Gov has Signed 74 Bills So Far

UPDATE: 4:03 pm This post has been rewritten to reflect the latest batch of bill action by the governor.

Gov. Susana Martinez today signed the education pension bill (Senate Bill 115 sponsored by Senate Republican Leader Stuart Ingle, of Portales) as well as four bills aimed at reforming the Public Regulation Commission.

This comes a day after she signed another major piece of legislation, the Health Insurance Exchange bill, SB 221, sponsored by Sen. Benny Shendo, D-Jemez Pueblo and Rep. Tom Taylor, R-Farmington.

For those keeping count, Martinez has signed 74 bills into law as of this afternoon. She's also vetoed 14 bills, including eight just this afternoon. Among those were the minimum wage increase -- which she'd said she would veto.

The last day a governor can take action on bills is Friday April 5.

Martinez still has 211 bills to consider before next Friday.

Among those not acted upon are the PERA pension bill, and the tax reform bill.

The pension bill will require teachers and other education employees earning more than $20,000 a year to pay more into their retirement. The bill, which becomes law in July, will lower cost-of-living increases for retirees. It also imposes a minimum retirement age of 55.

The PRC bills include all four bills in a package of reforms. The include establishing minimum standards for commissioners; making the Insurance Division a separate entity outside of the PRC; moving the responsibility of registering corporations to the Secretary of State's office; and de-regulating motor carriers, such as taxis and moving companies.

The health insurance bill will create the framework for a marketplace where consumers can shop for health insurance. Under federal Affordable Care Act (Obamacare). the state must have the exchange ready to enroll insurance customers by October.

Besides the minimum wage bill, the other legislation Martinez vetoed today dealt with education. These include SB 587, sponsored by Sen. Howie Morales, D-Silver City, which would have established a council to revamp the current system of grading schools.

In her veto messages to the House and Senate, Martinez said, "The status quo has failed and must be reformed if we are going to truly give every child the opportunity to chase his or her dreams. The vetoed bills, in one way or another, represent a desire by the establishment to cling to the same failed status quo."

The Race is On

Sam Bregman

There's just one month before the state Democratic Party's Central Committee chooses a new party chairman to replace outgoing Chairman Javier Gonzales.

Albuquerque lawyer Sam Bregman, who made a strong bid to unseat Gonzales two years ago, appears to be the front runner.

A former state vice chairman, and former Albuquerque city councilor, Bregman has gotten lots of endorsements. Just this morning the Bregman camp announced that Las Cruces Sen. Bill Soules had signed on. Earlier this week Bregman won the support of Sens. Phil Griego of San Jose and Carlos Sisneros of Questa.

Roxanne Lara

But Bregman is getting a spirited challenge from Roxanne "Rocky" Lara, a former Eddy County Commission member.

She's a newcomer to the state political scene. But she made a surprisingly good showing a couple of weeks ago with Santa Fe County Dems. (How many Santa Fe members of the state Central Committee elected from Santa Fe seems to be in dispute. Lara claims she got about 75 percent. Bregman says he got more than 50 percent. I guess we'll know for sure when the Central Committee meets in Las Cruces on April 27.

For several months before he announced he was running for chairman, Bregman had been the subject of speculation that he might run for governor next year. He said when he entered the chairmanship contest that he wouldn't. Just to be sure I asked him again yesterday. Nothing's changed.

My story about the chairmanship race is in this morning's New Mexican. CLICK HERE.

Roundhouse Roundup: On Last Minute Decisions

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New MexicanMarch, 24 2013

One of the winners in the recently adjourned Legislature was Think New Mexico, the think tank across the street from the Capitol. The organization was successful in convincing the Legislature to pass three bills aimed at reforming the scandal-blasted Public Regulation Commission.

Of course, those bills didn’t only have Think New Mexico behind them. State voters in the last election passed constitutional amendments mandating the general ideas behind the legislation. The bills basically filled in the details.

The three bills include Senate Bill 8, which would require new qualifications for commission candidates; House Bill 46, which would move the Corporations Bureau from the Public Regulation Commission to the Secretary of State’s Office; and HB 45, which would create an independent Office of the Insurance Superintendent and remove that division from the commission.

They still must be signed by Gov. Susana Martinez. It might be presumptuous to say that’s a sure bet, but I haven’t heard any rumblings about possible vetoes.

The passing of the PRC bills made me think back to the October 2011 report by Think New Mexico that launched the effort to reform the commission. The report included the history of how the commission came to be in the first place.

“Those present at the birth of the Public Regulation Commission in 1996 still shudder when thinking about how it came into being,” the introduction to the report began. “There was surprisingly little deliberation about the formation of what is likely the most powerful state regulatory body in the nation …”

Surprisingly little deliberation? In the state Legislature? As recently as 1996? How could that be?

The narrative explains how the PRC began as a proposed constitutional amendment, House Joint Resolution 16, sponsored by Rep. Bob Perls, D-Corrales. Then House Speaker Raymond Sanchez, D-Albuquerque didn’t like the proposed amendment, so he assigned it four committees. That’s normally a kiss of death, especially in a 30-day session.

But then something weird happened. The darned thing started passing out of its committees. “The odds of its passage, however, were still stacked against it as it came up for a vote on the House Floor around 11 p.m., the night before the session’s adjournment at noon the next day,” the report said.

It went over to the Senate, where it was assigned to the Rules Committee. “However, with only about an hour remaining until adjournment of the session, [Senate President Pro-tem Manny] Aragon made a rare parliamentary procedural maneuver,” the report said. “He removed HJR 16 from the Senate Rules Committee — without a hearing — and brought it directly to the Senate Floor as the next order of business. The Senate passed HJR 16 with only a few minutes remaining in the session.”

The constitutional amendment went on to squeak by the voters in November 1996.

Now some of you gentle readers might want to draw comparisons between the frantic, last-minute wheeling and dealing that got the PRC legislation passed to the frantic, last-minute wheeling and dealing that got the controversial tax bill passed in the final seconds (some say beyond the final seconds) of the 2013 session.

Don’t be silly. There are major differences in the passing of these two pieces of legislation.

The PRC legislation went through four House committees, while the tax bill, in anything resembling its final form, didn’t get heard by any committee. The fiscal impact report for the PRC resolution was available long before any floor vote, while the fiscal impact report for the tax bill didn’t get released until several days after the session ended. And the voters got the final say with the PRC legislation. That won’t happen with the tax bill.

House Speaker Kenny Martinez and others have said that if there are any unforeseen problems with the tax bill, the Legislature can just come back and fix it next year.

After all, the Legislature finally got around to fixing problems with the monster created in 1996 by the PRC legislation.

Priebus, G.P. Bush Coming to NM for GOP Dinner

G.P. Bush

Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus and George P. Bush, nephew of former President George W. Bush, are headlining the state Republican Party's Lincoln Day Dinner Saturday, March 23.

“The staff, officers and I are excited to have such prominent and strong leaders as our special guests for the Lincoln Day Dinner,” said state GOP chairman John Billingsley in a news release. “This is a great opportunity for New Mexico to come out and show their support for the growth of our party, and for them to hear from two outstanding conservative leaders.”

Bush recently announced he is running for agriculture commissioner in Texas.

For more information, interested individuals should contact Robert Perea at 505-610-1831 or rperea1@gmail.com .

Sen. Lopez Wants Legal Opinion on Skandera

Rep. Bill McCamley isn't the only lawmaker seeking an Attorney General's opinion today. Sen. Linda Lopez, chairwoman of the Senate Rules Committee also wants one.

Sen. Linda Lopez

Legislators are allowed to request opinions from the attorney general. The opinions themselves do not have the force of law.

As her letter, below, points out, (and as I noted in my Sunday column this week), Skandera was the subject of 10 hours worth of testimony in her long-delayed confirmation hearing before Lopez's committee.  

Lopez had several  questions for the AG involve charter schools contracting with private companies -- specifically the New Mexico Virtual Academy, a Farmington charter school, and K-12 Inc., a private for-profit management company under contract with the school. Lopez wants the attorney to say whether there are possible procurement code violations in the school's contract with the company.

She also asks for opinions regarding the legality of $1.7 million from a general obligation bond that went to schools that scored high in the recent A-to-F ratings.

Lopez also asked for an update on the AG's investigation into Public Education Department Employeess being used to compiles lists of non-union teachers for Gov. Susana Martinez's political consultant, Jay McCleskey. A spokesman for the department told Lopez  an AG investigator said he would recommend that the investigation be closed.

Looks like KIng and his staff have some opinion-writing ahead of them.

Lopez Request for AG Opinion re: Hanna Skandera

McCamley Asks for AG Opinion on Same-Sex Marriage

A day after Santa Fe Mayor David Coss urged New Mexico's county clerks to start accepting wedding license applications from same-sex couples, Rep. Bill McCamley, D-Las Cruces, has asked Attorney General Gary King to issue an opinion on whether this would be legal.

McCamley was requested to request the opinion by Dona Ana County Clerk Lynn Ellins. Ellins, in a letter to McCamley today said that clerks currently are prohibited from issuing licenses to same-sex couples by a 2004 opinion by King's predecessor, Patricia Madrid.

McCamley, in an email to reporters said he's "extremely proud" that Ellins asked him to make the request to King. County clerks can't request opinions of the attorney general, but legislators can.

"As Santa Fe City Attorney Geno Zamora recently pointed out, nowhere in New Mexico law is marriage defined as between a man and a women and denying same sex couples the right to officially express their love for one another is blatant discrimination," McCamley said.

"I truly hope that Attorney General King takes a deep and thorough look at this law. I further hope that he decides that clerks should issues licenses to any couple of legal age and allow New Mexico to enter the 21st century."

McCamley's letter to King is below:

McCamley Request to AG by Steve Terrell

Greta Says Susana Might Run for Prez

Fox News' Greta Van Susteren and Gov. Susana Martinez had a nice little game of softball back in December.

And now Van Susteren is floating the idea that Martinez could be a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination in 2014 --  and not just because it seems that all New Mexico governors seem to run for president these days.

I may be the only one who thinks it, but I think New Mexico Governor Susana Martinez is a possible candidate for her party’s nomination.  I flew to New Mexico in December and spent the day with the Governor just to get a feel for whether I thought she had any interest in running.  (Of course you watched our interview with the Governor on ON THE RECORD at 10 pm  in December.)  I think the article below is interesting…..it gives you an idea of what she is doing and how she is doing as Governor of New Mexico.  I have NO idea if she is going to run or not.

The "article below" Van Susteren refers to is the Associated Press account of the last-minute passing of the massive tax bill Saturday.