{"id":23396,"date":"2010-11-12T08:14:02","date_gmt":"2010-11-12T15:14:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=23396"},"modified":"2010-11-17T09:34:04","modified_gmt":"2010-11-17T16:34:04","slug":"upheaval-at-the-roundhouse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2010\/11\/upheaval-at-the-roundhouse\/","title":{"rendered":"Upheaval at the Roundhouse"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_23397\" class=\"wp-caption module image alignright\" style=\"max-width: 270px;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-23397 \" title=\"Heath horizontal\" src=\"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/11\/Heath-horizontal2.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"270\" height=\"256\" \/><\/a><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Heath Haussamen<\/p><\/div>\n<p>There\u2019s been a lot going on at the Roundhouse in the week after voters dictated a massive shift in power.<\/p>\n<p>Budget numbers are getting dramatically worse, leadership positions are up for grabs, political appointees are moving to classified jobs and the incoming governor is threatening to fire them all.<\/p>\n<p>How things are going to shake out isn\u2019t clear. But here\u2019s where things stand:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\u2022 The Richardson administration said Thursday that the state\u2019s budget shortfall will be <a href=\"http:\/\/www.santafenewmexican.com\/Local%20News\/State-budget-gap-hits--450M\">at least $452 million<\/a> next year. That\u2019s almost $200 million more than the Legislative Finance Committee has estimated, because the Richardson administration isn\u2019t assuming that the new Legislature and governor will renew cost-saving measures that expire at the end of the year. In addition, federal stimulus money is drying up.<\/li>\n<li>\u2022 After the Albuquerque Journal reported that additional Richardson political appointees had <a href=\"http:\/\/www.abqjournal.com\/upfront\/10226525391upfront11-10-10.htm\">moved into classified jobs<\/a> in recent months \u2013 which would seem to make their jobs more secure \u2013 the Martinez transition team sent a letter to Richardson demanding that it halt such moves and stating anyone who makes such a move after Nov. 3 <a href=\"http:\/\/newmexicoindependent.com\/66913\/martinez-camp-slams-richardson-for-transferring-political-employees\">will be fired<\/a> when Susana Martinez takes office.<\/li>\n<li>\u2022 There may or may not be a new speaker of the House in January. Rep. Joseph Cervantes of Las Cruces <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/2010\/11\/two-more-dems-want-cervantes-to-be-speaker\/\">is considering running<\/a>, even exploring the possibility of a bipartisan coalition. That could lead to Cervantes becoming speaker. Or House Democrats might pick someone else to be speaker. Or Ben Luj\u00e1n could retain the position.<\/li>\n<li>\u2022 House Republicans might also change leadership. Rep. Larry Larra\u00f1aga of Albuquerque is <a href=\"http:\/\/newmexicoindependent.com\/66933\/larranaga-takes-on-taylor-for-gop-house-leader\">challenging Tom Taylor<\/a> of Farmington for the position of minority leader at this weekend\u2019s caucus meeting.<\/li>\n<li>\u2022 There\u2019s even <a href=\"http:\/\/www.santafenewmexican.com\/Local%20News\/Group-questions-land-deal\">another potential pay-to-play scandal<\/a> brewing that might affect the administrations of outgoing Gov. Bill Richardson and outgoing Land Commissioner Pat Lyons.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<h3>Not surprising<\/h3>\n<p>The upheaval was expected given the shift voters mandated last week \u2013 electing a Republican governor, electing the first Republican secretary of state in 80 years and taking eight seats in the New Mexico House from Democrats and giving them to Republicans.<\/p>\n<p>Things started out nice between Richardson and Martinez with <a href=\"http:\/\/www.abqjournal.com\/abqnews\/photo\/25155-gov.html\">a meeting and photo op<\/a> earlier in the week, but quickly turned nasty with Martinez\u2019s threat to fire political appointees who transfer into classified jobs, and then fighting over the budget.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe revelation of a near half-billion dollar deficit is far worse than expected and confirms our suspicions that the Richardson\/Denish administration has been hiding the ball all along with respect to the true budget deficit,\u201d Martinez said of the new budget numbers.<\/p>\n<p>Richardson spokesman Gilbert Gallegos, in <a href=\"http:\/\/newmexicoindependent.com\/66946\/richardson-martinez-wrangle-over-state-budget-woes\">an article<\/a> published by The New Mexico Independent, had this to say in response:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cIt\u2019s not surprising that Susana Martinez doesn\u2019t understand the state budget and the growth of Medicaid since she ignored it during the campaign and has not yet accepted our offer for a thorough briefing. She can\u2019t keep her unrealistic promises and still balance the budget.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>We know New Mexico is going to have a fiscally conservative governor in January. We know that Democratic lawmakers say <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/2010\/11\/martinez-will-have-to-get-practical-dems-say\/\">her campaign promises are unrealistic<\/a> and that she\u2019s going to have to shift gears. We know the usual coalition of Republicans and moderate and conservative Democrats will lead the Senate in January. We know to expect a big, ugly fight over the budget.<\/p>\n<p>But we don\u2019t yet know who will be leading the House. We don\u2019t know who Martinez will hire to fill cabinet positions and other key state jobs. We won\u2019t know until she takes office if she\u2019s serious about firing people who move from exempt to classified jobs.<\/p>\n<p>The next couple of months are going to be very interesting.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/haussamen\">Haussamen bio<\/a> \u2502\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/category\/haussamen-columns\">Commentary archives<\/a> \u2502\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/category\/haussamen-columns\/feed\">Feed<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Budget numbers are getting dramatically worse, leadership positions are up for grabs, political appointees are moving to classified jobs and the incoming governor is threatening to fire them all. The next couple of months are going to be very interesting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1192,10],"tags":[108,107],"class_list":["post-23396","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-commentary","category-haussamen-columns","tag-2010-election","tag-roundhouse"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23396","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=23396"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23396\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23396"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23396"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23396"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}