{"id":4300,"date":"2009-03-02T12:06:00","date_gmt":"2009-03-02T18:06:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/2009\/03\/watching-the-grass-grow-again-in-senate-rules\/"},"modified":"2009-03-02T12:06:00","modified_gmt":"2009-03-02T18:06:00","slug":"watching-the-grass-grow-again-in-senate-rules","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2009\/03\/watching-the-grass-grow-again-in-senate-rules\/","title":{"rendered":"Watching the grass grow again in Senate Rules"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

This article has been updated with a correction.<\/p>\n

Those who watched today\u2019s meeting of the Senate Rules Committee<\/a> in person or via webcast hoping that the committee would finally begin moving ethics-reform bills ended up pretty much watching the grass grow once again.<\/p>\n

The committee did discuss Senate Bill 555<\/a>, sponsored by the committee\u2019s chair, Linda Lopez<\/a>, D-Albuquerque, but took no action on it. The bill would make the Governmental Conduct Act<\/a> apply to local government officials in addition to state officials, and also require legislators who have a financial interest that would be affected by their official acts to disclose the nature and value of the interest to the public.<\/p>\n

But the committee took no action on the bill.<\/p>\n

The Rules Committee also discussed Senate Bill 157<\/a>, sponsored by Sander Rue<\/a>, R-Albuquerque, which would increase transparency by requiring a period of 72 hours following the approval of an appropriations or revenue bill by one committee before it could be considered by another committee or on the floor. That would allow more time for scrutiny.<\/p>\n

But the committee also took no action on that bill.<\/p>\n

The committee also left untouched, once again, the major ethics-reform proposals — those that would create an independent state ethics commission, enact campaign contribution limits and ban or require the disclosure of contributions from state contractors. The proposal to expand the public financing system to statewide elected officials and lawmakers remains in limbo in the committee. And the committee hasn\u2019t yet scheduled a hearing on a proposal to open legislative conference committees to the public.<\/p>\n

\u201cThanks for letting us watch the grass grow,\u201d Ellen Wedum<\/a> of Otero County wrote at the end of a liveblog that accompanied the New Mexico Independent\u2019s webcasting<\/a> of the meeting.<\/p>\n

NMI Editor David Alire Garcia<\/a> wrote this at the end of the liveblog: \u201c\u2026the grass is still looking kinda parched to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

A prior version of this posting incorrectly stated that Senate Bill 157 was given a do-pass recommendation by the committee.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This article has been updated with a correction. Those who watched today\u2019s meeting of the Senate Rules Committee in person or via webcast hoping that the committee would finally begin moving ethics-reform bills ended up pretty much watching the grass grow once again. The committee did discuss Senate Bill 555, sponsored by the committee\u2019s chair, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4300","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4300","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=4300"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4300\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4300"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4300"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4300"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}