{"id":4312,"date":"2009-03-05T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2009-03-05T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/2009\/03\/lujans-support-should-clear-path-for-housing-reform\/"},"modified":"2009-03-05T07:00:00","modified_gmt":"2009-03-05T13:00:00","slug":"lujans-support-should-clear-path-for-housing-reform","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2009\/03\/lujans-support-should-clear-path-for-housing-reform\/","title":{"rendered":"Lujan’s support should clear path for housing reform"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

Once accused of trying to kill an overhaul of the state\u2019s housing authority system, Lujan is now shepherding it through the House<\/span><\/p>\n

In 2007, Lt. Gov. Diane Denish<\/a> and Sen. Mary Kay Papen<\/a> accused House Speaker Ben Lujan<\/a> of trying to torpedo their attempt to reform the state\u2019s affordable housing system.<\/p>\n

But this year, he\u2019s shepherding their housing authority reform bill through the House for them. The move, announced Monday<\/a>, indicates a great deal of consensus behind Papen\u2019s Senate Bill 20<\/a>, which unanimously passed the Senate<\/a> this weekend. With Lujan\u2019s backing, the bill is likely to sail through the House. The governor has endorsed it.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>That\u2019s quite a contrast to the battle that occurred in 2007, when there was widespread belief in Santa Fe that Lujan was trying to kill another Papen housing reform bill — one that was approved only after a great deal of political maneuvering and significant compromise. Most of the housing authority system had collapsed the year before in a scandal centered on a former legislator who has been a close ally of Lujan.<\/p>\n

The speaker has maintained that he never opposed an overhaul of the housing authority system. Regardless, reform backers believe his support for this year\u2019s bill is critical to avoiding a contentious battle like the one fought in 2007. Without naming Lujan or anyone else, Papen, a Las Cruces Democrat, said a number of House members who were hesitant about reform in 2007 \u201care now very willing to support it,\u201d in part because reports recently released by the state auditor<\/a> leave little doubt that widespread problems led to the collapse of the housing authority system.<\/p>\n

<\/span>Denish said she is \u201cdelighted that Speaker Lujan will be the House sponsor,\u201d and commended Papen \u201cfor working to move the bill along.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis bill has strong bipartisan support, and I am confident it will move quickly in the House,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u2018Look at my record\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n

Lujan said Tuesday that he \u201cnever stood against\u201d reform of the housing authorities, and said he was asked to carry Papen\u2019s bill in the House this year.<\/p>\n

\u201cI said that if the bill gets through the committees, I\u2019d be happy to sponsor it,\u201d Lujan continued. \u201cI\u2019ve always been a proponent for low-income affordable housing. Look at my record.\u201d<\/p>\n

The legislation should clear the House without any trouble, Lujan said.<\/p>\n

Some of the reforms in Papen\u2019s bill include consolidating the seven regional authorities into three, designating an oversight agency to oversee regional operations, strengthening conflict-of-interest language, permanently eliminating the authorities\u2019 ability to issue bonds and requiring that transactions of over $100,000 be reviewed and approved by the mortgage finance authority<\/a>.<\/p>\n

That builds on the 2007 reforms, which included temporarily stripping the housing authorities\u2019 bonding authority and giving the Department of Finance and Administration and state treasurer roles in administering the agencies\u2019 finances. The bill approved that year also funded the audits that the state auditor recently completed.<\/p>\n

Lujan ally at center of housing scandal<\/span><\/p>\n

Most of the housing authority system collapsed in 2006 when the Albuquerque-based Region III Housing Authority defaulted on $5 million in bonds it owed the state. Soon thereafter, the State Investment Council<\/a> released a report<\/a> that found widespread misuse of the bond money, which was supposed to be spent on houses. In January, the state auditor released his office\u2019s long-awaited reports<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Attorney General Gary King<\/a> is preparing to take his criminal investigation before a grand jury.<\/p>\n

At the center of the housing authority scandal is Vincent \u201cSmiley\u201d Gallegos, a former legislator from Clovis and a Lujan ally who ran Region III. Also a lobbyist, Gallegos has spent a lot of time in Lujan\u2019s office during many legislative sessions.<\/p>\n

During the 2007 session, Lujan\u2019s relationship with Gallegos was under scrutiny because it had recently been revealed that a top aide to Lujan — who earned more than $71,000 per year — was living, rent-free, in a home owned by Region III<\/a> that was supposed to benefit someone who qualified for low-income housing.<\/p>\n

The 2007 reform bill<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

There were two, identical housing authority reform bills that year — one sponsored by Papen and the other sponsored by Rep. Janice Arnold-Jones<\/a>, R-Albuquerque — and Lujan assigned them to different House committees. After one committee shelved Arnold-Jones\u2019 bill<\/a>, Lujan took the unusual step of moving Papen\u2019s bill to the same committee.<\/p>\n

Then-Denish spokesman Michael Henningsen said at the time that it appeared Lujan intended to kill Papen\u2019s bill<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe overall impression we\u2019re getting is that this bill is following in the footsteps of Rep. Arnold-Jones\u2019 bill,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Papen also said at the time that she believed Lujan was trying to kill her bill.<\/p>\n

Lujan, a Namb\u00e9 Democrat, insisted that wasn\u2019t the case<\/a>. But the committee that had killed the Arnold-Jones bill was stacked with Lujan allies, and it was only after a coalition of Republicans and a handful of Democrats threatened to bypass the committee and move the bill directly to the House floor for a vote that a compromise was reached<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Following that compromise, Lujan publicly thanked Papen \u201cfor addressing this issue.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can now go back to our communities and hopefully be able to provide some affordable housing,\u201d he said at the time. \u201c\u2026 I congratulate you for all the hard work you\u2019ve done here.\u201d<\/p>\n

The New Mexico Independent\u2019s<\/a> Trip Jennings contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Once accused of trying to kill an overhaul of the state\u2019s housing authority system, Lujan is now shepherding it through the House In 2007, Lt. Gov. Diane Denish and Sen. Mary Kay Papen accused House Speaker Ben Lujan of trying to torpedo their attempt to reform the state\u2019s affordable housing system. But this year, he\u2019s […]<\/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-4312","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4312","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=4312"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4312\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4312"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4312"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4312"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}