Gov. Signs Conference Committees Bill

This press release just came in:

SANTA FE – Governor Bill Richardson today signed House Bill 393, which opens legislative conference committees to the public. Conference committees are formed by legislative leaders to reconcile differences in bills passed by the House and Senate.

“I have always maintained that this is a decision that should be made by the Legislature, without involvement by the Executive Branch,” Governor Richardson said. “Nevertheless, the Legislature chose this path and I have signed the bill out of respect for its desire to further open the committee process to the public.

“Despite the flaws in the bill, the public wins with an open process,” Governor Richardson said.

Don't say I didn't tell you so

And let me say again:

BOB JOHNSON, THOU ART AVENGED!

Roundhouse Roundup: Avenging Bob

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
March 26, 2009

Bob Johnson, thou art avenged!

That’s what I wrote on this very blog last week shortly after the state Senate voted 33-8 to pass House Bill 393, which would open conference committees to the public.

The late Johnson was director of the New Mexico Foundation for Open Government and fought for years to get the Legislature to open those meetings, where Senate and House members work out differences in the budget and other bills passed by each chamber. Conference committees are the last major areas not covered by the Open Meetings Act. Johnson, a retired Associated Press executive, died in 2007.

Like I said, Johnson fought hard to open the meetings. And sometimes he got kicked in the teeth for his efforts. During his last session, some senators, in defending secret meetings, bashed Johnson, pointing out that FOG was funded by (gasp) newspapers, using a tone of voice as if they were revealing the organization was a front for the Communist Party or something nefarious.

As I’ve noted before, lawmakers never do this to lobbyists for drug companies, oil companies or developers.

But Johnson might not be completely avenged yet. There’s still an opportunity to kick him in the teeth. And the person in the position to do that is Gov. Bill Richardson.

Richardson for years has given lip service to open conference committees. A few years ago, he even chided newspaper editors at a legislative breakfast to push harder for such a bill. And as recently as Saturday afternoon, Richardson said at a post-session news conference that he would sign HB393.

But sometime, apparently between then and Monday, the governor started backpedaling. His press office began telling bloggers and newspapers that there might be some problems with the bill.

“While the governor is supportive of the concept of opening conference committees to the public, he is taking the time to scrutinize the final bill passed by the Legislature,” spokesman Gilbert Gallegos told my colleague Kate Nash. “The governor also wants to hear all sides of the issue, including the rationale for allowing the Legislature to close committee meetings without changing the law.”

Gallegos was referring to a section of the law that would allow the Legislature to change its rules to re-close the conference committees.

But as another longtime fighter for open conference committees pointed out (Sen. Dede Feldman, D-Albuquerque, who has fought for years to open the committees), it would take a two-thirds vote to change the rule.

I don’t know what led Richardson to his current stance on the bill. And I don’t really think it’s worth speculating. I just can’t envision the governor vetoing this bill after telling so many people he’d sign it. I just don’t think Bill Richardson wants to be remembered as the man who killed open conference committees.

But let’s wait until the governor does sign that bill until we officially proclaim, “Bob Johnson, thou art avenged!”

Hung up in Taos: Bill Richardson will be remembered as the man who ended the death penalty in New Mexico. And even though he admitted he struggled with the decision, the governor now seems comfortable with signing the bill to abolish capital punishment and replace it with the sentence of life in prison without parole.

He appeared Monday on The Rachel Maddow Show to discuss the move, basically telling the MSNBC audience the same thing he told us — that even though he’d always supported the death penalty, the system isn’t perfect, so there’s a chance for wrongful executions and that the prisons here are so bad that spending the rest of your life there might be worse than death. (He didn’t mention that the governor is responsible for prison conditions here.)

But the most notable thing about the Maddow appearance is a clever headline that appeared on a backdrop behind Maddow as well as in a headline superimposed on the screen during the Richardson interview: “Taos Shalt Not Kill.”

I guess in the minds of some MSNBC employees, Taos is synonymous with the entire state.

But to be a literal stick-in-the-mud, all nine legal executions in New Mexico since 1933 were carried out here in Santa Fe County.

The last person legally executed in Taos County, when executions were the responsibilities of counties, was John Conley, who was hanged in 1906.

In his book Myth of the Hanging Tree, former state historian Robert J. Torrez said Conley had tried to slash his throat with a dull blade shortly before the execution and in fact was unconscious at the time he was hanged.

Torrez lists two other legal Territorial period Taos hangings (one of which, in 1857, he says was “probable” though not fully documented.) However, between 1867 and 1881, according to Torrez, there were three lynchings performed in Taos.

UPDATE: The original version said Sen. Feldman carried the confrence committee bill on the Senate floor. She did speak strongly for it and she did have similar bills that didn't make it to the Senate floor. But it actually was Sen. Linda Lopez who carried HB393.

Blog bonus: Here's Richardson on Rachel

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One Last Thought on Conference Committees

Bob Johnson, thou art avenged!

Senate Votes to Open Conference Committees!

Senate votes 33-8 to open conference committees. HB 393 goes to the governor, who in the past says he favors the bill.

Voting no were Sens. Ingle, Kernan, Cravens, Beffort, Asbill, Phil Griego, Jennings and Michael Sanchez.

UPDATE: Now I don't feel so dumb about my predicition in this old column.

Conference Committee Debate Starts

Sen. Linda Lopez is carrying HB393.

Check out live blog HERE

Check out webcast HERE

It looks like they're passing out an amendment. If Senate amends it, it could go back to the House and could even end up being decided in a conference committee!

Tempers Flare in Senate

No love lost this morning between Sens. Eric Griego and Bill Sharer.

In the debate over HB 37 -- notifying Indian tribes about developments -- Sharer implied that Griego implied that people trying to amend the bill were racists. Griego responded he wouldn't dignify Share's remarks with a comment, then commented that certain senators might have a guilty conscience. Sharer interupted in protest, then Lt. Gov. Diane Denish gaveled him down.

Sen. Mike Sanchez asking Senate to take deep breaths. In with the good, out with the bad.

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Earlier the Senate was about to debate Sen. Dede Feldman's Open Conference Committe bill. But Feldman asked that bill be held over. Is she waiting to get Rep. Joe Cervante's House bill on the floor? (Unlike Feldman's bill, Cervantes' bill would not have to go to the House, because the House already passed it.)

Open Conference Committee Bill Clears House

And according to Kate, there was no debate, no negative votes. It goes now to the Senate, where some long knives wait.

Just a few months ago, I made a bold prediction that this would be the year the open conference committee bill finally would clear the Legislature. In recent weeks, I've lost that optimism.

We'll see sometime in the next 19 days. Maybe I'm wrong. I still get surprised a lot here.

A Sunshine Bill Passes the Senate

It's true that major ethics bills -- such as those that would create a state ethics commission and establish campaign contribution limits -- seem trapped like Elisabeth Fritzl in the Senate Rules Committee.

But the full Senate over the weekend did pass one bill that would bring a little more sunlight into campaign finance reports. That's Sen. Peter Wirth's SB128, which would require campaign finance reports to be filed twice during non-election years. As it stands now, in off years there's just one report required in May -- and none required until the May of the next election year.

The Senate on Saturday passed it 37 to 3.

That's good, but there's still more that needs to be done with campaign-finance reports, such as requiring contributors to list their employers.

UPDATE: As Kate just noted, the House, with virtually no debate, passed the open conference committees bill. The House always votes this way. It's the Senate where the bill always dies.

Several months ago I predicted that this would be the year the Legislature would vote to open conference committees. In recent days, I haven't maintained that optimism.

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There's some interesting items on today's Senate calendar.

These include:

* Sen. Steve Neville's bill (SB460) to change the make-up of the State Investment Council, which I wrote about a few weeks ago.

*Sen. Richard Martinez's bill (SB330). which would allow ATMs in casinos.

* Sen. Mary Kay Papen's bill to consolidate the Regional Housing Authorities.

UPDATE: Papen's bill passed unanimously, Neville's passed 36-2 with little discussions. Martinez's bill wasn't heard.

Conference Committee Bill Still Lives

After tabling a bill that would open conference committees to the public and media on Wednesday, The House Appropriations and Finance Committee voted unanimously Thursday to give a do-pass recommendation to HB393, sponsored by Rep. Joe Cervantes, D-Las Cruces.

Rep. Brian Egolf, D-Santa Fe, told me the panel never intended to permnanently deep six the bill. He said there were questions from some members about technical issues Wednesday, which were cleared up Thursday.

Conference committee meetings are where issues such as the state budget are hammered out. They are some of the few that are not open to the public.

The bill now goes to the House floor, where, if things go as usual, it will pass.

But if things go as usual in the Senate, it will die a hideous death there.

Committee Keeps Conference Committees Closed

Looks like the House Appropriations & Finance Committee voted last night to table Rep. Joe Cervantes' bill, HB393, that would open conference committees. I'm not sure what the vote was and who voted how. I'll update this when I do.

Heath is all upset about this:

... even in these times, when the Richardson administration is dogged by pay-to-play allegations, when the former Senate president has admitted to using the legislative process to help steal millions of dollars in taxpayer money, when scandal after scandal after scandal is further jading an already skeptical public, the majority of members of the committee voted to shelve a proposal that would increase transparency and public confidence in the Legislature?

But obviously Heath hasn't considered all the implications of such a mean-spirited bill.

Let's look at the the argument of the senators who yesterday opposed SB141, (which would allow a court to increase the sentence of a public official convicted of a felony and impose a fine up to as much as the official's salary and benefits).

Senate Majority Leader Michael Sanchez, D-Belen, voted against the bill, saying it could punish an innocent spouse by taking away their partner's pension. "Why would we want to punish the spouse of the person ... for something their spouse did when they had no knowledge of it?" he said.

Senate Majority Whip Mary Jane Garcia, D-Doña Ana, who also voted against the bill, expressed the same concern as Sanchez and called it "mean-spirited" when it comes to the spouse.

Wouldn't it be punishing the spouses of lawmakers who use the legislative process to steal millions dollars of taxpayer money if the Legislature passed this conference committee bill and inhibited or even cut off this source of income. Maybe the HAFC was only being compassionate.

UPDATE:
The vote was 10-4 to table
Voting to table
Rep. Lucky Varela
Rep. Brian Egolf
Rep. Jeanette Wallace
Rep. Rhonda King
Rep. Kiki Saavedra
Rep. Ray Begaye
Rep. Joni Gutierrez
Rep. Patty Lundstrom
Rep. Don Tripp
Rep. Danice Picraux

Voting against tabling
Rep. Kathy McCoy
Rep. Larry Larranaga
Rep. John Heaton
Rep. Richard Berry

Excused
Rep. Antonio Lujan
Rep. Richard Vigil
Rep. Nick Salazar
Rep. Don Bratton

MICHAEL SEZ ...

Senate Majority Leader Michael Sanchez, D-Belen, just had an impromptu, informal press conference here in the media room of the Capitol.

He spoke a lot about ethics bills. He said he understands the Senate Rules Committee plans to roll several of the proposed ethics bills -- including establishing an ethics commission, campaign contribution limits, and bills dealing with contributions by state contractors -- into one big ethics bill. Sanchez said he doesn't think there's enough support this year for including public campaign financing, mainly because of the budget crisis.

Sanchez also said he's heard rumblings of a possible amendment or separate bill that would require non-profit groups -- such as the Center for Civic Policy -- to disclose its contributors. We could dub that the Shannon's Revenge Act.

Sanchez said he believes there's a very good chance a serious ethics bill will pass the Legislature this year.

He also said he believes the bill to abolish the death penalty has the best chance it ever had. But he quickly added, "I thought the same thing about domestic partnerships." He admitted the death penalty bill could run into trouble -- again -- in the Senate Judiciary Committee, which yesterday failed to pass the domestic partnership bill.

Another bill Sanchez said has a good chance of passing is the bill to open conference committees -- even though Sanchez himself opposes that move. He said opening conference committees would encourage members to get together away from the Capitol to decide on the bills that go to conference.

Like most people this year, Sanchez said he's seen very little of Gov. Bill Richardson. "He hasn't call me up to his office," Sanchez said. "I'm not one of the people he usually calls."

CONFERENCE COMMITTEES TO REMAIN SECRET?

Several months ago in my Roundhouse Roundup column, I made the bold prediction that with the influx of "reformers" in the Senate, there was a good chance that conference committees -- the last bastion of secrecy in the Legislature-- could finally be opened to the public.

Never trust a reporter when they start predicting.

Check out my story in today's New Mexican. It seems that Attorney General Gary King, who has championed other aspects of open government, isn't quite on board for conference committees.

So between that and taking down the Webcast cameras, it looks as if some people would like to keep the Legislature as open as, say, The Moving America Forward Foundation.

Despite this snag, Sen. Dede Feldman, D-Albuquerque is sponsoring a bill to shine the light of openness on conference committees. Check out Senate Bill 150 HERE.

Speaking of the Webcasts, Rep. Janice Arnold-Jones, R-Albuquerque, is about to start her own Webcasts of her House committee meetings. I haven't checked it out yet, but I'll do that when the House goes into session today.

Maybe we can talk Janice into sneaking her camera into the budget conference committee.

UPDATES: I corrected some bad information about Rep. Arnold-Jones' Webcast. I also corrected the bill number on the conference committee bill.