Another Dem Representative Backing Cervantes

I just talked to Rep. Donna Irwin, D-Deming, a few minutes ago. She said if Rep. Joe Cervantes, D-Las Cruces, decides to run for House Speaker against current Speaker Ben Lujan, she'll support him.

"In the past, I supported Kenny Martinez for Speaker," she said. "You probably recall that I nominated him. I think it's time for a new speaker. Joseph is my office mate and I think he'd be a great choice for speaker."

After a little game of telephone tag yesterday, I finally connected with Cervantes. He answered "no comment" as to whether he's running.

Earlier today, Heath Haussamen quoted Rep. Andy Nunez, D-Hatch, saying that there’s no one more qualified for the job than Cervantes.

I also ran into Rep. Jim Trujillo, D-Santa Fe. He said nobody's called him about a possible challenge to  Lujan. "I think everyone knows that I'd support the speaker," Trujillo said.

A New Day for Same-Day Registration?

Once again Rep. Jim Trujillo, D-Santa Fe, is carrying a bill that would allow voters to register right before voting at early voting sites.

HB123 also would allow voters to register at their county clerk's office when in-person absentee voting is allowed. The registration would be allowed starting 28 days before an election, running the Saturday before Election Day.

Currently if you don't get registered about a month before the election, you're out of luck.

Last year, a similar bill carried by Trujillo passed the House but died in the Senate.

The bill is designed to encourage people to vote, Trujillo said. Many people don't get to vote because they miss the registration cut off.

Trujillo said this morning that his bill has been endorsed by several groups including the League of Women Voters, the American Association of Retired People, the All Indian Pueblo Council, county clerks around the state and the Secretary of State.

The bill has been assigned to the House Voters and Elections and the House Consumer & Public Affairs committees.

Trujillo Seeks Re-election

I meant to post this yesterday, but then I became the victim of a little document dump ....

State Rep. Jim Trujillo, D-Santa Fe is running for re-election.

Trujillo, 70, represents House District 45, which includes southwestern Santa Fe. He’s a vice chairman of the House Tax & Revenue Committee and chairs the House committee that oversees capital outlay projects. Trujillo also is a member of the House Business & Industry Committee.

Trujillo initially was appointed by the County Commission to fill the remainder of the term of former Rep. Patsy Trujillo, no relation, who resigned to take a position in the Bill Richardson administration. He was elected to the seat in 2004 and re-elected in 2006 and 2008.

At the time of his appointement, Trujillo worked for the state Human Services Department. He’s also owned and managed small businesses in the Santa Fe area.

"That money's safe."

My story in Tuesday's New Mexican is an example of how a news story can change with every person you interview.

The story is about Santa Fe area capital outlay projects that might be in danger of losing funding due to the budget crunch.

Early in the afternoon I got the "Capital Changes for Solvency" list of all such projects in the state from Rep. Jim Trujillo, D-Santa Fe, who recently became the chairman of the House Capital Outlay Committee. I went back to my office and went about the tedious task of separating the Santa Fe projects and typing them up.

As I wrote in my story most of the projects are those that somehow never got off the ground as well as a smattering of long-completed projects that have cash balances remaining.

I got down about the same time the Senate adjourned in the late afternoon. I went downstairs to see if I could find any of the local delegation to fill me in on some of the projects on the list. I spotted Peter Wirth, who told me he was concerned about the Santa Fe Youth Shelter and Family Services on Airport Road. Wirth said he was going to try to get that project's $450,000 appropriation off the list.

I called Karen Rowell, the executive director of the shelter to ask her what was going on with the project. She was shocked. This was the first she'd heard of the project in jeopardy. The shelter's new building, she told me, was about a third of the way done.

Wow, I thought. This could be a story. I was fairly confident that the Legislature wouldn't really de-fund a project already under construction. And Rowell said besides Wirth, Trujillo has been a big supporter of the shelter -- as have Governor Bill Richardson and First Lady Barbara Richardson.

But weirder things have happened.

So after I started writing the story with a "Shelter-in-trouble" type of lead, Trujillo returned an earlier call. I initially had called him about a minor detail about a different project on the list. But now I had something important to ask.

Trujillo was already familiar with the youth shelter situation. "That money's safe," he said. "It was just a mistake."

So I had to rewrite a few paragraphs of the story, which now wasn't as big as I'd thought. But I'm happy the shelter and the homeless kids it serves won't have to worry about this headache.