u00a0to take\u00a0millions of dollars away from water projects, and the Las Cruces Democrat complained on Twitter<\/a> that the Senate approved a “House raid of water project fund for unauthorized Gov. projects.”<\/p>\n

That\u00a0served as a stark reminder that the Legislature soundly rejected a proposal to reform the state’s ridiculed capital outlay system<\/a>. While bills to create a better campaign reporting system and archive House webcasts<\/a> did pass, a number of ethics and transparency bills died, including a proposal to create a state ethics commission<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Claudia Anderson, a Farmington Democrat, mentioned\u00a0all the Legislature didn’t approve in explaining her frustration. During a discussion NMPolitics.net facilitated on Facebook, she mentioned<\/a>\u00a0failed proposals to create an ethics commission, fund early childhood programs, and shore up the state’s lottery scholarship fund.\u00a0And Anderson\u00a0called the governor’s crime bills “a short term fix for a long term problem, but politically popular this year.”<\/p>\n

Others called the session a success.<\/p>\n

“I think what got accomplished was pretty remarkable, considering the hatred and hyper-partisan stances going in,” said Mike Johnson<\/a> of Santa Fe. Johnson, like Anderson, complained about the death of the ethics commission. Unlike Anderson, he wanted to see more of the governor’s crime bills pass.<\/p>\n

Ray Wilkinson of Albuquerque was also pleased with the session.<\/p>\n

“There were\u00a0some very positive accomplishments,” Wilkinson said<\/a>. “Celebrate this weekend, then Monday start working and planning on the remaining urgent needs.”<\/p>\n

As the session came to an end, Senate leaders — including President Pro Tem Mary Kay Papen, D-Las Cruces, and Minority Leader Stuart Ingle, R-Portales — talked about the session’s challenges and praised the work of lawmakers.<\/p>\n

“We passed some good legislation here,” Ingle said. “We did our work for the people of the State of New Mexico. We never get it all done, but we did the most important\u00a0things.”<\/p>\n

Legislation headed to governor, voters<\/h3>\n

Of course, most\u00a0legislation that received the OK from lawmakers still needs Martinez’s signature or, in the case of the proposed constitutional amendment on bail-reform, the approval of voters in November. The House rule on archiving webcasts\u00a0needs no further approval because it’s a chamber issue.<\/p>\n

Thus far Martinez has only given approval to one piece of legislation — the bill that funded the session<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Martinez’s office hasn’t responded to a request for comment on the just-concluded session. But the governor\u00a0has said she will sign the driver’s license compromise<\/a>, and she gave her support to\u00a0a number of other bills the Legislature approved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For a 30-day session — one during which shifting economic forecasts necessitated a rewrite of the fiscal year 2017 budget — the session of the New Mexico Legislature that ended Thursday was arguably productive. From driver’s licenses to the state’s finances, Democrats and Republicans worked together to find compromise.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":56542,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[3250,196,270,118,109,2109,107,706],"class_list":["post-128649","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-2016-legislative-session","tag-budget","tag-drivers-licenses","tag-economy","tag-ethics-reform","tag-guns","tag-roundhouse","tag-transparency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128649","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=128649"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128649\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/56542"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=128649"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=128649"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=128649"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}