{"id":512461,"date":"2018-01-31T04:02:14","date_gmt":"2018-01-31T11:02:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=512461"},"modified":"2018-01-31T04:02:14","modified_gmt":"2018-01-31T11:02:14","slug":"senators-comment-about-people-with-parkinsons-sparks-controversy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2018\/01\/senators-comment-about-people-with-parkinsons-sparks-controversy\/","title":{"rendered":"Senator’s comment about people with Parkinson’s sparks controversy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nobody expected any controversy this week when the Senate Rules Committee heard Senate Memorial 4<\/a>, which would call on The University of New Mexico to devise a plan to create a movement disorders center for thousands of New Mexicans who have Parkinson’s disease or other movement disorders.<\/p>\n

\"Daniel

Courtesy photo<\/p>

Daniel Ivey-Soto<\/p><\/div>\n

That changed when Sen. Daniel Ivey-Soto, D-Albuquerque, said this: “I do have have to say I love actually talking about stuff with the Parkinson’s folks because I get all this nodding and it feels very affirming as I’m talking.”<\/p>\n

A spokesman for Republican Gov. Susana Martinez tweeted a video clip<\/a> of Ivey-Soto’s observation, asking “Did @NMSenateDems really just make this joke about Parkinson’s?”<\/p>\n

A few hours later, the state Republican Party sent a news release demanding an apology. “While we’re all for a healthy sense of humor, this ‘joke’ wasn’t funny nor helpful in dealing with the challenges that come with this serious disease.”<\/p>\n

Ivey-Soto said he meant no harm.<\/p>\n

“It was not a joke,” he said\u00a0Tuesday<\/span><\/span>. “It was a recognition of the condition that brought everyone [to the hearing]. If I in any way hurt or offended anyone, I certainly apologize.”<\/p>\n

But, he said, he spoke after the hearing with several of the Parkinson’s patients and none was offended.<\/p>\n

One of those was former University of New Mexico regent Jamie Koch, who is spearheading the drive to approve the Senate memorial and the identical House Memorial 8<\/a>, which passed the House\u00a0on Tuesday<\/span><\/span>.<\/p>\n

“I didn’t take it as an insult,” Koch said. “I’m not concerned.”<\/p>\n

The Senate is scheduled to vote\u00a0Thursday<\/span><\/span>\u00a0on the memorial.<\/p>\n

This article comes from\u00a0The Santa Fe New Mexican<\/a>. NMPolitics.net is paying for the rights to publish articles about the 2018 legislative session from the newspaper. Help us cover the cost by\u00a0making a donation to NMPolitics.net<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The moment came during discussion about creating a movement disorders center at UNM.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":128561,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[3634,710,107],"class_list":["post-512461","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-2018-legislative-session","tag-health","tag-roundhouse"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/512461","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=512461"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/512461\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/128561"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=512461"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=512461"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=512461"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}