{"id":31535,"date":"2011-09-06T06:34:51","date_gmt":"2011-09-06T12:34:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=31535"},"modified":"2011-10-08T22:07:35","modified_gmt":"2011-10-09T04:07:35","slug":"redistricting-legislative-session-starts-today","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2011\/09\/redistricting-legislative-session-starts-today\/","title":{"rendered":"Redistricting legislative session starts today"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

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

\u201cRedistricting, with a side of controversy.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s how The Santa Fe New Mexican<\/a> describes the special session of the Legislature that begins today.<\/p>\n

Lawmakers are tasked with redrawing political boundaries for state legislative seats, the Public Regulation and Public Education commissions, and the state\u2019s three seats in the U.S. House of Representatives based on the 2010 Census numbers. But Gov. Susana Martinez<\/a> wants them to tackle several other issues as well \u2013 and there\u2019s disagreement about whether that\u2019s a good idea.<\/p>\n

\u201cA handful of legislators will begin to work on redistricting. I will tell you from stories I\u2019ve heard from past redistricting, people are not in their offices working while that handful are doing the job,\u201d Martinez was quoted by The New Mexican as saying. She uses that argument to say lawmakers have time to consider other bills.<\/p>\n

Senate President Pro Tem Tim Jennings<\/a>, D-Roswell, says Martinez doesn\u2019t know what she\u2019s talking about.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been through redistricting four times. To tell the public that nobody\u2019s doing anything is a little bit absurd,\u201d The New Mexican quoted Jennings as saying. \u201cShe\u2019s never been through one. What does she know?\u201d<\/p>\n

The New Mexican detailed some of the other items on Martinez\u2019s agenda:<\/p>\n

\u201cIn addition to the required redistricting work, Martinez has demanded that lawmakers overturn a 2003 law that allows New Mexico to issue driver\u2019s licenses to noncitizens, which has provoked the show of force Tuesday from immigrant-rights activists.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe governor also wants the Legislature to end social promotion of third-graders who lack sufficient reading proficiency and to give local authorities the power to ban fireworks.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnother potentially explosive item might join the already-packed agenda: Consolidation of state government agencies in an effort to save money, including the merger of the Cultural Affairs and Tourism departments, a governor\u2019s spokesman said Friday.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

You can learn more about Martinez\u2019s agenda from a commentary<\/a> she authored that ran this weekend in the Albuquerque Journal.<\/p>\n

Of course, redistricting may just end up in court once again, as The New Mexican wrote in another article<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Impeachment will likely wait<\/h3>\n

Then there\u2019s the issue of the impeachment of PRC member Jerome Block Jr.<\/a> It will come up during the special session. But that doesn\u2019t mean impeachment will play itself out during the special session.<\/p>\n

One possible scenario is that the Legislature will consider Block\u2019s impeachment during the special session. But the more likely scenario is that lawmakers will vote during the special session to bring themselves back for an extraordinary session as early as October to focus only on Block\u2019s impeachment.<\/p>\n

After all, if lawmakers are already saying there\u2019s too much on their plate during a session with an agenda set by the governor, why would they add another major task? That\u2019s one reason some say the Legislature should bring itself back in October.<\/p>\n

The other reason: The House is given sole authority to initiate impeachment proceedings, so some say impeachment hearings should be held during a session called by lawmakers, not the governor.<\/p>\n

Anyway, you can learn more about redistricting here<\/a>. The Legislature\u2019s home page is here<\/a>, and webcasting of floor and committee sessions is here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cRedistricting, with a side of controversy.\u201d That\u2019s how The Santa Fe New Mexican describes the special session of the Legislature that begins today.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[156,217,207,107],"class_list":["post-31535","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-2012-election","tag-prc","tag-redistricting","tag-roundhouse"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31535","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=31535"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31535\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31535"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31535"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31535"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}