A Dog & Pony Show -- Without the Ponies

New Mexico's First Dog Riggs an Alaskan Malamute, with First Gentleman Chuck Franco

There's going to be a whole lot of news about bill signings and vetoes today, but let's start off with a fun one.

Gov. Susana Martinez signed Senate Bill 11 at an informal cememony at Louie's Corner Cafe. When the bill goes into effect on July 1, restaurants with outdoor eating areas, such as Louie's, will be permitted to allow dogs to accompany their owners in patios where food is served.

On hand for the signing were several dog owners and their pets, including Martinez's husband Chuck Franco and First Dog Riggs, an Alaskan Malamute; bill sponsor Sen. Peter Wirth, D-Santa Fe and his yellow Labrador Cuate; and Louie's owners Robin Hardy and Alea Jenson who were accompanied by the cafe's namesake Louie, a Shih Tzu.

But the biggest dog there was Rory, an Irish wolfhound, owned by former Rep. Max Coll and his wife, Catherine Joyce-Coll. The Colls also brought Keeley, a Norwich terrier.

And, oh yeah, the gov signed the budget bill -- though she line-item vetoed the unemployment tax increase -- the film tax credit bill and the pension-swap bill.

UPDATE: 12:56 pm

Here's some of the other bills Martinez signed and vetoed.

Signed:
SB 196 which will expand hunting opportunities for state residents by increasing the number of licenses available for big-game hunts on public lands.
HB 052, Tobacco Fund Investment Practices
HB 059, Unemployment Contribution Temporary Schedule, with line-item veto
HB 093, Police Training for Mental Impairments
HB 137, Continued Educational Assistance Debt Service
HB 160, Public Records Availability and Procedures
HB 167, Fire Prevention Ordinances and Code Changes
HB 215, Implementation of Utility Rate Without Hearing
HB 220, Time Period for Right of Redemption
HB 234, Animal Sheltering Board Sunset Date Extension
HB 417, Local Government Corrections Fee and Fund
HB 428, Raise Organization Income Subject to Audit
HB 429, Compensating Tax Transaction Requirements
HB 536, Games of Chance at Liquor Control Premises
SB 014, Health Care Work Force Data Collection
SB 044, Film Production Tax Credit Tracking & Review, with message
SB 045, Actions Against Cities Statute of Limitations
SB 052, Electronic Copies of Public Records
SB 145, Clarify School Year and Day Length
SB 209, Adjust Water Utility Rates Without Notice
SB 250, Surplus Lines Insurance Multistate Compact
SB 269, Educational Retirement Board Bank and Attorneys
SB 275, Increase Deposit into Govt Investment Fund
SB 284, Amend Uniform Interstate Family Support Act
SB 329, ERB Members to Appoint Designees
SB 330, Family, Infant, Toddler Program Enrollment
SB 360, Student Assessment Requirements Suspension
SB 373, Capital Outlay Reauthorization
SB 408, Create Interim Redistricting Committee, with message
SB 505, Expand Fire Protection Fund Uses
SB 626, Fire Fund Distribution Increase Delay

Vetoed
HB 058, Judicial Retirement Contributions
HB 161, Tax Expenditure Budget Development and Report
HB 166, Review Certain Tax Credits
HB 241, Teacher Loan Repayment Act
HB 347, Juvenile Detention Requirement Modifications
HB 653, Remedies for Real Property False Documents
SB 017, Remove Governor from State Investment Council
SB 019, In-State Business Procurement Advantage
SB 038, New Mexico Health Insurance Exchange Act
SB 040, Livestock Crime Stoppers Act
SB 047, Tax and Rev Dept Tax Expenditure Budget
SB 124, 5 Feet for Cars to Pass Bicycles
SB 277, Increase Magistrate Courts’ Operations Fee
SB 314, Autism Education Plan Development
SB 321, Substance Abuse and Crime Prevention Act
SB 509, No Car Interlock for Certain Convictions

My Career as a Psychic in Shambles

In my story in today's New Mexican about various ethics, corruption and campaign finance reform bills, I mentioned Sen. Peter Wirth's SB547.

I boldly proclaimed the bill, "is showing no signs of life in the Senate Rules Committee — which in the past several years has served as the burial ground for various ethics proposals."

I'll stand by my "burial ground" statement. But it's not true for Wirth's bill. The good senator contacted me to inform me the bill passed out of Senate Rules this morning on a unanimous vote.

I wrote about the bill last week. It goes now to the Senate Judiciary Committee.

UPDATES 1:25 pm: Another bill that my story focused on, Rep. Nate Gentry's HB378, passed the House by a unanimous vote a few minutes ago.

7:15 pm: The link I had to last week's story has been changed. Initially incorrectly linked to an editorial that was based on my story.

Dogs, Snakes & The Senate

Dogs who want to legally accompany their owners who eat on outdoor patios at restaurants won a major battle today as the state Senate passed Senate Bill 11, sponsored by Sen. Peter Wirth, D-Santa Fe. The vote was 29-11.

The Senate had sat on this bill for so long, I thought it probably wasn't going to get a floor hearing. It was the very first Senate bill to make it through committees this session. But word is that some Senate leaders thought it might look frivolous if  this was among the fist Senate bills to pass.

Photo by Diane Kinderwater

But apparently the Senate decided to have a little fun with the bill anyway. Sen. John Arthur Smith, D-Deming, suggested restaurants should have to supply fire hydrants for the dining doggies.

And Sen. Bill Sharer, R-Farmington tried to amend the bill to include snakes and other pets. His "expert witness," who was allowed on the Senate floor was a small ball python named Petunia, aka Kaa Dela Selva. The amendment didn't get anywhere.

The bill goes on to the House.

Senate Action on SB9 Delayed Again

I'm beginning to think that nobody really wants to deal with this bill.

I'm talking, of course, about SB 9, Sen. Peter Wirth's bill that would make it harder for ticket-prone teenagers toget driver's licenses. As my story in today's New Mexican noted, Republicans want to tack on amendment to outlaw the issuing of driver's licenses to undocumented people.

That would be an end run around the committee process and would would spark an instant and undoubtedly lengthy floor fight. Wirth said that would be unconstitutional because such an amendment would change the intent of the original bill.

Early this afternoon Senate Majority Leader Michael Sanchez announced that SB9 would be one of the five pieces of legislation heard today. However, when it came time for the bill, Sanchez announced the would be going back to the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Wirth told reporters afterwards that he had planned to introduce a floor substitute. Earlier in the day there had been a little spat about another senator introducing a floor substitute.

Wirth said the substitute basically just cleans up his original bill and is not an attempt to get around the immigration issue. But Senate Republican Whip Bill Payne told reporters he thinks that sending the bill back to committee would be a way to let the bill die quietly without a vote. Wirth insists that's not the case.

Stay tuned.

Protecting the Judges

When New Mexican police reporter Geoff Grammer told me he'd heard about a bill that would have made threatening judges a felony had been introduced but had died in the Legislature, my first reaction was skepticism.

Geoff, of course, was working on the story of the Chimayo man arrested on charges -- misdemeanor charges -- of threatening the life of state Dsitrict Judge Michael Vigil. (His story in today's paper is HERE.)

This is the kind of apple-pie bill the Legislature usually loves, I told him. When lawmakers can't agree on anything else, both sides of the aisle usually are happy to slap heavier penalties on people found guilty of despicable crimes.

But what I learned was there were not one, but two bills introduced in the 2009 Legislature by lawmakers from opposite ends of the political spectrum, Sen. Peter Wirth, D-Santa Fe and Rep. Bill Rehm, R-Albuquerque.

They weren't mirror bills. Rehm's had tougher penalties. But both were introduced early in the session, and, according to committee votes, both had bi-partisan support.

Rehm managed to get his bill through the House, but it went nowhere. Wirth's bill made it through the Senate Public Affairs Committee, where it passed unanimously. But it was tabled in the Senate Judiciary Committee. Committee votes aren't recorded for tabling actions, but Wirth told me the vote was close. Perhaps a one-vote margin, he said.

Why was this defeated? Rehm said some opponents said such a law would be used infrequently. Wirth said some of the opponents of his measure were worried about tougher laws leading to more prison overcrowding. These two objections would seem to contradict each other. Someone in the Senate apparently just doesn't like this idea.

Both lawmakers say they will try again next year. And state Supreme Court Justice Ed Chavez, who testified for the bill, says he and other justices are behind the idea of making threats to judges a felony.

One might think that the Judge Vigil incident would shame the Senate into taking action next year. But the 2009 bills were sparked by a situation with another judge, Nan Nash, of Albuquerque, who had been threatened by a party in a divorce case she was presiding over. Senate Judiciary turned down Wirth's bill in spite of Nash testifying for it.

My story about the Wirth and Rehm bills can be found 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 ...

Don't Let a Payday Loan Company Be Your Santa Claus

That's the basic message of Lt. Gov. Diane Denish and Attorney General Gary King at a Tuesday press conference.

"During this holiday season, many New Mexicans will be looking for a few extra dollars to buy last minute gifts, but before taking out a predatory title or installment loan, it’s important to know the facts. I encourage all New Mexicans to seek other options before getting trapped in a never-ending cycle of debt,” Denish said in a press release.

King said, "Earlier this year my office filed lawsuits against two lenders who were using a loophole in the law to continue to charge extremely high rates, in some cases, more than one-thousand percent. These practices take advantage of consumers and are against public policy and will be vigorously challenged by the Attorney General's Office.”

Ho ho ho ...

Looking beyond the holidays, Denish endorsed a bill prefiled by Sen. Peter Wirth, D-Santa Fe. Senate Bill 33 would:

* Cap interest rates for all payday loans. For loans of $2,500 or smaller, the APR must not exceed 45 percent. For loans larger than $2,500, the APR must not exceed 36 percent.

* Establish a statewide database to track the number of loans issued, rates of loans issues, interest rates and specifics of the loan. This will put additional oversight on the predatory loan industry and so the state can protect vulnerable citizens from unfair and illegal loan agreements

.

A Couple of Stories

Not much political blogging on my part during Thanksgiving week. Maybe some were thankful for that.

But here's a couple of stories I did late last week.

First there's the progress on the latest bill that would establish a state ethics commission. It cleared a legislative interim committee on a unanimous, bi-partisan vote. Now the big question is whether the Legislature will want to fund a new agency, albeit a small agency, in this time of budget shortfalls.

I posted the draft bill on this blog last week. Scroll down or CLICK HERE.

And I did a little analysis of the "political balancing act" that Lt. Gov. Diane Denish has to do in her run for governor -- showing her independence from the current administration without appearing disloyal as well as stressing her experience in state government leadership at the same time having to explain that she was out of the loop whenever stories about scandals in state government arise.

"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.

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.

XXXXX

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.