{"id":4430,"date":"2009-04-02T16:42:00","date_gmt":"2009-04-02T22:42:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/2009\/04\/guv-pressured-anew-to-sign-open-meetings-bill\/"},"modified":"2009-04-02T16:42:00","modified_gmt":"2009-04-02T22:42:00","slug":"guv-pressured-anew-to-sign-open-meetings-bill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2009\/04\/guv-pressured-anew-to-sign-open-meetings-bill\/","title":{"rendered":"Guv pressured anew to sign open-meetings bill"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

Gov. Bill Richardson<\/a> might not have been feeling much public pressure yesterday to sign a bill that would open conference committees and other legislative meetings to the public, but he\u2019s certainly feeling it today.<\/p>\n

Richardson spokesman Gilbert Gallegos said on Wednesday that, other than media pressure, his office had seen \u201cvery little public interest\u201d<\/a> in House Bill 393<\/a>, sponsored by Rep. Joseph Cervantes<\/a>, D-Las Cruces. Since news reports about that circulated, the number of calls and e-mails to Richardson\u2019s office has increased, Gallegos confirmed today.<\/p>\n

One of those e-mails was from Violet and Ronald Cauthon of Las Cruces.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou are under the impression that only media figures want open government,\u201d they wrote in their letter, which they provided to me. \u201cBe advised that concerned and involved voters want our legislators to know we are watching and listening.\u201d<\/p>\n

The pressure was also put on Richardson at a news conference he held today to sign other ethics-reform bills, according to the New Mexico Independent<\/a>. Actually, Richardson invited the pressure when he asked reform proponents who were present for the bill signing to express their views, in front of the media, on Cervantes\u2019 bill.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have urged you to sign it and we\u2019re going to continue putting as much pressure on you as we can for you to sign it,\u201d Terri Cole, of the Greater Albuquerque Chamber of Commerce<\/a>, told Richardson.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the bill that\u2019s in front of you, while it\u2019s not perfect, I believe it\u2019s the only bill we could get in front of you,\u201d NMI quoted Cole as saying. \u201cIt\u2019s either that or nothing. And we just don\u2019t want nothing as we move forward. We\u2019ll continue to urge you and be a pain in your neck.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou think this is the best we can do?\u201d the governor asked in response, according to NMI.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, governor, I think so,\u201d said Sen. Dede Feldman<\/a>, D-Albuquerque. \u201cWe have tried it now for six years.\u201d<\/p>\n

Also asking the governor to sign the bill at today\u2019s news conference were Sen. Peter Wirth<\/a>, D-Santa Fe, and Common Cause New Mexico<\/a> Executive Director Steven Robert Allen.<\/p>\n

Common Cause put a full-court press on the governor today by also sending out an e-mail to its members urging them to contact the governor about the bill and a news release imploring Richardson to sign it.<\/p>\n

In the news release, Common Cause praised Richardson for signing the other ethics bills today, but said the organization hopes the governor will also \u201ccontinue his long-time support for openness in state government\u201d by signing Cervantes\u2019 bill.<\/p>\n

Richardson has repeatedly endorsed open conference committees in the past and said late in the session that, if it passed, he would sign Cervantes\u2019 bill. But he now says he\u2019s concerned about a \u201cloophole\u201d — language in the bill that allows it to be overridden by a rule change that would require the approval of two-thirds of lawmakers — and he doesn\u2019t know whether he will sign the bill.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Gov. Bill Richardson might not have been feeling much public pressure yesterday to sign a bill that would open conference committees and other legislative meetings to the public, but he\u2019s certainly feeling it today. Richardson spokesman Gilbert Gallegos said on Wednesday that, other than media pressure, his office had seen \u201cvery little public interest\u201d in […]<\/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-4430","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4430","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=4430"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4430\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4430"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4430"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4430"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}