{"id":4400,"date":"2009-03-23T22:30:00","date_gmt":"2009-03-24T04:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/2009\/03\/guv-might-not-sign-conference-committee-bill\/"},"modified":"2009-03-23T22:30:00","modified_gmt":"2009-03-24T04:30:00","slug":"guv-might-not-sign-conference-committee-bill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2009\/03\/guv-might-not-sign-conference-committee-bill\/","title":{"rendered":"Guv might not sign conference committee bill"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

Despite prior pledge, Richardson now says \u2018loopholes\u2019 in bill concern him<\/span><\/p>\n

Though he previously pledged to sign a bill that would open conference committees and many other currently closed legislative meetings to the public, the governor\u2019s office now says Bill Richardson<\/a> is concerned about \u201cloopholes in the bill\u201d and isn\u2019t certain he\u2019ll sign it.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe governor has concerns about what appear to be major loopholes in the bill,\u201d Richardson spokesman Gilbert Gallegos wrote tonight in an e-mail. \u201c\u2026The governor is taking his time to scrutinize the bill.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>That\u2019s not what Richardson said on Thursday when asked by a reporter during a news conference if he would sign House Bill 393<\/a>, sponsored by Rep. Joseph Cervantes<\/a>, D-Las Cruces, should it pass the Senate.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah,\u201d Richardson said<\/a> at that news conference. The bill passed the Senate<\/a> that night on a vote of 33-8.<\/p>\n

In response to the new statement from the governor\u2019s office, Cervantes said this evening that he\u2019s \u201cgoing to trust that the governor will stand by his prior commitment to open government and a chance for members of the public to participate fully in the legislative process.\u201d<\/p>\n

Richardson has said for years that he supported opening conference committees to the public and would sign such a bill. Giving the governor access to all conference committees is one reason the Senate, which has been at odds with the governor, has been so resistant to the conference-committee proposal in recent years.<\/p>\n

Asked tonight what loopholes in Cervantes\u2019 bill are concerning, Gallegos said the bill allows the Legislature to approve a rule change that overrides the statutory change Cervantes\u2019 bill would make. That means, essentially, that a two-thirds majority vote in the House and Senate could once again close conference committees to the public.<\/p>\n

Counting on the guv \u2018to make good on his promise\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n

Conference committees are groups of usually of three House members and three Senate members who are tasked with reconciling differences between versions bills that have passed both chambers. They are quite powerful and, under current law, can significantly change bills without any public debate or scrutiny. Money can be appropriated and laws can be changed.<\/p>\n

And, as Cervantes has said, legislative leaders sometimes use conference committees to shut out other lawmakers in addition to the public. Only the lawmakers appointed to the committees are allowed into the secret meetings.<\/p>\n

Cervantes\u2019 bill would change that.<\/p>\n

In addition to opening conference committees to the public, the bill would open many other currently closed legislative meetings, including executive sessions of House and Senate finance committees. Exempt from having to be open under the bill are investigative or quasi-judicial meetings — such as impeachment proceedings — and political party caucus meetings.<\/p>\n

But those exemptions aren\u2019t the loopholes cited by Gallegos this evening.<\/p>\n

Though it\u2019s Cervantes\u2019 bill that passed the Legislature this year, the conference committee proposal was championed in the Senate for years by Dede Feldman<\/a>, D-Albuquerque. Feldman said this evening that she, like Cervantes, is \u201ccounting on the governor to make good on his promise that he would sign this.\u201d<\/p>\n

Feldman said the bill she has proposed in the past was \u201cstronger\u201d than Cervantes\u2019. It did not allow the Legislature the opportunity to once again close the meetings with a rule change.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut that bill failed to pass,\u201d Feldman said. \u201c(Cervantes\u2019) bill did pass unanimously in the House and strongly in the Senate, so I hope that he will take note of that and sign the bill.\u201d<\/p>\n

Drama, drama, drama<\/span><\/p>\n

The news of the governor\u2019s wavering on his pledge to sign the bill is the latest drama surrounding what has for years been a controversial proposal. The open-conference-committee bill was twice killed by the Senate in 2007, each time by one vote. But changes in the Senate\u2019s makeup that resulted from last year\u2019s election helped ensure the votes to pass the proposal this year.<\/p>\n

The Senate\u2019s three leaders — President Pro Tem Tim Jennings<\/a>, D-Roswell; Majority Leader Michael Sanchez<\/a>, D-Belen; and Minority Leader Stuart Ingle<\/a>, R-Portales — led the unsuccessful opposition to Cervantes\u2019 bill last week.<\/p>\n

Then on Saturday, Senate leaders including Finance Chairman John Arthur Smith<\/a>, D-Deming, decided to not wait for Cervantes\u2019 bill to take effect on June 19 (if the governor signs it) and opened a conference committee to the public in an attempt to reveal what Smith called a \u201ccloud of suspicion\u201d hanging over House Speaker Ben Lujan<\/a>. Smith made that allegation because the speaker slipped a proposal that would benefit one private developer into an unrelated bill in an attempt to push it through the Legislature after the House had twice killed the proposal.<\/p>\n

That public embarrassment for the speaker — all due to the first open conference committee in the Legislature\u2019s history — led to a public confrontation on the Senate floor in which Lujan, a close ally of Richardson, called Smith a racist and cussed him out<\/a> in front of journalists and other senators.<\/p>\n

A prior version of this posting incorrectly stated that Cervantes\u2019 bill would take effect in July if the governor signs it and that only a simple majority would be required under the bill to once again close conference committees.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Despite prior pledge, Richardson now says \u2018loopholes\u2019 in bill concern him Though he previously pledged to sign a bill that would open conference committees and many other currently closed legislative meetings to the public, the governor\u2019s office now says Bill Richardson is concerned about \u201cloopholes in the bill\u201d and isn\u2019t certain he\u2019ll sign it. \u201cThe […]<\/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-4400","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4400","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=4400"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4400\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4400"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4400"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4400"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}