Roundhouse Roundup
The Santa Fe New Mexican
Positive reception for tribal ed fund: Two bills to step up funding for Native American education took a step through the Legislature on Friday morning.
The House Education Committee voted unanimously to advance House Bill 135. House Bill 134 was held until next week so it can be amended. Committee Chairman Andrés Romero, D-Albuquerque, said he wants to move quickly so the bill can get out of his committee and to Appropriations and Finance.
“There’s the legislative will in the budget to get this done,” Romero said.
HB 134 would appropriate $100 million for a Tribal Education Trust Fund, while HB 135 would create the fund and authorize the Public Education Department to come up with a formula to distribute money to tribes on a monthly basis.
“To increase academic proficiency we have to treat students with dignity,” said the bills’ sponsor, Rep. Derrick Lente, D-Sandia Pueblo. “Our children can’t learn if they don’t feel like they belong.”
The Legislative Finance Committee’s budget plan includes $50 million for the fund, and Lente told New Mexico In Depth earlier this month legislative leaders have told him they will support an additional $50 million.
The only concerns came from a couple of Navajo officials who raised questions about the “proposed composition and membership” of a task force in HB 134. Lawmakers said they plan to address these concerns when they amend the bill.
Blow to business-backed paid leave: A business-endorsed proposal to establish a six-week, employee-funded paid family and medical leave program was tabled in the House Health and Human Services Committee on Friday on a 7-1 vote.
A competing, much broader measure, which would establish a 12-week program with mandatory contributions from certain employers and employees, won approval from the committee earlier this week.
Meggin Lorino, executive director of the New Mexico Association for Home and Hospice Care, told committee members Friday the Paid Family and Medical Leave Insurance Act, sponsored by Rep. Marian Matthews, D-Albuquerque, was a better option for employers who rely heavily on Medicaid reimbursements for their income.
Lorino said those employers don’t have the ability to influence reimbursement rates, but have still chafed under the burden of “under- and unfunded mandates” like mandatory paid sick leave and rising minimum wage rates in the last few years.
The bill was also supported by a number of business organizations, including the New Mexico Chamber of Commerce and the New Mexico Restaurant Association.
But some committee members said they had concerns about the proposal’s solvency and said they didn’t think six weeks was long enough.
“Six weeks doesn’t sit well with me,” said Rep. Eleanor Chávez, D-Albuquerque. “Twelve weeks is much better and at some time, I hope we as a country get to the point where we can allow a year’s leave.”
Brandt defends GOP use of rules: The Senate’s Republican whip during Friday’s floor session defended his members’ decision to skip a committee meeting the day before, delaying a vote on a paid family and medical leave bill the Republicans oppose.
Sen. Craig Brandt, R-Rio Rancho, noted there are almost twice as many Democrats in the Senate as Republicans and said it is not the minority’s job to provide a quorum.
“The minority only has the rules and the minority will use the rules, and if we have to we’ll use the rules every minute of every day,” he said.
Senate Majority Leader Peter Wirth, D-Santa Fe, said he doesn’t blame the GOP for using the rules to their advantage.
“I think the issue of a quorum is strategic, and I’m not in any way suggesting it’s not something that can be used,” Wirth said. However, he added, “there shouldn’t be any expectation that we’re just going to delay something for five days, especially in a 30-day session.”
The four Republicans on the Senate Tax, Business and Transportation Committee didn’t go to Thursday’s meeting. With one Democrat also absent, the committee lacked a quorum and didn’t vote on Senate Bill 3; the bill is on the agenda Saturday.
“We chose not to make a quorum because we’re trying to protect the businesses in the state of New Mexico and the people that we represent, and that is our right,” Brandt said. “… I know the rules and we’ll use every fricking one of them.”
14-day wait for guns OK’d again: A second bill to put a 14-day waiting period on gun purchases made it out of a legislative committee Friday afternoon.
Senate Bill 69, which is being sponsored by Sen. Joe Cervantes, D-Las Cruces, and Rep. Andrea Romero, D-Santa Fe, was approved by the Senate Health and Public Affairs Committee on a party-line vote.
House Bill 129, another 14-day waiting period bill sponsored by Romero, passed the House Consumer and Public Affairs Committee along party lines Thursday evening.
Supporters of waiting periods said it would reduce suicides and violent crime, and opponents said it would infringe on people’s rights and pose a hardship to rural New Mexicans in particular.
The committee amended the bill to change the 14 days to calendar days, not business days, as in the original bill.
Cervantes said he picked 14 days, which mirrors Hawaii, because he thought it was “the outer envelope of what has passed constitutional muster.” He said he didn’t want to pass a law that could get struck down in court.
“Some people think the purpose of their bills is to send a message,” Cervantes said. “I don’t.”
Quote of the day: “Michael was a tyrant when he ran this floor. Michael was a tyrant when he ran this floor. Michael was a tyrant when he ran this floor.” — Sen. Craig Brandt, R-Rio Rancho, while the Senate debated voting to reappoint former Senate Majority Leader Michael Sanchez to the state Board of Finance. The Senate did vote to reappoint Sanchez, with some Republicans opposed.
