Report from Santa Fe; Ben Lujan

Nellie Seating ... ... ... ... ...

... ... Report from Santa Fe is made possible in part by grants from New Mexico Tech on the frontier of science and engineering education. For bachelor's, master's and PhD degrees, New Mexico Tech is the college you've been looking for, 1-800-428-TECH. I'm Ernie Mills and this is report from Santa Fe, our guest today, Ben Luhan, state representative Ben Luhan, who is the speaker of the New Mexico House of Representatives. And it has been perfect time for a show. Well Ernie, it's great to be here. Once again, we thank the Lord for allowing us this opportunity.

I went back, you know, every once in a while, you know, the session will be getting underway, but I went back and remembered a period when you were among those in line, you know, could have run for the House Majority Leader. And you stepped back from it, and I asked you about it. I said, Ben, that was yours if you wanted it. And you said, every once in a while, you do things out of party loyalty. I've talked to members, they haven't forgotten them. Have they mentioned that to you? Ernie, every once in a while, and I believe that, you know, when the vacancy occurred for speaker, they came to me and said, we would very much like for you to lend your name. As speaker of the House nominee, and, you know, they have not forgotten it evidently. I have a great group of legislators from the United States of New Mexico both. On our Democratic side of the aisle, and also on the Republican side of the aisle, you know, a lot of those folks, we've become very close friends.

You know, the, in our business, we often look around at search for a question that there's no answer to yet. You know, you haven't seen a budget yet, you know, the, the exact budget. I, but it clears the air a little bit to say, like, as Ben Luhan, in the legislature, you represent just one view, personal view, out of a hundred and twelve longmakers. And, and that's true, Ernie, we, even though that we have leadership positions, we have to not forget, you know, the districts that we represent. And, and by the same token, when you take a leadership position, you have to also understand that you've got to have a little broader mind and accommodate those districts or those members that come from different districts and, and make sure that, that you allow them, the necessary space so that they can represent those folks well. That's called compromise. That's, that's, that's the name of the game, really.

And I feel for how you're going to get around along this time. I, I think I wouldn't be going overboard to say that there was no great feeling about compromise with the last governor, Governor Gary Johnson. And Ernie, we made every effort to do that, you know, we, I specifically, when, when I became Speaker, I went up and, and talked to him, and I told him, Governor, if, if you want to have some kind of legacy, you know, let's talk about it. We'd like to see that, we try to, to accommodate you and see if we can work out things where, where we can make that happen for you. And he didn't simply answer me one way or the other, like you pointed out earlier in a conversation Ernie, he, he never made any statements that probably he didn't really keep. But the same token, he didn't open the door for communication as much as I think that it would be to his best interest if he had done that. If, and again, I didn't catch him lying or anything, he was up front, we know what he wanted to do. He was not a big spender.

He had taken pride in the number of bills that he had vetoed. Now, this, this I think is almost a critical question for this session. For eight years, we have had special interest lobby. When I say special interest, I'm thinking of people like, you know, the elderly, anyone who was interested in the legislature and the lobbyist. And they've had eight years where they've been standing outside in the street with their noses pressed against the legislative candy window. And they've gotten turned down an awful lot. And now they want to be inside the candy store. How do you get them to recognize the restraint that has to be used that not everything is going to be funded like in one, one session, one 60 day session. And that's what's going to be hard journey, you know, the expectations like you put it out are very high optimism is high. But I think that a lot of this people understand that Rome wasn't built in a day and that it's not all going to happen.

And one day we hope that they understand and certainly this group that you identified are folks that have been kind of left out in the cold. And we want to try to bring them in as soon as possible. And not be that we can do it as fast as they would have liked to have been some of those issues that they were concerned about and trying to promote will be able to be addressed as fast as they would like to. But we definitely will try to make a river to do that, Ernie. What would I be wrong in saying that the way it shapes up to the average person on the outside, that because of the unity you have in the house, you're probably the most powerful man in the legislature. Well, the position of speaker for whatever reason or for fathers made that position pretty powerful. And, you know, Ernie, I think that it's up to the individual that holds that position.

I think that certainly speaker Sanchez was a fair person. And I also remember being keeping the books for Governor King as an assistant sergeant of arms. So I kind of saw both those individuals be speaker. And I think that I take a little bit from both what I saw and what they promoted for New Mexico, Ernie. Can we speculate just a little bit? I have a feeling that your working relationship will be better this time with Ted Hobbs, who is the house minority leader. Do you have a feel for that? Yes, and Representative Hobbs and myself have been speaking and communicating as far as some of the recommendations that he's made for office space for some of his new members and for the membership of the Republican Party in the house and also for the office space where they would like to be. So I feel that communication will be much better. I don't think that they will be that position that he used to take where he would just simply say, well, we're going to take this position and we're not going to budge from there.

We know that we can get the governor to veto this certain piece of legislation. And I think there's where you say that now I think Ted and I will be able to address some of those controversial issues or issues that might not be a very simple issue and talk about them a little bit more, a lot more. The governor does have the last vote. You have a hundred and twelve votes between the House and Senate. Then the governor has that final vote, which is the veto vote. And it was a hammer. Could be used as a hammer. When you go through all your negotiations with the realization, it would be vetoed in the final analysis. The Senate, to me, seems to have calmed down a little bit now. You know, they've gone through their leadership problems.

But I was talking to someone the other day. Now you're going to be dealing with Senate Republicans too in your position. You know, he sent the bills over there. Stuart Engel, who is the minority leader for the Republicans, he's a pretty rational person. And I understand most of the lawmakers say, I guess the way you put it up here, you can speak to Stuart. And you know, Senator Engel and myself have gotten along great even when I was in the floor leader position. He's a person that you can talk to, like you just pointed out. Him and I were had a lot of communication, as you recall, along with Senator Romero in the last administration when we had to come in and call ourselves in into an extraordinary session. Senator Engel was one of those people that definitely did not want government to shut down. And he did what he could to make sure that we would have sufficient votes to call ourselves in into an extraordinary session.

And then at the time that we couldn't get the governor to sign the budget bill to sustain and overwrite his veto, you know, that was very important. And as a leader, I think that he's to be congratulated in keeping the troops together along with Senator Romero and the rest of the leadership there in the Senate. We're all going to be watching the budget. And do you have any doubt that the legislature can come up without any mammoth new taxes or such to take care of budget increases this program? Well, Ernie, as you are also where we are the envy of states, especially within our region and nationally also because of the fact that we have access money or at least we have more money in our budget than our expenditures. So we have about $115 million at the very least that we've been told that is available for new programs for addressing education or whatever we choose to do in conjunction with the governor.

But our surrounding states, a lot of them are having to cut programs or come up with some initiatives for increases in revenue. And we're in a position that we don't have to do that. We don't anticipate doing that. We feel that with the money that we have available, we'll be able to establish and promote a budget that we will believe within our means. You notice that whenever something like that happens, the outsiders, I call them the outlanders, never put out a list saying the Mexico is number one or number two or number three. They usually do if we're at the bottom of the barrel. But we have states with billions of dollars in debt this time. And some of those were states that were supposed to have balanced budgets too. Texas has bad problems. California has bad problems. I can't imagine New York not having bad problems.

So we're not as bad off as we think. Even Arizona, a conservative state, Arizona in Colorado. They have some problems with their revenues. Well, Governor Napaliano over in Arizona. That's Leonard's daughter. She should be able to get them in line over there. Would you care to fill us in on exactly what you're doing? Part of its housekeeping chores, offices, things of that nature. But also in trying to make sure that there's some early negotiation under budget. The governor, I know, is trying to get the budget out in his executive message out in time for the session. But what do you do down in the house to try to get a compromise at this point on the major issues?

In any, you know, the governor, there's been a lot of questions, especially from the media. Well, the governor's budget is completely different than what the LFC recommendations are. And to me, you know, I think that a chief executive has that prerogative to put their own budget together, send that budget down to us, which we will probably see in detail opening day of the session. But we also have that responsibility to make a recommendation from our legislative finance committee to our membership into the governor. And I see that we will as our finance committees, both the House of Appropriations and Finance and the Senate Finance, go over those requests or recommendations from the governor and from LFC. And like you know, they've done in the past, they'll put both side by side and they'll try to address those issues that they can very easily come to terms with. The hard issues that there is differences, we will then, and that's going to be the difference, we will then be able to go up to the governor and communicate with him, have dialogue with him, and see that we can get those differences resolved in a manner that we will not have.

That we will not have that great luck that we've had in the past. I guess most of the issues that the governor campaigned on during the campaign season or the time that the election was going on, are issues that we as a Democratic caucus have always thought that we're and have made our priorities. How we get there might be a little bit different than what the governor is proposing, but again, those are issues like in education, you know, we all want to make sure that we provide sufficient salary increases for our teachers, that we have accountability for the money that we're providing to the school districts. The governor wants to do it also, he might have a different approach, we have a different way that we think that we want to get there, but we will definitely be having discussion with him on that. On the water issue, I think that we're very much together on that, we recognize that we've got to identify who owns water in New Mexico, then make some recommendations for water banking and conservation.

That's very important in the area of economic development. We have been trying, and I think to a certain extent, we've been successful in attracting some industry into New Mexico, I think with a new governor with his experience and also the fact that he knows a lot of people nationally and internationally. We will make every effort to give him the necessary tools to be able to bring in industry and address economic development. He is also very interested in increasing our tourism budget. I think that, again, that's important. We feel that all those issues are issues that we've supported in the past. How we get the necessary money is where we are going to make sure that two and two heads to four and then that to four to five or to three. Outside his frequently say, because of a Democrat governor, a Democrat Senate Democrat House of Representatives, that it's going to be a long honeymoon.

It can be as long as you have dialogue, isn't it? It's not going to be completely the way either one wants the executive or the legislature. You've got to talk about it first. I wanted to bring up one issue that's concerned everyone, and they put together a task force on it, and that was to handle the spiraling cost of Medicaid. Are we going to see some changes in the legislature this time on that issue? Ernie, as you also know, the fact that Medicaid Reform Committee made some recommendations, we're going to take some of those recommendations. I think the governor himself is looking at some of those recommendations, and we intend to make some tough decisions. We want to make sure that we provide the best health care possible to those that don't have health care or otherwise couldn't get it anywhere else.

But we've got to make sure that we get a handle and that cost because of the fact that if we don't get a handle, then very few people or less people could very well end up having the benefit. And we just know that we're going to have to make some tough decisions, and we're ready to do that. You're going to see some recommendations that will handle on it, and we'll cut the cost as we're operating today. And all the years I've known you, one of your major concerns was accessibility of people to health care. And when you look at that, that has to include everyone. People at the middle level of the economic spectrum, they often get lost in the shuffle, but it really boils down children getting their health care needs taken. That's always been a top priority with you, Anthony.

Definitely, and the governor is aware of that. He feels that we've got to include a broader group of folks, and especially children. But by the same token, like I was talking about, we've got to get a handle on the costs because if not less people are going to land up being able to utilize this benefits. But certainly children, being having a healthy children in New Mexico is very important. Those people that aren't healthy aren't going to do good in school. We want to make sure that we provide the best education, and I feel that that goes hand in hand with making sure that we have a healthy child. And then, of course, our seniors, we've got to make sure that we take care of our senior population, and that they have their health care needs taken. And the other folks, the working poor, the middle income folks, we want to make sure that affordable health care is afforded to them also. The other issue that we're concerned about is that the children that are in school, Medicaid in school, I think that we haven't identified enough of those children that are in school.

And we're going to make our effort in this administration is going to make our effort to make sure that those eligible children in school are identified and provided the health care needed. You know, a couple of questions now. We get the answers to them. I mean, not have to work the rest of this next 60 days. I gather we're not going to see any major push for school vouchers. I don't think that there'll be any bills introduced as far as school vouchers this year or any. I haven't heard of anybody really interested in doing that and know that the governor has specifically said that he is not in favor of school vouchers. And the same team that's in the legislature now is not interested. So I think that anybody would be wasting their time just for the simple reason of introducing a piece of legislation on the voucher issue. I don't foresee any major effort for drug legalization.

And that's correct. We don't anticipate those issues coming up again either. I think the governor has very stated very firmly that he's not in favor of the stance that Governor Johnson had on that issue. When you take an interim committee and you work with them all and the standing committees, but the legislative education study committee, they had put together a task force. It was an ad hoc task force and had it for a couple of years came up with a number of recommendations. And we did a show with I.B. Hooper from Albuquerque and he's not a member of the legislature and he is not a wild-eyed liberal either. And he said to me that there were only two issues that came up and that hold task force where there was any kind of dissent where they actually had to take a vote on it to make a possible difference. I gather now that they feel a lot more comfortable in having some of their recommendations picked up because they were not under the last governor.

I know Mr. Hooper was upset. He said, I'm a conservative. I'm a rock-ripp Republican. And he said, I agree with all these things. Do you find many of the interim committees in this kind of situation that they've been chomping at a bit? Yes, and let me just say that I be Hoover. We have a lot of respect for all the work like you know, Ernie, him and former Senator David Townsend have done a great job in giving up of their own time traveling on their own expense and this sort of thing just because they are so concerned and dedicated to making sure that we improve education in New Mexico. And LFC did make some of those recommendations that that committee is recommending Monday. I understand that they will be coming before the legislative school study committee and making some other recommendations and we will seriously take those into consideration. I believe that there's certain other interim committees that work very hard during the interim. And like you say, a lot of the work wasn't appreciated by the former governor and he just didn't realize that this was a sentiment of people as we talk to them during the interim.

Now, at this point, I usually, in our business, we figure we know exactly what's going to happen. That's not right. And in your mind now, do you know you got some priorities that we have not discussed in the few minutes we have left? What should we discuss that we haven't until this time, your own priorities, what we should look at for it during the session? Well, I think that, like I put it out underneath, we're all very much together on this. I guess probably I can't think of one real outstanding issue that we haven't really discussed during the session. The election process, Ernie, will be, there will be some attempts to address some issues within our election process. I think that the issue of absentee voting has gotten out of hand to a certain extent and there are going to be some recommendations that are going to be made in the area of election reform.

Yeah, no, that include campaign finance reform too. We will be looking at campaign reform. I don't know as broad as the bill that I had chipped through the House last year and died in the Senate. But we will be looking at some campaign reform recommendations. We think that the State of Arizona, for example, we feel that that's one of the reasons that Governor Napolitano was elected because of the campaign reform that was done in Arizona. And we intend to look at that. The other issue and the election process is, you know, there's a big concern about the 5% to become a major party. There's a lot of cost to having primary elections, just simply to have other major parties on the ballot. So those are items, especially when we don't have that much money. We'd rather spend our money and providing the best in education for our children.

Now, you had been very active in trying to pass legislation to help the elderly protect their homes. And where do we stand on now? Do you think more has to be done? Are you satisfied with what we've done? I think at this time, Ernie, and that's on property tax. And we feel that the bills that we have in place now, we've got to allow to stay for a few years and see how they're working. There's a concern that when we say 3%, that's misunderstood that the appraised or the value of a home cannot be increased more than 3%, and a lot of people think that that means that they should be increased 3% every year. And that's not the intent. What we're saying to the county government is we would like for you not to increase the values of homes, but we're going to tell you that if you do increase them, that the maximum that you can increase them is 3%.

We're putting a camp on. I don't want to put a camp on the legislature this session. I'm Ernie Mills and our guest today, Ben Luhan, who is the speaker of the House of Representatives. I'd like to thank you for being with us on report from Santa Fe. Report from Santa Fe is made possible in part by grants from New Mexico Tech on the frontier of science and engineering education for bachelor's, master's and PhD degrees. New Mexico Tech is the college you've been looking for 1-800-428-TECH.