{"id":307749,"date":"2017-03-17T18:02:57","date_gmt":"2017-03-18T00:02:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=307749"},"modified":"2017-03-17T22:16:54","modified_gmt":"2017-03-18T04:16:54","slug":"secretary-of-state-is-staying-out-of-veto-fight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2017\/03\/secretary-of-state-is-staying-out-of-veto-fight\/","title":{"rendered":"Secretary of state is staying out of veto fight"},"content":{"rendered":"

Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver isn’t getting\u00a0in the middle of a fight between the governor and some lawmakers over whether recent vetoes are invalid.<\/p>\n

\"Maggie

Courtesy photo<\/p>

Maggie Toulouse Oliver<\/p><\/div>\n

Some Democratic senators charged on Thursday that the governor didn’t act within the required three-day period<\/a> on three\u00a0bills — instead vetoing them after that period had expired. And on other bills, they claimed, Martinez violated the N.M. Constitution by failing to provide explanations<\/a>\u00a0when she informed the Legislature of her vetoes.<\/p>\n

The legislators\u00a0say that means a handful of\u00a0bills Martinez intended to veto\u00a0this week instead became law by default<\/a>. On Friday, five\u00a0bills Martinez vetoed were listed on the Legislature’s website as\u00a0being enacted.<\/p>\n

They\u00a0include\u00a0Senate Bill 6<\/a>, sponsored by Cisco McSorley, D-Albuquerque, which\u00a0would allow for research of industrial hemp, and\u00a0Senate Bill 134<\/a>, sponsored by Sen. Jacob Candelaria, D-Albuquerque, that would\u00a0allow students to count a computer science course toward the math and science credits they need to graduate from high school. Martinez’s vetoes on both bills sparked outrage among many.<\/p>\n

Another vetoed bill the Legislature’s website now lists as becoming law is\u00a0House Bill 126<\/a>, sponsored by\u00a0Rep. Doreen Gallegos, D-Las Cruces, which changes\u00a0the criteria for scholarships awarded to medical students who promise to practice in underserved areas. It would allow\u00a0graduates of private colleges to have the same chance at scholarships as graduates of public universities and give preference to students from schools in New Mexico.<\/p>\n

By listing the bills as “law without signature,” the Legislature might\u00a0create the opportunity for Toulouse Oliver to chapter and publish them\u00a0— the final step in the process of them becoming law.<\/p>\n

Toulouse Oliver\u00a0doesn’t plan to do that,\u00a0Deputy Secretary of State John Blair said.<\/p>\n

“The secretary plays a ministerial role in receiving signed bills to be chaptered into law,” he said. “Whether the governor met her constitutional obligation by vetoing these five bills in the manner in which she did is a question that should be answered by our court system.”<\/p>\n

“This office will swiftly chapter these bills if and when we receive guidance from the New Mexico courts to do so,” Blair said.<\/p>\n

That puts it on lawmakers to sue\u00a0if they want to attempt\u00a0to undo the vetoes. If Toulouse Oliver had chaptered and published the bills, it might have instead fallen on Martinez to file a legal challenge to the bills becoming law.<\/p>\n

Some Democratic lawmakers have said they may sue. Blair said the Office of the Secretary of State is “not necessarily anticipating any legal action,” but is simply saying that, “without some clear guidance or direction from the courts, we don\u2019t believe we have a mandate to chapter the five bills.”<\/p>\n

Michael Lonergan, a spokesman for Martinez, called the Senate’s allegations about the governor’s\u00a0vetoes “silly.”<\/p>\n

“The governor vetoed the bills, and they\u2019re not going to go into effect,” Lonergan said. “This is nothing more than a distraction by the Senate to help hide the fact that they are determined to shut down the government.”<\/p>\n

The governor’s office said Friday<\/a> it was preparing for the possibility of a shutdown and a special session because of a budget standoff that\u00a0has yet to be resolved. The current session ends at noon on Saturday.<\/p>\n

State government is currently funded through June 30. The budget being debated now is for the fiscal year that begins July 1.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Some Democratic lawmakers allege that Gov. Susana Martinez didn’t follow the requirements when she vetoed a handful of bills, so the bills became law by default.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":93268,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[3329,3324,107],"class_list":["post-307749","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-2017-legislative-session","tag-maggie-toulouse-oliver","tag-roundhouse"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307749","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=307749"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307749\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/93268"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=307749"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=307749"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=307749"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}