{"id":1361,"date":"2007-03-07T10:29:00","date_gmt":"2007-03-07T16:29:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/2007\/03\/denish-pushes-affordable-housing-overhaul-proposal\/"},"modified":"2007-03-07T10:29:00","modified_gmt":"2007-03-07T16:29:00","slug":"denish-pushes-affordable-housing-overhaul-proposal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2007\/03\/denish-pushes-affordable-housing-overhaul-proposal\/","title":{"rendered":"Denish pushes affordable housing overhaul proposal"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Lt. Gov. Diane Denish<\/a> has come to the defense of a bill that would remake the state\u2019s troubled affordable housing system, a proposal that appears to be on the chopping block. <\/p>\n

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

\n

A series of events on Sunday and Monday led most to believe that Speaker of the House Ben Lujan<\/a> and the House Business and Industry Committee are in the process of killing Senate Bill 519<\/a>, sponsored by Sen. Mary Kay Papen<\/a>, D-Las Cruces.<\/p>\n

\n

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

Denish, according to the Santa Fe New Mexican<\/a>, met with members of the committee on Tuesday, and said they were receptive to her pleas for the bill. However, she said, \u201cI didn\u2019t get a commitment from the committee chair to hear the bill soon.\u201d<\/p>\n

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

\"\"<\/a>The chair, Rep. Debbie Rodella<\/a>, D-Ohkay Owingeh, refused to speak to the newspaper, saying she was too busy.<\/p>\n

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

The bill, which Papen is carrying for the governor, would shut down the state\u2019s scandal-plagued regional housing authorities and replace them with a system overseen by the New Mexico Mortgage Finance Authority, whose board Denish chairs.<\/p>\n

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

The proposal would also provide for audits of each of the seven housing authority regions to determine the extent of the mismanagement that has led to authorities in Las Cruces and Albuquerque shutting down, the defaulting by the Albuquerque authority on $5 million in bonds it owed the state and an ongoing investigation by the attorney general.<\/p>\n

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

Lujan and the committee have made moves in recent days most believe are designed to kill the proposal. On Sunday, House Bill 997<\/a>, a mirror of Papen\u2019s bill sponsored by Rep. Janice Arnold-Jones<\/a>, R-Albuquerque, was tabled on a vote of 6-5 by the committee. Six Democrats on the committee voted in favor of tabling after Lujan spoke privately with at least two of them during the bill\u2019s public hearing.<\/p>\n

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

Then on Monday, Lujan moved Papen\u2019s bill off the House Judiciary Committee calendar and assigned it to the same committee that tabled Arnold-Jones\u2019 bill a day earlier.<\/p>\n

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

Lujan claims he was at Sunday\u2019s meeting only to present another bill and didn\u2019t try to influence the vote on Arnold-Jones\u2019 bill. He says he moved Papen\u2019s bill because he likes Senate bills to pass through the same committees as their House counterparts, and said it was a mistake on his part to not originally assign Papen\u2019s bill to the Business and Industry Committee.<\/p>\n

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

Most doubt that\u2019s true, and Rodella\u2019s unwillingness to comment or commit to hearing the bill only furthers those doubts. There are 10 days left in the session.<\/p>\n

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

Denish\u2019s involvement may help.<\/p>\n

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

Citing the \u201coverlying theme of this session\u201d as ethics reform, Denish told the newspaper the housing overhaul \u201cis really part of our administration\u2019s commitment to reforming areas where there have been scandals or poor use of taxpayer\u2019s money.\u201d<\/p>\n

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

Last year, in-depth reviews by the governor\u2019s office and the State Investment Council found widespread misuse of the bond money and a number of other problems. The council referred the case to the attorney general\u2019s office so it could determine whether there was any criminal activity.<\/p>\n

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

The housing authority scandal has been a hot potato in the Legislature because of the relationship between Lujan and former Region III Housing Authority Director Vincent \u201cSmiley\u201d Gallegos. Gallegos is a former legislator and current lobbyist who, in past sessions, has spent a lot of time in the speaker\u2019s office.<\/p>\n

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

Among the scandals that have plagued the housing authority was the disclosure late last year that a top aide to Lujan, who may not qualify for low-income housing, had been living rent-free in a home owned by the Region III authority based in Albuquerque<\/st1:place><\/st1:city>. After the situation was revealed by the Albuquerque Journal<\/a>, the aide paid back rent. She continues to live in the home.<\/p>\n

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

Lujan has said he didn\u2019t know about the situation until a reporter told him about it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lt. Gov. Diane Denish has come to the defense of a bill that would remake the state\u2019s troubled affordable housing system, a proposal that appears to be on the chopping block. A series of events on Sunday and Monday led most to believe that Speaker of the House Ben Lujan and the House Business and […]<\/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-1361","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1361","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=1361"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1361\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1361"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1361"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1361"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}