{"id":194580,"date":"2016-10-06T20:48:04","date_gmt":"2016-10-07T02:48:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=194580"},"modified":"2016-10-07T20:13:21","modified_gmt":"2016-10-08T02:13:21","slug":"for-some-gop-lawmakers-team-topped-conscience-on-death-penalty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2016\/10\/for-some-gop-lawmakers-team-topped-conscience-on-death-penalty\/","title":{"rendered":"For some GOP lawmakers, team topped conscience on death penalty"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_56542\"  class=\"wp-caption module image alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 771px;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-56542\" src=\"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/Kids-at-Roundhouse-771x504.jpg\" alt=\"A statue outside the Roundhouse in Santa Fe.\" width=\"771\" height=\"504\" srcset=\"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/Kids-at-Roundhouse-771x504.jpg 771w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/Kids-at-Roundhouse-336x220.jpg 336w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/Kids-at-Roundhouse-768x502.jpg 768w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/Kids-at-Roundhouse-1170x764.jpg 1170w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/Kids-at-Roundhouse.jpg 1500w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 771px) 100vw, 771px\" \/><p class=\"wp-media-credit\">Heath Haussamen \/ NMPolitics.net<\/p><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">A statue outside the Roundhouse in Santa Fe.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>A lawmaker\u2019s conscience is one thing, but his loyalty to his caucus is another. So when it came time for Republican state Rep. Bob Wooley\u00a0of Roswell to vote on a bill reinstating the death penalty, he put aside his own objections to capital punishment.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe governor wanted it,\u201d Wooley said <span class=\"aBn\" data-term=\"goog_344985817\"><span class=\"aQJ\">Thursday<\/span><\/span> in explaining why he joined all other Republicans in the House of Representatives in backing the measure. \u201cSometimes, you have to vote with your caucus,\u201d Wooley added.<\/p>\n<p>Another GOP House member who went along with her caucus instead of her personal beliefs was Rep. Sharon Clahchischilliage\u00a0of Kirtland. In a recent candidate questionnaire <a href=\"https:\/\/www.abqjournal.com\/848259\/house-district-04-r-sharon-clahchischilliage-i.html\" target=\"_blank\">submitted to\u00a0<\/a><em>The Albuquerque Journal,\u00a0<\/em>she said she would oppose reinstating the death penalty. But then she also voted <span class=\"aBn\" data-term=\"goog_344985818\"><span class=\"aQJ\">Thursday<\/span><\/span> for the bill to revive capital punishment in New Mexico.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"module align-left half type-aside\">\n<h3>About this article<\/h3>\n<p>This article comes from <a href=\"http:\/\/www.santafenewmexican.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">The Santa Fe New Mexican<\/a>. NMPolitics.net is paying for the rights to publish articles about the 2016 special legislative session from the newspaper. Help us cover the cost by\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/donate\/\" target=\"_blank\">making a donation to NMPolitics.net<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/aside>\n<p>And so the special legislative session originally intended to resolve the state\u2019s budget deficit came to be dominated by partisan politics. Republican Gov. Susana Martinez added the death penalty and two other crime-and-punishment bills to the agenda of the session. Then Martinez scheduled the session to start just weeks before the general election in which control of the Legislature is at stake.<\/p>\n<p>Infighting followed. Democrats said Republican House members introduced the crime bills in the middle of a financial crisis simply to try to get an edge in campaign ads for coming weeks. The session ended <span class=\"aBn\" data-term=\"goog_344985819\"><span class=\"aQJ\">Thursday<\/span><\/span> afternoon on an anti-climactic note with approval of a solvency package to save the budget, stopping nearly a week of political maneuvering and bickering.<\/p>\n<p>The Democrat-controlled Senate took less than a half-hour to pass three bills aimed at resolving the state\u2019s budget deficit, along with a bill to pay for the special legislative session. Immediately afterward, the Senate voted to adjourn, letting the Republican-sponsored crime bills die.<\/p>\n<p>Senate Republicans all opposed adjourning. Senate GOP Leader Stuart Ingle\u00a0of Portales said the crime bills should have been heard, even though there probably were not enough votes to pass them in the Senate.<\/p>\n<p>As for the House, it voted to adjourn before the Senate even voted on the economic bills.<\/p>\n<p>Senators spent only parts of two days in the special session, and all their time was devoted to finances. Majority Democrats in the Senate focused solely on fixing the broken budget.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Senate Finance Chairman John Arthur Smith, D-Deming, began speaking out last spring about the need for a special session to tackle the state\u2019s revenue problems.<\/p>\n<p>He told\u00a0<em>The New Mexican<\/em>\u00a0after the Senate adjourned <span class=\"aBn\" data-term=\"goog_344985820\"><span class=\"aQJ\">Thursday<\/span><\/span> that the budget crisis is not over. \u201cHaving less than 1 percent in reserves isn\u2019t sending a strong message to the bond markets,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>During the special session the House Republicans insisted that public schools&#8217; budgets not be touched, and the Senate <span class=\"aBn\" data-term=\"goog_344985821\"><span class=\"aQJ\">on Thursday<\/span><\/span> agreed. But Smith said that not cutting the education budget only means that public schools will be \u201cthe first in line\u201d for reductions when the Legislature returns for the regular 60-day session in January.<\/p>\n<p>Smith said new revenue streams are needed to stabilize the state budget. He said that, during the special session and the negotiations that led up to it, Gov. Martinez never offered a specific plan. \u201cAll the governors I\u2019ve served with, they all had plans,\u201d Smith said.<\/p>\n<p>Martinez spokesman Michael Lonergan said \u201cthe governor and her staff developed, scored, and discussed many scenarios with both the House and Senate, but John Arthur Smith was hell-bent on two things \u2014 raising the gas tax and protecting his legislative retirement.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In a statement of her own, Martinez said: \u201cI\u2019m pleased that, at the end of the day, legislators chose not to raise taxes, strip our job-creation programs, or peel back vital improvements to our tax code and business friendliness. Instead, we tightened our belts so that our families don\u2019t have to.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But she said she was disappointed that, \u201cat many points in the budget conversation, legislators simply put election year politics ahead of making tough decisions. I believe that posturing prevented us from reaching an agreement prior to calling the special session and resulted in budget legislation that leaves a lot to be desired.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The politics were pitched during debate on the death penalty.<\/p>\n<p>Democrats said the crime bills pushed by Martinez and House Republicans were a purposeful distraction engineered to produce political attacks on Democrats, especially Senate Majority Leader Michael Sanchez, D-Belen. Sanchez is the legislator the GOP most wants to oust in November.<\/p>\n<p>Even before the session started, Republicans had sent mailers attacking two incumbent Democratic senators portraying them as soft on crime because they oppose the death penalty.<\/p>\n<p>The House descended into raw partisan posturing early <span class=\"aBn\" data-term=\"goog_344985822\"><span class=\"aQJ\">Thursday<\/span><\/span> with a marathon session to discuss the death penalty bill that began after <span class=\"aBn\" data-term=\"goog_344985823\"><span class=\"aQJ\">12:30 a.m.<\/span><\/span> and lasted until almost <span class=\"aBn\" data-term=\"goog_344985824\"><span class=\"aQJ\">6 a.m.<\/span><\/span> Democrats and Republicans <a href=\"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2016\/10\/despite-dem-protest-house-oks-death-penalty-bill-at-night-without-public-notice\/\" target=\"_blank\">fought bitterly over the measure<\/a>, even though everyone involved knew that bill had virtually no chance of passing in the Senate.<\/p>\n<p>House Democrats complained that the Republicans began debate on the controversial legislation with no public notice in the predawn hours when interested citizens wouldn\u2019t be likely to come to the Capitol or even watch the proceedings over the Internet.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m not proud of this moment in the House. Not one bit,\u201d said House Minority Leader Brian Egolf, D-Santa Fe, shortly after discussion on the bill began.<\/p>\n<p>Rep. Matthew McQueen, D-Galisteo, sent a tweet during the debate challenging the commitment of Republicans to doing a good job. \u201cMultiple House Republicans are *sleeping* in the house lounge during #DeathPenalty debate. That\u2019s how seriously they\u2019re taking this,\u201d McQueen wrote.<\/p>\n<p>And Rep. Elias Alcon,\u00a0D-Milan, even compared House Speaker Don Tripp, R-Socorro, with Russian President Vladimir Putin.<\/p>\n<p>In the past the partisan division over capital punishment was not so rigid. Several Democrats backed the death penalty and several Republicans opposed it.<\/p>\n<p>Four sitting GOP House members voted to repeal the death penalty in 2009, but all of them voted <span class=\"aBn\" data-term=\"goog_344985825\"><span class=\"aQJ\">Thursday<\/span><\/span> to reinstate it. The four are Reps. Larry Larra\u00f1aga\u00a0and Jimmie Hall\u00a0of Albuquerque, Dianne Hamilton of Silver City and Andy Nu\u00f1ez\u00a0of Hatch. Nu\u00f1ez was a Democrat in 2009.<\/p>\n<p>Larra\u00f1aga told\u00a0<em>The New Mexican<\/em>\u00a0that he\u2019s come to believe the death penalty should still be an option for prosecutors, citing recent killings of law enforcement officers and children that have shocked the state.<\/p>\n<p>Nu\u00f1ez has said he does not think the sentence of life without parole has been effective as an alternative to capital punishment.<\/p>\n<p>Most legislators headed home <span class=\"aBn\" data-term=\"goog_344985826\"><span class=\"aQJ\">Thursday<\/span><\/span> afternoon, and many in tight races went straight to the campaign trail.<\/p>\n<p><em>Contact Steve Terrell at 505-986-3037 or <a href=\"mailto:sterrell@sfnewmexican.com\" target=\"_blank\">sterrell@sfnewmexican.com<\/a>. Read his political blog at <a href=\"http:\/\/tinyurl.com\/roundhouseroundup\" target=\"_blank\" data-saferedirecturl=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/url?hl=en&amp;q=http:\/\/tinyurl.com\/roundhouseroundup&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1475814574633000&amp;usg=AFQjCNFuTJSY5RYKvqfwwegf6L0ZgpB8vQ\">tinyurl.com\/roundhouseroundup.<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Reps. Bob Wooley and Sharon Clahchischilliage put aside personal objections to capital punishment and voted Thursday to reinstate the death penalty.<\/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":[708,3305,142,203,107],"class_list":["post-194580","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-2016-election","tag-2016-special-session","tag-crime","tag-law-enforcement","tag-roundhouse"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194580","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=194580"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194580\/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=194580"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=194580"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=194580"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}