{"id":26794,"date":"2011-03-03T18:42:18","date_gmt":"2011-03-04T01:42:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=26794"},"modified":"2011-03-03T21:56:45","modified_gmt":"2011-03-04T04:56:45","slug":"house-to-vote-on-driver%e2%80%99s-license-bill-friday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2011\/03\/house-to-vote-on-driver%e2%80%99s-license-bill-friday\/","title":{"rendered":"House to vote on driver\u2019s license bill Friday"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

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

House members voted today to bring Rep. Andy Nu\u00f1ez\u2019s<\/a> bill that would outlaw giving driver\u2019s licenses to undocumented immigrants to the House floor for consideration. The House will debate and vote on the bill Friday.<\/p>\n

Nu\u00f1ez was joined by the entire Republican caucus and Democrats Sandra Jeff<\/a> and Dona Irwin<\/a> in voting to have House Bill 78<\/a> bypass the committee process and be considered directly on the House floor. That came on two procedural motions that both passed 36-34.<\/p>\n

The move breathes new life into a bill that had been tabled by Democrats on the House Consumer and Public Affairs Committee.<\/p>\n

House Bill 78 will be the first piece of legislation considered by the House on Friday. The House is scheduled to convene at 10 a.m.<\/p>\n

Update, 9:05 p.m.<\/h3>\n

Gov. Susana Martinez<\/a> had this to say:<\/p>\n

\u201cToday, Republicans, Democrats, and the House\u2019s only Independent ensured that New Mexicans will get the up-or-down vote on a bill they have repeatedly demanded be passed. I applaud House members, especially the two Democrats, who courageously stood up to Speaker Ben Lujan and stood with New Mexicans who want this dangerous law repealed.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

House Democrats, meanwhile, sent out this news release:<\/p>\n

For the first time in 50 years, the House of Representatives today voted to bring a bill directly to the House floor without first going through the committee process. That bill is House Bill 78 sponsored by Rep. Andy Nu\u00f1ez (DTS-Hatch). Speaker of the House Ben Lujan (D-Santa Fe) has added the bill to tomorrow\u2019s floor calendar for debate.<\/p>\n

\u201cToday we dealt with important issues. Not only did we deal with the policy merits of the Governor\u2019s legislation, but our members also had serious reservations about circumventing the House committee process,\u201d said Speaker Lujan. \u201cWe have committees and rules for a reason. Maybe those with strong political agendas can\u2019t appreciate those reasons, but our committees are designed to give the public the opportunity to speak for or against a bill with their representatives,\u201d Lujan added. \u201cMy interest throughout this entire process has been to do the right thing, and not to score political points,\u201d concluded Lujan.<\/p>\n

Several Democratic members also expressed concerns that the bill will now come to the House floor without having been vetted by the House Judiciary Committee to which the measure had been assigned.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven the bill\u2019s sponsor (Rep. Nu\u00f1ez) recognized during the bill\u2019s first committee hearing that there are serious constitutional questions at play here,\u201d said Rep. Al Park (D-Albuquerque).<\/p>\n

\u201cNow that the bill comes directly to the House floor, we have denied the public their right to speak with us on these issues,\u201d said Speaker Lujan.<\/p>\n

Rep. Miguel P. Garcia (D-Albuquerque) also expressed concern over what he called the \u201cwillingness of the Governor to insert herself as a lobbyist into the legislative process.\u201d<\/p>\n

While the House debate became heated at times, several Republican members including members of the Republican leadership complimented the Speaker\u2019s commitment to following the rules of the House in presiding over today\u2019s debate.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

UPDATED: House members voted today to bring Rep. Andy Nu\u00f1ez\u2019s bill that would outlaw giving driver\u2019s licenses to undocumented immigrants to the House floor for consideration. The House will debate the bill Friday.<\/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-26794","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\/26794","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=26794"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26794\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26794"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26794"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26794"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}