{"id":13371,"date":"2010-02-18T12:24:02","date_gmt":"2010-02-18T19:24:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=13371"},"modified":"2010-02-19T07:57:02","modified_gmt":"2010-02-19T14:57:02","slug":"ethics-transparency-bills-die-on-senate-floor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2010\/02\/ethics-transparency-bills-die-on-senate-floor\/","title":{"rendered":"Ethics, transparency bills die on Senate floor"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Senate Majority Leader Michael Sanchez (Photo by Heath Haussamen)<\/p><\/div>\n

Proposals to expand legislative webcasting and create a state ethics commission died in the Senate today when the session ended without Senate Majority Leader Michael Sanchez<\/a>, D-Belen, calling them up for debate.<\/p>\n

Instead, as pointed out by Sen. Eric Griego<\/a>, D-Albuquerque and others, Sanchez, who controls the Senate calendar, spent much of the end of the session calling up various memorials for debate. Then the Senate spent the better part of the last hour debating one House bill<\/a> and more than one proposed amendment to that bill from Sen. Rod Adair<\/a>, R-Roswell.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re hearing memorials instead of the ethics and transparency bills,\u201d Griego wrote on The New Mexico Independent\u2019s liveblog<\/a> before the start of debate on the House bill Adair tried to amend. \u201cNo idea why we aren\u2019t passing some ethics and transparency bills. Besides being shortsighted, politically bad for the Dems for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dead at the end of the session, though they spent the final day on the Senate calendar, were:<\/p>\n

\u2022 Senate Resolution 1<\/a>, sponsored by\u00a0Sanchez, which would have expanded webcasting by increasing the number of cameras on the Senate floor.<\/p>\n

\u2022 House Joint Memorial 15<\/a>, sponsored by Jeff Steinborn<\/a>, D-Las Cruces, which would have directed Legislative Council Service to begin webcasting interim committee meetings except where technological barriers prevent it.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Senate Bill 43<\/a>, sponsored by Linda Lopez<\/a>, D-Albuquerque, which would have created a state ethics commission.<\/p>\n

Though Lopez\u2019s bill had already lost the support<\/a> of many activists who have pushed for the creation of an ethics commission because of its secrecy provisions, today\u2019s would have been the first Senate floor debate on an ethics commission ever.<\/p>\n

Sanchez said several times during the day that the bill was coming up for debate, then never actually brought it up for debate.<\/p>\n

The House, by contrast, approved the controversial ethics commission bill<\/a> and dramatically expanded webcasting<\/a> in that chamber during this session.<\/p>\n

Update, 3 \u00a0p.m.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Sarah Welsh, executive director of the New Mexico Foundation for Open Government<\/a>, had this to say:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe extra Senate cameras would have been an improvement, but I think the real victory would have been webcasting of Senate committees. So I was disappointed to see that resolution stall in committee, and I hope they\u2019ll revive it next year,\u201d she said. \u201cConsidering the sea change that we saw between last year and this year, I\u2019m hoping that next year they\u2019ll open everything up completely and I\u2019ll be out of a job. Wouldn\u2019t that be nice?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe ethics commission was tough,\u201d she said. \u201cI think the sponsors genuinely want to have a commission that can address ethical violations fairly, but you run into so many different obstacles.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cComing in, I had completely underestimated how much fear there is that a commission will open the floodgates for nasty, false, reputation-ruining accusations. That fear informed the entire debate about confidentiality, which was our big concern,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s not an unreasonable fear, since some people probably would abuse the process. You know, my reputation is on the line too \u2013 I\u2019m a lobbyist, so the commission would have jurisdiction over me. I\u2019m pretty sure an ethical complaint against the FOG director would get a lot of attention, and I\u2019d be ruined.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSo I get it. But that deep emotional response, which was palpable during all the ethics-commission discussions, makes it difficult to have a reasoned debate about what\u2019s ultimately best for restoring the public trust and exposing unethical behavior,\u201d Welsh said.<\/p>\n

Update, 3:20 p.m.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Lt. Gov. Diane Denish<\/a> had this to say:<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter all of the talk and posturing, it\u2019s simply unconscionable that the Legislature would walk away without passing a bill to establish a non-partisan, independent ethics commission,\u201d she said. \u201cThis is exactly why many New Mexicans have lost faith in their government. We need a new way of doing business in Santa Fe and we need it now.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

UPDATED: Proposals to expand legislative webcasting and create a state ethics commission died in the Senate today when the session ended without Senate Majority Leader Michael Sanchez, D-Belen, calling them up for debate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,1],"tags":[109,111,107],"class_list":["post-13371","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","category-uncategorized","tag-ethics-reform","tag-open-government","tag-roundhouse"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13371","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=13371"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13371\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13371"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13371"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13371"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}