{"id":26770,"date":"2011-03-03T14:19:38","date_gmt":"2011-03-03T21:19:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=26770"},"modified":"2011-03-03T16:35:39","modified_gmt":"2011-03-03T23:35:39","slug":"dems-concerned-about-protecting-committee-process","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2011\/03\/dems-concerned-about-protecting-committee-process\/","title":{"rendered":"Dems concerned about protecting committee process"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

The Roundhouse in Santa Fe (Photo by Peter St. Cyr)<\/p><\/div>\n

Many Democrats are expressing concern about the integrity of the committee process in announcing opposition Rep. Andy Nu\u00f1ez\u2019s<\/a> attempt to bring his bill that would outlaw giving driver\u2019s licenses to undocumented immigrants directly to the House floor for consideration.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been a longstanding tradition in this House that we work through the committee process, and it\u2019s not to work to advantage, it\u2019s to allow the citizens of this legislature to come and state their case,\u201d Majority Leader Ken Martinez<\/a>, D-Grants, said on the House floor during today\u2019s debate.<\/p>\n

The debate on whether to bring House Bill 78<\/a> directly to the floor for consideration \u2013 called blasting \u2013 is ongoing and could continue for hours. You can listen live here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Martinez was joined by a number of other Democrats in speaking about the importance of the committee process. Among them was Rep. Thomas Garcia<\/a>, D-Ocate, who said the process attempts to ensure fairness.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m trying to understand why this bill is more important than a piece of legislation I\u2019m carrying that is stuck in a committee somewhere,\u201d Garcia said.<\/p>\n

Nu\u00f1ez argued that the committee process isn\u2019t always fair. The speaker assigns some bills to only one committee, he said, but many of his bills must be approved by three committees before they reach the House floor.<\/p>\n

Rep. James Roger Madalena<\/a>, D-Jemez Pueblo, said he tried to bypass the committee process years ago, like Nu\u00f1ez is trying to do today, but was unsuccessful.<\/p>\n

At the time he was upset, but Madalena said he now understands that the committee process is \u201ccritical to House members and to the House of Representatives.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m just conveying that our rules are rules that were put in place for a specific reason, and the committee process is what it is,\u201d he said. \u201cIf we open one or make an exception to one, then I am sure that there will be another one tomorrow, or next week, or perhaps at the next session, and if we do that we are violating our own process.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018This needs to have the full hearing\u2019<\/h3>\n

Asked why this bill and not others deserves to bypass the committee process, Nu\u00f1ez said any member has the ability to make a motion on the House floor to bypass committees and bring a bill directly to the House floor for debate. Such a motion needs approval of a simple majority of members.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis one is important enough to me to do this,\u201d Nu\u00f1ez said.<\/p>\n

Rep. Dennis Kintigh<\/a>, R-Roswell, agreed.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis needs to have the full hearing it deserves to have,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The bill has been tabled by the Consumer and Public Affairs Committee, and this is Nu\u00f1ez\u2019s attempt to revive it. He needs the votes of 36 members on three different procedural motions to bring the bill to the House floor for consideration.<\/p>\n

If the entire GOP caucus supports Nu\u00f1ez, that means he also needs the votes of two Democrats.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Many Democrats are expressing concern about the integrity of the committee process in announcing opposition Rep. Andy Nu\u00f1ez\u2019s attempt to bring his bill that would outlaw giving driver\u2019s licenses to undocumented immigrants to the House floor for consideration.<\/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":[107],"class_list":["post-26770","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","category-uncategorized","tag-roundhouse"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26770","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=26770"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26770\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26770"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26770"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26770"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}