{"id":4506,"date":"2009-04-29T09:55:00","date_gmt":"2009-04-29T15:55:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/2009\/04\/article-examines-the-king-of-pocket-vetoes\/"},"modified":"2009-04-29T09:55:00","modified_gmt":"2009-04-29T15:55:00","slug":"article-examines-the-king-of-pocket-vetoes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2009\/04\/article-examines-the-king-of-pocket-vetoes\/","title":{"rendered":"Article examines the ‘King of Pocket Vetoes’"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

Gov. Bill Richardson<\/a> has been labeled by the Santa Fe Reporter\u2019s Dave Maass as \u201chands down the contemporary King of Pocket Vetoes.\u201d<\/p>\n

While there were no pocket vetoes of bills in New Mexico between 1976 and 1995 — and Richardson\u2019s predecessor, Gary Johnson<\/a>, pocket vetoed only a handful of bills during his tenure — Richardson has used the tool to kill dozens of bills each year since he took office in 2003, Maass writes in an article published today<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The pocket veto is the killing of a bill simply by failing to sign it before the deadline to act on legislation. The governor can also kill bills by actively vetoing them and including a message about why he\u2019s doing it.<\/p>\n

The first, conservative blogger Mario Burgos<\/a> told Maass, is the \u201cpassive-aggressive approach to government.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHistorically, one of the reasons the governor uses pocket vetoes is to avoid putting himself in the crosshairs for making unpopular decisions,\u201d Burgos was quoted by Maass as saying. \u201cIt\u2019s a way for him to appease legislators or special interests instead of making the hard decision by vetoing it.\u201d<\/p>\n

This year, Richardson\u2019s pocket vetoes included three bills that would have stripped the governor\u2019s control of the State Investment Council, required legislative review of the administration\u2019s spending of federal stimulus money and authorized the Legislative Finance Committee to review confidential information, such as patient health documents, from state agencies without making it public.<\/p>\n

Richardson Deputy Chief of Staff Gilbert Gallegos told Maass he doesn\u2019t understand why pocket vetoes are a big deal.<\/p>\n

\u201cGov. Johnson prided himself for the gridlock he created with the Legislature. His veto messages, sometimes irrelevant to the bills themselves, were often in-your-face messages meant to solicit a reaction from legislators,\u201d Maass quoted Gallegos as saying. \u201cGov. Richardson, on the other hand, will write a veto message if he believes it is necessary and practical. If there is no reason for a message, he will use his pocket veto authority.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t really understand the criticism that the governor is making unpopular decisions under the radar,\u201d Gallegos said. \u201cThe governor either signs or vetoes every bill that reaches his desk\u2026 A veto is a veto. Period.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Gov. Bill Richardson has been labeled by the Santa Fe Reporter\u2019s Dave Maass as \u201chands down the contemporary King of Pocket Vetoes.\u201d While there were no pocket vetoes of bills in New Mexico between 1976 and 1995 — and Richardson\u2019s predecessor, Gary Johnson, pocket vetoed only a handful of bills during his tenure — Richardson […]<\/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-4506","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4506","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=4506"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4506\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4506"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4506"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4506"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}