{"id":4402,"date":"2009-03-24T21:28:00","date_gmt":"2009-03-25T03:28:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/2009\/03\/lujan-retracts-accusation-of-racism\/"},"modified":"2009-03-24T21:28:00","modified_gmt":"2009-03-25T03:28:00","slug":"lujan-retracts-accusation-of-racism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2009\/03\/lujan-retracts-accusation-of-racism\/","title":{"rendered":"Lujan retracts accusation of racism"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>House Speaker Ben Lujan<\/a> is retracting his statement that Senate Finance Chairman John Arthur Smith<\/a> is racist.<\/p>\n

But Lujan didn\u2019t apologize in an interview with the Albuquerque Journal<\/a> for his verbal assault on Smith, and he is continuing to defend the legislation Smith attacked on Saturday, the last day of the session.<\/p>\n

\u201cMaybe my choice of words could have been better,\u201d the Journal quoted Lujan as saying. \u201cBut there was no reason to make an accusation things were suspicious of any kind.\u201d<\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>It was after Lujan slipped an already-killed proposal into an unrelated bill to try to resurrect it that Smith, on Saturday, opened the first conference committee<\/a> in the history of the legislature, invited the press, and said that <\/span>slipping the amendment into the bill created a \u201ccloud of suspicion.\u201d<\/p>\n

The proposal to allow bigger cities and counties to issue bonds to finance private projects — and have the bonds repaid through lease payments — was Lujan\u2019s attempt to help a developer fund a project at the Santa Fe Railyard.<\/p>\n

Shortly after the session ended, Lujan called Smith a racist in an interview with two journalists<\/a>. Moments later, he confronted Smith<\/a> on the floor of the Senate in front of journalists and other senators.<\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYou are full of shit,\u201d Lujan told Smith. \u201c\u2026 You are not worth a darn. That\u2019s what\u2019s the matter with you. You are a racist S.O.B.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201811th hour\u2026 full-court press\u2019 causes suspicion
<\/span><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Smith, in an interview with the Journal, brought up the fact that the House had twice voted down Lujan\u2019s attempt to help the Railyard developer before Lujan slipped the amendment into the unrelated bill. The conference committee stripped the Lujan amendment from the bill.<\/p>\n

Smith, in the Journal interview, explained why the amendment, brought up at the very end of the session, was suspicious to him.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat is suspicious is when you see something happening again and again and again to see it get through. You try to dig deeper,\u201d he said. \u201cIn the 11th hour we don\u2019t catch things, usually. … There was a full-court press out to get that legislation through.\u201d<\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

Lujan was quoted by the Journal as saying he believed Smith thought he \u201chad some interest in the property\u2026 that I was trying to promote myself and help myself. That was far from the truth, and that\u2019s what got me aggravated.\u201d<\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

The House was in session on Saturday until nearly 3:30 a.m. before returning at 8:30 a.m. for the final few hours. Smith said he is giving Lujan \u201cthe benefit of the doubt that he was tired,\u201d according to the Journal.<\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

House Speaker Ben Lujan is retracting his statement that Senate Finance Chairman John Arthur Smith is racist. But Lujan didn\u2019t apologize in an interview with the Albuquerque Journal for his verbal assault on Smith, and he is continuing to defend the legislation Smith attacked on Saturday, the last day of the session. \u201cMaybe my choice […]<\/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-4402","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4402","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=4402"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4402\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4402"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4402"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4402"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}