{"id":300697,"date":"2017-03-05T15:22:37","date_gmt":"2017-03-05T22:22:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=300697"},"modified":"2017-03-08T10:44:34","modified_gmt":"2017-03-08T17:44:34","slug":"constitutional-amendment-for-early-education-struggles-in-house","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2017\/03\/constitutional-amendment-for-early-education-struggles-in-house\/","title":{"rendered":"Constitutional amendment for early education struggles in House"},"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>Supporters of a popular idea among Democrats &#8212; a proposed constitutional amendment that would take at least $153\u00a0million a year from the state&#8217;s land grant endowment to expand early childhood education &#8212; are having a difficult time mustering the votes to get it through the state House of Representatives.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/nmlegis.gov\/Legislation\/Legislation?Chamber=H&amp;LegType=JR&amp;LegNo=1&amp;year=17\" target=\"_blank\">House Joint Resolution 1<\/a> has been waiting all week to get a floor vote. Word got out Friday that the resolution once again would not be heard, even though it was the top item on the House calendar.<\/p>\n<p>The measure would amend the state Constitution to draw less than 1 percent a year from the endowment to pay for early childhood education.<\/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 2017\u00a0legislative 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>The sponsors of the proposal, Democratic Reps. Antonio &#8220;Moe&#8221; Maestas and Javier Mart\u00ednez, both of Albuquerque, said Friday they are confident their early childhood measure will make it through the House. Even though Democrats control the House 38-32, passing a resolution isn&#8217;t as easy as other legislation.<\/p>\n<p>Because it involves amending the state constitution, HJR 1 needs not just a simple majority of those present, but a majority of all elected members &#8212; in other words, 36 voting in favor.<\/p>\n<p>One Democrat, Rep. Jim Trujillo of Santa Fe, has been absent for much of the session because of health problems. It&#8217;s not known when he&#8217;ll return to the Capitol.<\/p>\n<p>And another Democrat, freshman Rep. Candie Sweetser of Deming, told The New Mexican that she won&#8217;t vote for the measure.<\/p>\n<p>So that brings Democratic support for the resolution down to 36 votes &#8212; the minimum number needed.<\/p>\n<p>In recent days, there have been absences by other Democrats. One of those was sponsor Mart\u00ednez himself, who was out for two days because of a medical emergency in his family.<\/p>\n<p>Maestas said he hoped to get a handful of Republican members to vote for the resolution, but if any are supporting it, they haven&#8217;t told anyone.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>The bill has survived on straight party-line votes in the three House committees that have heard it.<\/p>\n<p>Republicans &#8212; as well as Democrats who oppose it &#8212; say that taking the money could deplete the $15 billion endowment, which is supposed to last in perpetuity.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It could dry up the permanent fund,&#8221; Sweetser said.<\/p>\n<p>The endowment already helps fund public schools and universities. They received about $656 million last year.<\/p>\n<p>One of the resolution&#8217;s supporters, Allen S\u00e1nchez, president of CHI St. Joseph&#8217;s Children, said the needs in early education are so great that the resolution must be approved.<\/p>\n<p>Even if the proposal makes it through the House, it&#8217;s bound to find resistance from the Senate Finance Committee. Its chairman, Sen. John Arthur Smith, D-Deming, is the most prominent legislator to oppose the measure. In 2014, the last time the Senate Finance Committee voted on a similar proposal, it killed the bill on an 8-2 vote.<\/p>\n<p>The measure would have to clear both houses of the Legislature to make the ballot in 2018. Voters then would decide on it.<\/p>\n<p><em>A prior version of this article\u00a0reported an incorrect and low estimate of $112 million for the amount of money that would be taken from the fund. The fiscal impact report on the resolution estimates between $153 million and $163 million in the first three years.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Contact Steve Terrell at (505) 986-3037 or <a href=\"mailto:sterrell@sfnewmexican.com\">sterrell@sfnewmexican.com<\/a>. Read his political blog at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.santafenewmexican.com\/news\/blogs\/politics\" target=\"_blank\">santafenewmexican.com\/news\/blogs\/<wbr \/>politics<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The measure would amend the state Constitution to draw less than 1 percent a year from the endowment to pay for early childhood education.<\/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":[3329,234,125,107],"class_list":["post-300697","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-2017-legislative-session","tag-children","tag-education","tag-roundhouse"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300697","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=300697"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300697\/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=300697"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=300697"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=300697"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}