New Mexico in Focus; 516; 30 Days in Santa Fe: 2002 Legislative Preview

You major funding for infocus is provided by the McHughan Charitable Foundation in reaching the cultural life, health, education, environment, and spiritual life of the citizens of New

Mexico. Starting next Tuesday, New Mexico's battle over taxes, education, and the state budget begins. Tonight, the governor discusses his plans for his final session. Legislators give their preview of the issues, plus a reporter panel tells us what to look for during the legislature's 30 days in Santa Fe. It's all coming up next on infocus. Hello, and welcome to infocus. I'm Archie Choppa. This is the calm before the storm. It's easy enough to see the clouds on the horizon as the U.S. economy continues to falter, and New Mexico's

once massive budget surplus dwindles. Next Tuesday, the storm clouds will burst as the governor and legislators convene at the state capital in Santa Fe to put together a state budget. The governor wants flat spending and income tax cuts. Democrats generally oppose the tax cut and want some new spending, including using money from the state's cash reserves to protect Medicaid. A program, the governor has proposed cutting by $50 million, and there will also be plenty of pressure on Republicans and Democrats alike for things like education reform and a new capital spending bill. On top of this already volatile situation, election year politics have begun, the lieutenant governor and several legislators plan to run for governor. And this weekend, former secretary of energy bill Richardson will temporarily steal the legislature's thunder as he officially declares his own candidacy for governor. With little money to spend and so many competing political agendas, it's going to be quite a political season. Later in our program, I'll talk to a select group of legislators about their plans for the upcoming session and also to our panel of reporters

about what they see as the major issues facing the governor and legislature. First tonight, Governor Gary Johnson joins me from Santa Fe to give us a preview of his plans for his last legislative session. Governor, thank you so much for being here today. Well, thanks for having me on, RC, and I think you've mischaracterized a lot of things there with your opening. One is I really... Go ahead, tell me. I really don't see this as a storm. We should look at ourselves, I think, as being very fortunate. We're one of a handful of states that aren't having to cut budgets. We will have work cut out for us to keep spending flat, but again, relative to, I guess, 35 states that are having to cut, this is very good. I would also say that you mischaracterize cutting Medicaid. We're going to actually increase spending for Medicaid, but rather than increase spending for Medicaid by $60 million plus, I'm proposing that we increase

spending by about $10 million. Although legislators would tell you that they want to spend reserves to maintain that level of funding, the problem is that then you've got 2003 next year. And if we don't cut back on the increase, so that's the key word here, cut back on the increase, I suggest there's going to be a financial crisis for the next governor and the next legislature, and I'm not going to allow that to happen. I would like everyone to recognize that when I took office, that's exactly what the governor and legislature had done prior to my taking office, they had overspent, and because of that, the reserves got down to $22 million at the end of my first year in office. The reserves right now are at $450 million. Reserves should be spent on emergencies, and you know, you can characterize this as somewhat of an emergency, but the money's there. We're going to make do, but we certainly can't overspend this, lest we do have this financial

crisis. But in reference to Medicaid to maintain the status quo, the Health and Human Services Department would need $60 million. That's just to maintain the status quo. So you're proposing a $10 million increase, which is $50 million short. Well, what I'm saying is as I'm proposing a $10 million increase to Medicaid benefits, but that if we maintain the status quo, we would be looking at at least a $60 million increase. And I will tell you from my experience, and you've seen this too, since you know, you've got your eyes open, people have their eyes open. I always overruns whatever it is they say. Every year I've been up here, it's cost more to operate Medicaid than what the projection has been every single year. So how do you plan to redesign the program? Well, what we've done is identified a number of areas that benefits are going to have to be scaled back. And when I say benefit, scale back, the idea is to scale back benefits for a few,

make the benefits not so rich so that we could actually cover more new Mexicans from a person, you know, actual people standpoint. If we're covering 100 today, let's cover 106 next year, but let's scale back on the benefits for the 100. Say, for example, a family of four earning $42,000 is eligible for assisted Medicaid care? What would you like to scale that back to? Well, I'm not what we've identified is what the savings are. There isn't all that much savings in scaling back from 235 to 185, for example. 185 ends up to be a key number, but I believe it's only about $6 million. So we're not talking about a lot of money. And another thing I see is this is a new benefit that's been implemented only over the last couple of years. And when it was implemented, the legislature says we can afford to do this. I haven't a buy into it. We can afford to deliver this to this many more people. If we can't afford it in the future, we'll just scale back. So here

it is. We can't afford it now. We're going to have to scale back. And these are difficult decisions to make. But again, I think when a family of $42,000, I believe, is 235% of poverty, we're going to have to scale that back. What are you talking specifically? Can you tell me what the eligibility will be? Well, I can't because, of course, all I can do is sign. So the legislature is going to have to do this. And there doesn't seem to be much willingness on the part of the legislature to do this. So again, I'm just making this pledge to everyone in New Mexico to all the citizens in the state. And that is when I leave office and it's not going to make headlines, the state's going to be in good financial shape. One more thing about Medicaid. What about reimbursements? Are you looking at cutting those as well? Well, what we've done is we've just simply identified what the savings would be in all these areas. And certainly if you look at cutting back on reimbursements, that's where

the real dollars lie. And so we've just taken different percentages and what that might amount to. All we've done is just provided a laundry list of how we might save that money. Right. You've said that you're going into this session with unstable oil and gas prices, a recession and September 11th. How do you think these factors are going to affect this year session? Well, again, it's the worst possible scenario from a dollars and cents standpoint, but the plus side, we're not having to cut anything. We're talking about increases in Medicaid. We're still talking about increasing the dollars that we're going to spend in Medicaid. We're talking about increases in the prisons. And I do have a drug reform package. I mean, do we want our prisons are full, by the way? Do we want to continue to lock up non-violent drug criminals? I think we have some real common sense proposals that would give judges discretion on whether they lock up a non-violent drug criminal that we offer treatment instead of incarceration.

Some ideas, I think, that will save money. And we're not going to be any less safe than we are today with these reforms being passed. Now, Pundins have been saying that your agenda has failed. Every year, you've proposed school vouchers, tax cuts and drug reform. You seem to have this same agenda this year. Do you think that this year's going to be any different than last year? Well, I don't know how you characterize failure. Doing what's right is not failure. And that's what I continue to do. I continue to do what I think is right. And, you know, you can criticize me all day on that. But you look back and RC, I was criticized on the prisons that we built. We addressed that problem. We took it head on. Today, they're full. I was criticized on the highways. You know, we built 500 miles of four lane highway in the state of New Mexico. We're rebuilding the big eye. I've been criticized for the reform of Medicaid, which right now would have busted the bank by

this point already. I've been criticized for not hiring more state employees. We have hundreds fewer state employees today than when I when I took office. So you just took the historical growth rate. We'd have 5,000 more state employees today than when I took office. I've been criticized because I haven't raised taxes in the state. There's been a single tax raised in the state. You know, I'm criticized on everything. But is that wrong? Is that a failure? No, no way. You feel very strongly about that. Very strongly about that. I'm working hard up here. And I'm going to continue to work hard up here. And again, I want to assure people that the state will be in good fiscal health when I leave here. And that's going to be the difference between perhaps myself and the legislative agenda. Well, let's let the stage a little bit here. Projected revenues are expected to be or to decline by 72.1 million by June 30th. Is that correct? Compare to last year. Well, again, when you look at a year to year, you're talking about a decrease in the rate of

increase. So we still have, as we sit here right now, increasing revenues. So no, that is that is that is a misstatement. You're supposed to have 8 million in new money. Yeah, that's exact. That's right. 8 million in new money. Right. Okay. And you've proposed spending increase of no more than 1% and no money for pay raises for state employees. There isn't any RC. There isn't any. Okay. And so you are proposing spending increases in Medicaid and in corrections. Is that correct? Well, given again, both of those I would characterize as entitlements. There are qualifications for Medicaid. People come to the door. We have to provide those services. And of course, the cost for those services continually increase. And then there's prisons. We have more people in jail today than we did a year ago. And that becomes a function of dollars and people also. I mean, you again, you can call it an entitlement. Don't you think it's going to be tough to get increases for corrections and not for teachers? RC, what would you propose we do

then let people out of jail? I mean, that's kind of a ridiculous statement. You can't let people out of jail. That's a bill that you're going to have to pay. And historically what the legislature you know might do is they might underfund that. Well, does that mean we're not going to have the bill? No, yeah, we're going to have the bill. So let's let's acknowledge that. Let's be based in reality on this. Now, there is a lot of you're getting a lot of pressure from the business community about state implants training program. Now they would like to see 15 million to fund that program. Is there any money for this program? Well, there isn't. And what I said I would do is I would allow that that money. I would sign off on that money being spent for implant training coming out of reserves. I would allow that to happen if the legislature just made that a very clean transaction. But again, reserves right now are 12%. Our projection is reserves will be at about 9% at the end of the fiscal year that we're about to engage in the budget that we're about to do. And again, I believe it needs to be at that level because you have so many uncertainties

that easily can take the reserves down to 5%, which is really is the floor. If the legislature spends reserves down to 5% during this legislative session, what you will have is a fiscal crisis for the next governor and the next legislature. So where do you say you wanted to set the levels for reserves? Well, our projection, our budget right now leaves them at about 9% at the end of next fiscal year. And that is going to take into account a lot of uncertainty that may ultimately push that down even further. But that, in my opinion, is prudent. You put the reserves at 5% instead of the 9% that we're projecting. And there's no room for error. Our bond rating will get flushed. What are you going to be telling legislators at your state of the state? You know, you're probably getting a preview of it right now.

Yeah. Okay. Last year, or actually earlier in this year, you said in an interview that we conducted said, if we are going to enjoy economic growth in the future, we have to cut taxes. I want to make something clear. If they don't cut income taxes, I am going to veto capital outlay next year. I'm going to do some onerous things as yet I haven't even thought about with regard to how I am going to get this tax cut. Have you thought about it? Well, I've backed off of that statement and it's reflective of your earlier comment. Really, we, you know, the worst things that could possibly happen would be a recession, some sort of national emergency, say a downturn in oil and gas, which is one of the biggest producers of revenue for the state. Well, you take any one of those three and it just so happens that we had all three. We had the trifecta. It's the worst possible scenario. So, yes, I have backed off of my statement to veto capital outlay this year. It is my intention to sign off on capital outlay and that package will be somewhere in the vicinity of a quarter

of a billion dollars. Governor, let me just ask you this. Why have tax cuts been so important to you? Well, they should be important to everyone, RC, because that's why New Mexico is not experienced the economic growth of all the states in the region. We absolutely categorically do not compete. 8.2% income tax is a detractor from wealth being in New Mexico. It is the worst. I can't count how many business people have asked me why New Mexico hasn't experienced the economic growth of the states in this region. And I tell them, well, we have an 8.2% income tax of which they all acknowledge immediately that they completely understand why that's the case and why if that's not changed, our standing is not going to change. Well, in defense of the storm metaphor at the top of the introduction, the session has been characterized as confrontational. Do you expect that to be the

case? No, I don't really expect that to be the case. So, spending has to be flat. Where you're going to see the contention is over the reserve level. And again, it's not going to make headlines, but I'm going to pledge to every citizen in the state that when I walk out these doors, the state will be in good financial health, something that was not the case. When I took over the reins of this job, well, let me ask you an easy question now. It was about a year ago that you don't have those those all been easy actually. Good. You broke your back almost a year ago. How's your health now? Health is very good. Arguably, I'm in the best physical condition that I've ever been for January. What day is it today? January 11th? Yes. January 11th is the best physical shape I've ever been in. All right. Well, Governor, thank you so much for being on the program.

All right. Thank you. Next, I'll talk to some legislators about the governor's comments and their own plans for the impending session. My next guest tonight will be getting little rest over the next five weeks during that time. They will be charged with crafting a new state budget that the governor is willing to sign while dealing with a host of other issues, including education reform, drug reform, and of course, the governor's biggest legislative wish, tax cuts. They are Republican Representative Ted Homs, the House Minority Leader, Democratic Senator Mani Aragon, the Senate Majority Leader, Republican Senator Ramsey Gorham from Bernalio County, and Democratic Representative Mimi Stewart, also from Bernalio County. Thank you, everyone, for being here with me today. The governor took issue with our storm cloud metaphor. Do you see it that way? Ted.

Well, I'm the one that said confrontation. I'm going to change that and say challenging, because we're going to have a number of subjects that are so emotional. You're going to see a lot of sparks fly. This is not going to be an easy session. It's the governor's last session. Some of the items that he wants to bring forward in his agenda have not been well accepted with the Democrat majority in the past, and so I think that's going to lead to confrontation as well. And then when you've got basically a zero-balance budget, everybody's going to be competing for that money. So I think it's going to be a tough session for us. You see it that way, Mani? Well, you know, and I think a lot of the same old issues will come forth, you know, but I think that as far as the Democrat majority, we're going to maintain our focus on the agenda that we went up there to do, and that's making sure that we move forward and improve education and healthcare and economic development for the people who are studying the next year. Ramsey, how do you see it? Well, I think we're going to go back in education to the governance issue probably, because last year we had a massive bill, but it didn't get out with the governance issue. This year we don't have the money. Our task force on the reform bill decided to delay the

entire bill until next year. We'll be bringing that back probably. But this year I hope we'll look at the cabinet secretary of education, maybe an elected state school board to go along with that, and see if we can get the governance issue settled and then go back to some of the reform issues next year. Mimi, are there storm clouds going to be hanging over to the Capitol? You know, RC, it seems like there's always storm clouds. I mean, every session before we go off, we say, oh, this is going to be contentious. The governor is going to say this. We're going to say this. So I don't see this as any different from any others. There's hard issues. There's differences of opinion. This year there's not very much money, but there's not much that's changed as far as the need to fund education. And we need to be creative and do that this year, in spite of what the governor says. I do want to take issue with one of the things the governor said when he said that we are one of a few states that's not cutting education. But when you don't give a basic

salary increase, that's a cut. Because our health insurance premiums have gone up the last three years, 9% and 2011% and 2001, 15% this year. That's about a 250 to a $400 a year cut for each teacher with their family. So when you don't give a basic cost of living increase on teacher salaries, you've cut their pay. So that's a pay cut. I'm hoping we can be creative and find some way to fund a basic salary increase just a cost of living. And I think all of us are going to be looking at other pots of money that we have. There's a few around up there. And the reserves, the governor doesn't want to spend them, but they're for an emergency. And I think it's here. Well, let's talk about some of the issues that the governor talked about Medicaid. He sees it as a $10 million increase. It's been said called a $15 million cut because to keep it at the status quo it needs to stay at $60 million. Let's talk about Medicaid. Well, this is going to be one of the most

controversial items. There's no question because everybody's approaching it from a different standpoint. The fact is we got Medicaid problems. You can address it by cutting the amount of money and you can also look at the possibility of reviewing the benefit level. If you think about it, the Medicaid benefits are probably better than everybody around this table have. So we ought to look at the benefit package and see if it should be adjusted in some way. Manning. You know, the benefit package in most other states has been developed by the legislature and is actually in statute here in the state of New Mexico. We permitted the governor and the executive branch to do it by regulation. The governor, you're going to remind you, did tell you the truth about Medicaid. It is an entitlement. An entitlement that is required for the state to follow up on. Just two years ago, three sessions ago, the governor said, give me this money for Medicaid. I won't come back and ask for it anymore. We did that. And then the governor initiated this managed care situation on his own without legislative input. This past year in the session in January, he negotiated with other contractors along with

our legislative input. By the time we had left, we had appropriated $70 million new money for Medicaid, which actually turns into about $280 million at $300 million because it's a 3-to-1 match. He negotiated his contract here and his management team well knew what the legislature appropriated. They came back and said now they need another 50. So I think that we have a real management crisis and I think that from some of us, it's going to be a real headline, good headline, when he leaves office. Because I think we need a good management team that knows what they're doing in there. Four years ago, we passed a bill saying did not increase Medicaid payments by more than six percent or four and a half percent. Whatever it was, he vetoed that and actually negotiated on his own and took it to nine percent. There's a real serious problem when you have someone like that because there's a separation of powers. The legislature appropriates the executive managers. You can't veto and put in place increases on your own and then claim later that it was legislators that made that the problem occur. So Medicaid is an entitlement in Mexico historically has had

about a 30 to 35 percent not participation rate. It's time governor to bill our liabilities. Those are liabilities they can show up any day and whether he likes it or I like it, it's an entitlement and your Mexicans have to fetch to the table to pay for it. So even when we're paying everything, we probably are 30 percent short if they all show it up who are entitled for it. And that's always been a problem in your Mexico. So it sounds like it's going to be pretty dangerous. It's going to be expensive and your Mexico ranks probably first or second in a nation for the least number of insured people and all we're talking about here is New Mexico's children and for some of us. And I think on both sides of the aisle New Mexico's children are the most important. He totally mismanaged the ship money. We have to send him back to the federal government. You can go on and on and on. So you need 60 million to maintain the status quo. Do you think at the end of the session you're going to maintain that or are you going to see a 50 million dollar having the experience of the past? I think the legislature will take the hopefully will take the position that we will use. Some of our reserves to maintain the health care for our children

and at the end of the session it wouldn't surprise me if he would be to it as he has in the past. In one session when we gave him an additional 37 million and a tax break three years ago when we did the break for for new R&D, he took the $14 million break. We tied it into a $14 million bill to expand health care for the working men and women of New Mexico. He took the tax break. He vetoed the $14 million for Medicaid for health care for working in Mexicans and together with a 1 million domestic violence appropriation. Those two were the other things we told and then he signed the bill. After he had called in one of the worst that it had ever been passed in New Mexico history. So come January 1st of 2000 and two headlines. I know headline. I think there's some people in Mexicans that are going to be very happy to see him move on. Mr. Hobbs do you think that the governor is going to stick to his guns on this and try to increase it only 10 million? I think he will. I mean once again it's his last session. He's decided what his agenda is going to be. I think he's going to stick as close to it as possible. Well we'll come

out of the legislature I can't I can't forecast. Okay let's move on to education. Mimi you said that was going to be one of the major issues this year. Well RC we're looking at about a 2000 teacher shortage in New Mexico. That's the number of teachers that are on waivers teaching in a subject area in which they're not qualified. Now as a side to this the national bill that just passed the Congress stipulates that states although they are giving us a lot more money to do different things including early intervention and teacher quality. This bill they pass stipulates that we will not be having teachers teaching on waivers in four years and when one of the state governors asked the president about that president Bush said yeah well the states have to step up and start putting some money into teacher salaries, teacher recruiting and retaining. So we can't be looking at giving salary cuts to teachers because if we do we're going to drive more of them away from the state. We're 47th in the nation in salaries. We're almost last in the region the

southwest region. If we would step forward and use either some of the reserves or funds somewhere else get creative with their funding and have education be our priority we might be able to keep more of these teachers. We need to move forward on our every forum agenda where we've done very well on our standards and we now we need to move towards assessment, professional development and having a professional salary for teachers. Teachers need to be moving into master teacher level and being paid for that. So we're in competition with all the states surrounding us for teachers and if we if we give a salary cut and that's what a flat budget is it's a salary cut. Teachers will have to shell out more money for health insurance and the cost of living is going up. So I'm hoping that that the governor and the legislature will begin to understand that it's a cut when it's flat. Well the governor says that you do not need any new monies to improve or reform education.

Is that how you see it Ramsey? Is that what you've heard the governor say? I'm going to be sponsoring a bill this session that will ask one of the or put out a bid to one of the big aid accounting firms to come in and develop a state wide accounting system for our schools so that every school has the same system so we're not comparing apples to oranges. We need to know where the money is going. When you look at the federal dollars and you add in the state dollars and you add in capital outlay we're at over $10,000 per student. Now when you put 24 children in a classroom that's $240,000 you would think that that would cover a very good teacher salary repairs on the buildings all the books and computers and much more. So we have to find out where is this money going. No one is opposed to giving teachers higher salaries especially on a merit basis somewhat of the merit basis that Representative Stewart was talking

about but also in the last bill we had teacher merit pay where classroom by classroom we could determine is that teacher doing well for the child and if he or she is let's reward them if they're having problems less mentor them but don't go along not knowing any longer. Let's deliver to the child. Teachers should be happy to learn that I along with Senator Goran will be trying to save them money on their food bill this year. We are going to be sponsoring a bill together with hopefully Senator Fowman and Senator Alkiminado and others to lower the state's portion of the grocery seats tax on the purchase of food and following the guidelines that were sent out with the food stamp program. So you won't get that break in restaurants and things like that sort but what you know food stuff that people need for themselves and children. So

assuming you know 33600 we're going to try to save them $180 on their food depending not that much for a rep at the street because you doesn't eat that much but we're going to try to do that but you know one thing that I do know about the legislature is that it tries to do what's best for New Mexico we have tremendous amount of challenges you know people even ask questions what if this what if that what if we didn't have you know the different populations that we have with the vastness to the area that we that we cover you know I'll take I don't know if it's taking difference with the governor but when he says I I built 500 miles the governor built the highway from Bernalio to Farmington it was the legislature's initiative that said let's build the big eye and and highway 70 and the other miles and that that demanded that it happened so we did it together but it's just not one person up there the highways are very important but at the same time we're learning that are we're falling further and further behind an economic development and education there's no question is the future for the state of New Mexico and I guess the

challenge to us in Mores and when you're talking about a flat budget and I probably what Mimi said is that we don't just have eight million dollars governor people's stadium makes sure we got 3.8 billion dollars it's where we choose to spend it and we need to improve on things in New Mexico life for one something that wasn't mentioned here if I get and I'll just say this and let somebody else talk to him whatever the if I have get any complaints about anything in New Mexico it's not so much education a lot and all that but I mean real specific for people every day is a child support enforcement I mean of women that are trying to get the companies necessary to you know try to feed their kids everything the hundred dollar child support we are we are just we're doing a terrible job there so what we need to do is find those places where they'll make some sharp improvements child support enforcement needs to be looked at real closely there's no question about it and because of these times domestic violence is nothing new to Mexico unfortunately it's a serious thing and now we're being told that because of a supreme court ruling on a on a procedural matter of how you drop in order we lost four hundred thousand dollars worth of money from the feds that isn't able to sustain those those women and in some

cases men that are abused you know they surprise you but that does occur also so I think that those bottom line issues at this time you know what we want to do is the list the least harm possible doing this session and look forward to the four because we have too many challenges the challenges will be on ending here well will any of the can any of these issues come to the forefront with all these other we're going to have to take you over the agenda let me take a shot at it sure you open you had you touched on it a little bit in the interview with the governor and and the senators talked about economic development one of the most important things we're going to do is bring forward an economic stimulus package you know where the nation's in recession our economy tends to follow a little lower than what the the nation is doing we have high unemployment and the way to get this problem solved is through job creation so we're going to buy partisan economic stimulus package you will include in plant training the legislature will introduce legislation to move at least toward fifteen million dollars I'm not sure we need that much we'll have something an implant training we're going to try to maintain the tourism budget so we can

you know attract people to come here we're going to try some of us are going to try to improve the economic development department budget for advertising we're going to have a rural software development growth receipts tax incentive that will come forward we will have an incentive package to help new R&D companies and we'll give them a growth receipts tax holiday for up to five years when they are coming forward in developing new new plants and new operations here and then we're going to have a good emphasis on the capital outlay package the governor has publicly said something I recommended to him let's uncouple capital outlay from the income tax reduction and one can argue his income tax reduction is part of economic development but there are a lot of good projects on the capital outlay package some are not and I reminded him he has a line out of veto capability so he's uncoupled it and I think that makes a lot of sense because that's good economic development and they will have one other proposal and that's a job mentorship tax credit

for small companies that will bring young people into their into their firm and give them a job and we'll give them a tax credit for up to half their salary that's the kind and there be other items as well but economic stimulus is very important to our economy now we don't create jobs we're not going to stimulate the economy but is there money for economic stimulus I know that the business community would like to see 15 million put into this implant training program where will this money come from if we're dealing with a flat budget is it going to come out of reserves I'm not going to answer your question yet I want to add something to Ted's economic stimulus idea and that is that part of economic stimulus is having working people have money to spend that's why one reason why teacher sellers are important but there's another way we can look at that and that is to look at our unemployment insurance fund it's the best in the country it's the fattest fund in the country so if we looked at extending benefits for further length of time

increasing those benefits because our unemployment has gone up we would help those people that don't have jobs right now that every penny they get they will spend so I think it's important to focus on people and wages because they're the ones that spend the money that's what stimulates the economy that's why we've been told for weeks now that we need all all need to be spending so we can't it can't just be a business point of view it also has to be from from workers point of you well we've got about two minutes to go so I'm going to start the final comments I'll go ahead and start with you Mimi do you think that these other issues will be addressed with all these hot topics that are that are being discussed right now for the session well RC there's 112 of us and then there's one governor we've got five weeks I think it's important that all of us bring forward these issues that we think are important and I certainly am going to try to do that I think education is key I think economic stimulus is important I think it's important to balance the

budget that's in the law so we're going to do that think we need to be creative think we do need to look at the reserves they don't have to stay at 9% reserves are supposed to be when you have an emergency I think in a way we're in an emergency situation now so I hope that we can all agree to spend those reserves down only where it's prudent to look at these other funds to be efficient and effective in the way we spend our money and to come up with the plan that's good for new Mexicans Ramsey RC I think we need to emphasize that our state is going to look better than almost any other state in the country we're starting at the very bottom but I know states that have a $1 billion deficit in one year this year we don't we are amazingly blessed this year so I think we've got to thank the governor for that because he gets the budget he has balanced it he's been disciplined I totally disagree with the governor on his drug policy this year we haven't talked

about that don't think that's going to help our families I'd like to see us focus on positives drug court that we know has worked afternoon programs for kids and let's stay focused on things that we have proven will help the children okay man well I got a following Ramsey saying I'm thankful for the governor because his $72 million tax break didn't pass last year they vetoed the 35 million because if he had signed it then we would have been $28 million in the hole so he did have significant amount of vision in that particular regard and so I'm grateful for that and but I think of all the issues you said just don't be discussed and we'll even have time to have a little fun up there there's a great that's great the personalities up there and good people and we've had all those issues in the past are not new and hopefully at the end the people in New Mexico will be pleased with our efforts we'll probably won't be totally happy but hopefully we'll be pleased

Ted how do you see it well I opened by saying it's going to be a challenging session I think it's too large an agenda but some people could argue if all we did was pass a good budget and went home the state would be better off all right well everyone thank you much so much for being here today stay tuned coming up next I'll talk to some of New Mexico's top political reporters and observers to find out what they'll be looking for during this session politics is often a difficult language to decode and this is certainly true for the yearly legislative wrangling in Santa Fe my next group of guests makes their living by listening into the tower of babble we sometimes call the roundhouse to try and find the real issues driving New Mexico politics joining me tonight to decipher the political rhetoric rhetoric of this year's legislative session our Kate Nelson columnist for the Albuquerque Tribune Steve Lawrence editor

of crosswinds weekly and Steve Terrell political reporter for the Santa Fe New Mexican before I think everybody for being here today before I get into the line of questioning what did Ted what do you think so far what the governor and the legislators have said Steve I'll start with you sounds like a pretty familiar story to me is it going to be stormy well it seems like the area we're going to decipher the storm clouds forming from the sparks that have been a flight sounds like the governor's got his agenda and he doesn't seem to be willing to depart from it and the legislature is going to do its own thing and somewhere in this mess we'll get a budget but one thing that's new we'll probably have a capital outlay build this year which we didn't have last year which would have been a very important economic stimulus the governor has been promoting the last lack of economic development and he sure could have done his part by signing that bill but he didn't but he has pledged to do it this time Kate what do you think I think we'll be lucky if we have a budget at the end of the session either tremors in the roundhouse right now that they may not even be able to agree on that much or that the governor will once again have to take out his magic veto pen and make everything right at the at the after they've

all left that's the best we can hope for that we'll get a budget out of this session Steve you agree basically so and at the case right I think Johnson's vetoed five of the last seven budgets at the and there's so many tensions there there's tensions within the democrats in the senate there's tensions in the republicans in the house there's potentially the governor in the legislature and plus a lot of members are running for office so it's going to be a pretty interesting remarkable well the legislators were quite cordial with each other as you saw previous to this segment and one of the things that they told me off camera and one of the things that we didn't get to talk about on camera was that I asked him point blank is the governor going to get his tax cut and they all unanimously said no so why is the governor still pushing it if even someone like Ted Hobbs believes that he's not going to get it why is he still pushing tax cuts that he's not going to get why is he still pushing school vouchers he's not going to get why is he still pushing drug reform he's probably not going to get why it's the kind of governor is that he has that he

has been it's not much of a surprise he's never been pragmatic in his proposals what can I get through the legislature is not part of his political makeup it's what do I believe and that's fair I think there's also for the tax cut issue in particular it plays well everyone wants money back from their taxes and so why give up on that one when he's got political mileage that he can gain from it he's more he said has said himself that what he wants to be is right and he seems to be more concerned with being right in his own mind than with being effective as a legislative force do you think this has anything to do with legacy that this is something that he's pushed for for the seven years is tax cuts for new Mexicans I can't see what kind of a legacy he leaves at this point I think only that he held the line on spending which is which is nice but it's not a legacy it's not a drug reform package it's not better schools it's it's not but maybe you can say that the private prisons are his legacy which isn't a very prideful moment either maybe so I mean during

this administration we are still hovering at the bottom of the all the state lists on every sort of economic progress all right I just tell you he cares about legacy I'll talk to people now seriously Richard Romero said he's not a legacy kind of guy so do you do you think that the governor's agenda is DOA this year I mean that that was one of the things that I asked him at the things are the vouchers of tax cut Johnson himself says drug reform some of those some individual bills may make it through some of those have made it through before and he vetoed them the forfeiture thing it's true but I guess one of his legacy is gambling that that you can't deny that's true and and we are now with the compacts being free and clear most of them anyway we're going to find out will this be the economic salvation that the tribes said it would be in a bad economy that may not happen we're also going to potentially see some social problems coming home to roost in regards to gambling when you even have judges having to admit to gambling

addictions you can only imagine how far that problem might go no question I mean the casinos continue to pray if you will mainly on New Mexicans I mean I see a lot of out of state influx coming in here and it seems that the tribes are also moving on past casinos now everybody's got a resort destination you know so they were all going to do casinos and now they're all going to do resort destinations and I would suggest that there's a real economic limit to the effectiveness of that some are going to be nicer than others and some of them are going to be more successful than others and this structure 12 casinos half a dozen eight ten resort destinations I don't think can support its own weight well this year there are a lot of people have much bigger political agendas and in the past how do you think that's going to affect we've got three would be governors we've got rom burpo john sanchez Walter Bradley these are all going to be running for governor do you think there's going to be a lot of grandstanding oh no no they'll show up they'll be very serious they'll get their work and then they'll hit the campaign yeah of course you're

going to see lots of grandstanding and and in fact that's where you may see some odd little issue come to the four where they know they'll get the headline in the midst of all the chaos over budgets and and whatnot that that they can get their name in print as well but you don't think they'll affect the outcome of the decision this year's session that's tough to say I mean once once politicians start grandstanding no no end of muck can occur yeah the only thing it probably can do is further clog up the gears I mean while people sit there and make speeches and come on with their own private agendas it's going to it's going to delay what might be the real business of the legislation the constitution makes you know there is a real deadline new none valentines there I guess it is and they can't go on beyond that they can't extend it so any any little delay is I guess they can clog it up what about Richardson's announcement do you think that will shadow a color of the session in any way what's going to be over by the time the session begins and I think people will move on I think people look for a successful Richardson candidate yeah and

you're not going to see that campaign really gear up until after the session anyway so it'll get some attention it won't control the session I understand the floor of the legislature a lot of Democrats already acting like Richardson you know it's been anointed to be the next governor came up during the special session when they're trying to redistrict the Senate some senators Democratic senators are saying hey we don't have to do this till for the next couple of years we're not re-election until 2004 that we may have a friendlier governor then some risky assumption no no it's definitely is you've had have you had the opportunity to talk to legislators now prior to the session starting are there any dark dark horse issues that that people are talking about that that may come up that that that we did not talk about here at the table with the four legislators not the only possible one is about parental notification on abortions might creep in there that's that won't be an emotional issue or anything

talk about sound and fury that's that's on no middle ground so that could possibly be one but that's about all I've heard the one thing that can get to the four legislators without the governor putting it on his call is a joint resolution of of both houses and they do seem to be prepared to pass to joint resolution calling for a runoff election in albuquerque which would then go to a vote of the people to change the state constitution actually Ted Hobbs explain that to me to apply to the whole state to and affect Santa Fe also be a runoff in Santa Fe though wouldn't affect this upcoming mayor election and one one thing we really need in albuquerque is more elections that's right well comparatively how how does New Mexico stand with other states in terms of you heard manny out of going talking about how well we are we are lucky we do have we do have some surplus and that's what the governor was saying as well how do we compare with other states we start off so low and with so many problems that aren't getting funded already that yes

we have eight million beyond this year's budget to spend which which means we're not in the position of cutting millions and millions of dollars but we're already so far behind that eight million doesn't begin to cover the needs then you add in things like the cost of living increase the the comments that representative Stewart made about teacher salaries were right on the money so to speak about how we keep slipping a little bit farther and farther behind and she's running the money about the implications of a flat budget a flat budget is a is a cut in programs for everyone including teachers pay and she's quite right about that and this the the language that's around that goes around I mean Senator Gorham called the state of this state at this moment an amazing blessing I'm afraid I just can't go on with her about and the governor called a a 10 million increase in Medicaid and let's call Medicaid what it is this is health care for the poor and the poor are kids you know they're kids of single fan single mothers of broken families and they need health care and as Senator Eragon pointed out there's a big gap in the people who

are eligible in those who actually so it's basically semantics it's how you worded it's either a 10 million increase or a 50 million cut and the end of the problem with it is for every dollar we put into it we get a bigger match from federal money it's a way of leveraging more money into the state that benefits our health care system when he talked about potentially cutting the reimbursements to doctors we already have a problem with doctors not wanting to stay in New Mexico how would that help anybody who argue that health care in this state is adequate I don't think has been out talking to real people on the other hand it could be worse it you know some states are in worse trouble we are as far as the budgets go and have to make drastic cutbacks and you know it could happen here in future years what about we still do have a healthier reserve that is that is there to be tapped into at a reasonable level you don't draw it down you don't want to exhaust it you don't want to commit it for future well legislators want to draw it down to 5 percent I've never heard the governor so concerned about the person who's going to be the next governor however it was very heartwarming to say well he doesn't want to leave him with a fiscal

crisis I mean he says he's concerned that the state will be in sound financial health but I would suggest to him that he got to be concerned about education health health care health what do you think economic they should be talking about Kate I think they need to be talking about education and health care I think those are two issues that if not addressed lead to far more expensive problems way down the road when he talks about wanting to increase the prison population curiously at the same time that he wants to decriminalize a lot of our drug laws you wonder well why are we putting more and more and more money into that end result when we need to be putting the money in the front end I'd rather see him talking about that then I want to leave the state with more prison beds than we have right now Steve what should he be talking about well I think he should be talking about economic development as well he apparently is committed I'm not sure that the legislature is listening to him or he to them which is nothing new either this issue of implant training which allows businesses to train folks to do their jobs and they get money from the

state they want $15 million for it he said that he's pledged an implant training program to come out of reserves but they have a more ambitious economic development package a lot of which sounds pretty good to me are you referring to what Ted Hobbs was talking about yeah and also what Mimi Stewart was talking about I mean she's quite right that by extending unemployment benefits you do give money to people who are going to spend it people who need it badly but Ted Hobbs is also talking about more tourism dollars and several other things that are an omnibus package I didn't hear the governor say he's going to go for an omnibus package I heard him say he might go for in for some implant training money which he has called a boondoggle but which no one else in the state seems to agree with him what do you think that they should be talking about well by the constitution it is about the budget it's only a 30-day session and a lot of the other problems you're not supposed to even be tackling until the next session Ted makes an interesting point that they already have so much on the agenda so many emotional issues that it's it's probably way too

much to start out with I'll not to say that all these other problems aren't worth tackling how do you think the governor is going to fair I guess in the people's mind after this session okay he has great he has great popularity ratings despite every criticism that people like me can lodge against him he does he does okay in the court of public opinion I think that history may change that opinion it may take another four or eight years for us to agree that he did a great job or that he left us with some problems that are going to take a long time to work our way out of yeah here's a man has been reelected you know and came out of nowhere to be elected the first time he against a good that's right that's right and he and he ran strong he ran very strongly he is obviously the governor that the people of New Mexico want regardless of the fact that he does not seem to be able to solve some of the very serious problems this state it's amazing Steve Troll we have to wrap we've got about a minute left to go so I'm going to give everybody a

chance to say what do you what do you think's going to happen this session yeah come I was talking to Kate earlier every time I said there'll be a lot of sound and fury and she said which will signify nothing it's going to be interesting it will be mayonnaise right it's going to be fun there's anybody who's a political junky who should tune in but don't be lucky to get a budget through and I don't think anything terribly ambitious is going to come out of it at all Steve yeah I tend to agree I mean I think that you know that we might might very well get a budget but I think there's just too much fussing over some of these very very serious and tough issues to be taken care of in a 30 day session okay oh it will be an overall disappointment it will be the final year of eight years of missed opportunities okay well we'll have to leave it at that thank you everyone for being here today next week we'll continue our coverage of the 2002 New Mexico state legislature Tuesday January 15th at noon we will bring you live coverage of the governor's state of the state address and then next Friday we'll examine the events at the

legislature's first week on our regular edition of in focus this year's K&M TV and KUNM 89.9 FM are again teaming up to bring you the most up-to-date reporting on the legislative session for New Mexico public television every Tuesday and Thursday immediately following the news hour with Jim Blair KUNM's capital reporter Deborah Martinez and I will bring you the day's headlines with the in focus roundhouse report Deborah will also join me each week on our regular edition of in focus to give a wrap up of each week's events if you're not near your TV you can also catch Deborah's reports from the capital on the evening report at five on KUNM 89.9 FM and finally if you would like to receive a weekly email preview of the topics we'll be covering on each week's episode of in focus simply log on to the in focus page at www.knmetv.org and subscribe to that free email preview I'm RC Choppa for everyone at in focus good night to respond to this program receive weekly email previews of the show or to find out more about

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