The Stink About the "Lovefest"

O.K., I'm used to having my stories and quotes from my stories used in political mailings, ads, whatever. But one recent example, coming from the first day of the Legislature has been completely misinterpreted, and I fear, has started to go viral.


After the vote on the Speaker of the House a week ago, I and other reporters asked House Republican Leader Tom Taylor what had happened to make the Joe Cervantes challenge fizzle.

Taylor underplayed the importance of the tea parties opposition to the proposed coalition of Republicans and southern Democrats.

... Taylor, who acknowledged he had been leaning toward supporting Cervantes, said the main reason for coming up with enough votes was that more Republicans were thinking of the political advantage of keeping Luján in the position rather than the "policy" advantages.


"He's the status quo," Taylor said of Luján. "There was a risk with Cervantes that we could have passed some great legislation and there'd be a love fest in the Legislature. ... It would be harder to run a negative campaign."

New House Republican Don Bratton agreed with Taylor's analysis. "I look at things from a policy standpoint," he said

I thought I made it clear that Taylor and Bratton were not advocating the political point of view. As Taylor said, he was leaning toward supporting the coalition and was in favor of passing "great legislation." He was bemoaning the "political" point of view that led to the failure of the coalition.

Dan Boyd of the Albuquerque Journal used that same basic quote in a Saturday story. I thought it was clear from his story also that Taylor wasn't endorsing the viewpoint of keeping Lujan around for the sake of negative ads.

But yesterday the state Democratic Party sent out a fundraising email using the quote to castigate Taylor. Theyt even evoke the tragedy in Tucson to make a point.

I know a lot of us hoped that after the tragedy in Tucson we would try to move our country forward in a more bi-partisan fashion. Clearly, Rep. Taylor is focused on seeking partisan advantage rather than moving the state forward.

And some blogger in Albuquerque picked up on that and engaged in a little finger-wagging.

Taylor can think that but it was not his role to say it out loud. He's not a political consultant. He's supposed to be talking about bipartisanship and passing "great" legislation to move the state forward, not blocking bills purely for political advantage.

Oh well. Nobody promised a lovefest.

Tom Taylor on the Speakership Battle

House Republican Leader Tom Taylor was interviewed this morning on KSNM-AM in Las Cruces by Michael Swickard and Jim Spence. Naturally the topic of Joe Cervantes' challenge of House Speaker Ben Lujan came up.

As Taylor told me when I talked to him late last week, Taylor wouldn't make any predictions as to how the House Republicans would vote and wouldn't say how he'd vote himself. "All I can say it's very close," he said. Taylor said the speaker's race will be "an 18th-hour decision."

There's a podcast of the show HERE. (Taylor comes on about 30 minutes into the segment and starts talking about the speaker's race about at the 35-minute mark.)

My latest story is HERE

Taylor Hangs on to House Minority Leader Post

The state House Republicans, meeting in caucus this morning, voted to keep their current slate of leaders.

In a secret vote, Rep. Tom Taylor of Farmington survived a challenged from Rep. Larry Larranaga of Albuquerque. Also re-elected were GOP Whip Keith Gardner of Roswell and Caucus Leader Anna Crook of Clovis.

In a written statement Taylor said, "The state needs to get its fiscal house in order and our caucus is resolute in doing just that ... we have a great opportunity to reform government and create a new environment for growth and jobs”.

But still a lurking question is whether the House Republicans are willing to back the possible insurgent candidacy of Rep. Joe Cervantes, who might be challenging House Speaker Ben Lujan.

Stay tuned.

Shakeup at Legislature?

The House Republican Caucus is going to have to find a new room for meetings with the apparent gain of eight seats from Tuesday's election.

House GOP leader TomTtaylor of Farmington said the big Republican gain took him by surprise. He joked with me  "Now our caucus meetings are going to last 45 minutes instead of 30 minutes."

Do the new numbers pave the way for a new "Cowboy Coalition" in the House?Taylor downplays such a scenario and House Dem leaders sure hope not. Such drama wouldn't do anything to solve the budget crisis Speaker Ben Lujan and Rep. Lucky Barela say.

I asked Lujan point blank about the rumors that suggest he's going to step aside and resign before the next session. You can read what he said HERE.

Lawmakers React to Special Session Delay

The consensus reaction is "DELAY IT MORE!"

My story in the paper about Gov. Bill Richardson's decision to delay the special until Monday is HERE.

Basically everyone I talked to thinks the special should wait until after the revenue projections come in, which is in April.

Santa Fe Sen. Peter Wirth told me he was happy that the governor recognized that it would be a waste to have a special session without a budget agreement in hand. "It's critical we have a road map," Wirth said.

But Wirth said unless there looks like there's a budget agreement between the House and Senate, it could be a waste to attempt to hold a special session next week too. "There's no reason to bring us in if there's gridlock," Wirth said. "The constituents I represent think it's wasteful if we're sitting there spending taxpayer dollars on a special session if there's no plan."

There's one lawmaker I talked with who I felt bad for. House Republican Leader Tom Taylor told me he found out about the change in plans only after "I drove over here from Farmington last night in a blizzard."

Oh man ...