![\"A](\"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/Kids-at-Roundhouse-336x220.jpg\")
Heath Haussamen \/ NMPolitics.net<\/p>
A statue outside the Roundhouse in Santa Fe.<\/p><\/div>\n
\u201cWhen I was in the majority on that side, nothing different happened than is happening now,\u201d Nu\u00f1ez, R-Hatch, who used to be a Democrat, told House Speaker Don Tripp.\u00a0\u201cI support your decision [to hold the hearing at night] because we need to do the same thing.\u201d<\/p>\n
That statement\u00a0caught the attention of\u00a0Heather Ferguson, the legislative director for the good-government group Common Cause New Mexico. She said Nu\u00f1ez’s logic is “nonsense.”<\/p>\n
Voter turnout is dismal. Polling<\/a> done for\u00a0Common Cause reveals that\u00a0trust in government is too, Ferguson said. Justifying a hearing that effectively shuts the public out of\u00a0the legislative process because\u00a0the other side has done the same is exactly why trust and turnout are poor, she said.<\/p>\n “Frankly, many of those voters are parents, and we teach our children that two wrongs do not make a right,” Ferguson said.<\/p>\n When Tripp brought up the death penalty bill shortly before 1 a.m. on Oct. 6, 19\u00a0of the House’s 33 Democrats spoke in protest of the hearing<\/a>.\u00a0Minority Leader Brian Egolf, D-Santa Fe, told Tripp, R-Socorro, that the hearing \u201csends a terrible, terrible message to the citizens of New Mexico \u2014 that they can wake up to huge changes in public policy without anybody knowing what happened.”<\/p>\n Only Nu\u00f1ez spoke in defense of the hearing, which continued\u00a0as Tripp planned after Democrats were done protesting. The House passed the death penalty bill shortly before 6 a.m. The bill\u00a0later\u00a0died because the Senate refused to consider it<\/a>\u00a0during a session focused on the budget crisis.<\/p>\n Ferguson wasn’t the only activist to blast Republicans, who control the House’s agenda. Susan Boe, executive director of the N.M. Foundation for Open Government, said the death penalty hearing “violates the spirit of transparency.”<\/p>\n “As a practical matter, this meant the public could not participate or even witness deliberations by its elected officials,” Boe said. “Capital punishment is too important an issue to be determined outside of public view.”<\/p>\n The comments from Ferguson and Boe add to the firestorm of criticism of the way House Republicans handled the death penalty legislation. The hearing was the third during that special session on the high-profile, controversial legislation to be held\u00a0after dark\u00a0and with little or no notice to the public.<\/p>\n Walt Rubel, the\u00a0editorial page editor for the Las Cruces Sun-News, responded to Nu\u00f1ez’s comments with sarcasm.\u00a0“That\u2019s right. Shady government should be met with more shady government,” Rubel wrote<\/a>.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n The Santa Fe New Mexican weighed in too.<\/p>\n