Report from Santa Fe; Jeff Steinborn and Nathan Small

Report from Santa Fe is made possible in part by grants from the members of the National Education Association of New Mexico, an organization of professionals who believe that investing in public education is an investment in our state's economic future. And by a grant from the Healey Foundation, Tau's New Mexico. Hello, I'm Lorraine Mills and welcome to Report from Santa Fe. Our guests today are Representative Nathan Small and Senator Jeff Seingborn. I want to tell you, we are filming the day the session end, although it won't air for a little bit. But now we get to look back at the session and the work that has been accomplished. You have done so much. I'm really proud of you both. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Let's talk a little, let's give our people some of your background. We'll start with you as a senior member. Okay. Tell us you're long and winding roads. Sure. So I was born and raised in Las Cruces and former aide to U.S. Senator Jeff Bingham and used to work for Bill Richardson when he was in Washington and done a lot of things in

between. But ultimately got elected to the New Mexico House of Representatives in 2006 and was a house member for two different districts over eight years and got elected to the Senate last November. So I'm completing my first session as a state senator. And your vice chair of rules and a member of Santa Public Affairs. Yep. And part of some really interesting committees, we've engaged many of the big policy issues that came through the legislature and of course had some big ones too. So it was a, gosh, we're one session out from the session. So we're a little tired. Yes. It's really good for what we accomplished, but of course there's a lot left to be done. Yeah. And representative, small. Hi, Lorraine. So I represent district 36 in the House of Representatives. Lorraine raised in New Mexico. I went down to Las Cruces working in conservation and we now live, I live, my wife and I live there in the house that she grew up in, which is really a tree.

I served two terms on the City Council down in on the City of Las Cruces City Council. And in 2016 was just tickled to be elected to the House of Representatives last November. So this is my first session, although it felt, it felt really exciting to come in at a time of both deep challenge, but of significant opportunity. And as the senator said, there's still a lot of dust up in the air, but I think we can look at some things and see historic progress while still understanding how tough of a situation we face as new Mexicans. What's it like? It's your first session. What was different than you expected? The, I think, thank you, being comfortable, just going, visiting with different members of both parties, visiting with folks in the Senate, it's, you know, communication is key, trying to clearly get across your point.

But I think the pace at times was surprising, but yeah, I think overall, overall it reinforces a great lesson actually that I learned from Senator's time from Jeff, which is success as many partners failure as alone, that the more we can look to do together, bring in folks on the better opportunity we have to make progress. And I need to ask you that question also, Jeff. What's it like your first session as a senator? And what's the difference between, in your experience, between the House and the Senate? Well, it's a lot smaller, so there's 42 senators and 70 House members. So the first thing you experience is that it's quieter, there's more space. And it's not quite as frenetic, the action's different in the Senate, and at first when I got there, that kind of, well, I was used to a faster pace. But over time, what you come to find out with the Senate is that it's very collegial.

It's just a different kind of, different kind of a deal, but, you know, but I've really come to enjoy that and meeting the new colleagues that are over there and just a new experience, new challenges of policy making in that body. So it's been different, but of course, a lot of the same, and that was something that I think my colleagues in the Senate saw was, was I was an eight-year veteran in the legislature, and I brought all that experience and knowledge and knowledge of the issues into the Senate. I was just a new senator. I'd love to ask you each, I'll start with you, Nathan. What was the best advice someone gave you that turned out to be true? You know, I already tripped it there, but it's really success as many partners failure as alone. Of course, you have to keep your word in some of the basics, but there's so much opportunity for competition, and oh, that's my idea, or this or that, really focusing on investing other people and other stakeholders in the same idea, I think proves it's worth again

and again. Now we fight and work from a basic set of values, but really try and to bring folks on to the same team, rowing in the same direction, I think pays dividends, and really making sure that folks receive credit where credit is due, and that is, I think that this session, we saw a lot of great work amongst different members, I was proud to be part of many of the different efforts in some of these kind of teams, if you will, and I think that stood me in good stead this session. And Jeff, your best advice you received? That's advice I got was before I ran for the Senate when I was thinking about it, and it was actually Senator Peter Worth, and he said to me, remember why you're doing this, which is something that I would remind myself of when I was in the House during tough debates, and when you've got all these different competing things swirling through your head that you're being hit with before you vote on an issue, you're, as always remember what this is about,

and why you're doing it, and that ultimately, and why I ran for the Senate, was it was not about being comfortable in the House, or it was about challenging yourself and trying to have a bigger opportunity to serve the people and be effective. And so it was Peter Worth, advice to me. Now both of you took that advice and used it very well, I'd like to start off talking about the actual bill since the session is over, and we know what passed this part. I cannot thank you enough for your work on HCR8, the Independent Ethics Commission. So talk about how it started in your co-sponsors and the long and winding road. Well, I mean, since I've been elected in 2006, people have been introducing legislation on this. Mary, Representative Mary Helen Garcia and Brian Eagoff, and it's been something that we've been wanting to do for a long time, and as I've served, I've seen firsthand how important an ethics commission will be to this state to have an independent ethics commission overseeing

all of state government elected officials, lobbyists, government contractors, and it's been elusive. And then several years ago, this guy named Jim Dying's got elected, now a sophomore representative, a Republican from Albuquerque area, and himself a long time devotee to transparency, and he sponsored a constitutional amendment. And I signed on as a co-sponsor, and Jim got to give all the credit in the world to his diligence, his professionalism, his commitment to this issue, to stick with this issue, work through it, and listen to it. When I got elected to the Senate, I asked to be on the Senate Rules Committee because I knew all the ethics bills went there, and it just turned out to be very fortuitous as Jim's bill came there. We were able to bring the parties together to resolve some sticking points and come up with a formula to get it through the Rules Committee and pass the bill this time. But it was really a team effort, not, you know, and Nathan co-sponsoring and the leaders

in the House and the Senate, and so a lot of credit goes around, but it's just thrilling that we finally get it done. And just so before I was elected, you would hear, and you would see the efforts towards independent ethics commissions, and they fell short. When I was running, we made this a key issue of the campaign because it's an issue that folks can agree with across the spectrum, one of only eight states without it. So after I was elected on great advice from Senator Simon and others, I reached out to Common Cause, reached out to Representative Dines, and said, this is a core part of why I wanted to run and whatever I can do to help, I'd love to be part of it. And so then the opportunity to go from hearing about it, believing in it, to then connecting with the key folks pushing it, and then in the House, being one of the primary co-sponsors going to the committees in the House where it was smooth receiving an historic vote unanimously on the House floor, then getting to go over to Senate Rules and working with Senators

Simon and others, it was, this was the year, and we knew with new leadership, with different folks, it was an incredible opportunity. And so, and then all the way through to the conference committee, and that, I think that will be as we reflect, and certainly as I reflect on this, to go from hearing about it, from folks like Jeff, to them being able to be one of three members across from Jeff and two other members from the Senate to really decide this, have the leaders ready to bring it back, get it done quickly, and to have overwhelming bipartisan majorities sign on to it, it was, it was very exciting. And thanks to you, and also Representative McCamley and Representative Eli. Absolutely, and beyond that, Kamikaze, New Mexico, you know, and at Legal Women Voters and Advocate Groups, just tirelessly. So one of the reasons this is, we're celebrating this, is that they've done a lot of polls and you probably know the statistics, but I know that it's a big issue, even in economic

development, because if we had a reputation in the past, perhaps as a corrupt state, businesses wouldn't think to relocate here. And then if we do have this independent ethics commissioner, and what is the percentage of people who are in favor of it, just normal citizens? I guess off the charts, it's, it's 80%, well over 80%. Yeah. So now we have to throw the ball in their court, explain, now that each share eight has passed, and it's a joint resolution that will go on the ballot. So you all have done the heavy lifting, but please tell the citizens out there what they're going to do and when they're going to do it. Well, I think the citizens really get it, right? They, they want government to be honest, to be working for them. So we have this incredible opportunity, citizens of New Mexico, to create an independent ethics commission overseeing all elected officials at state government and the executive branch. Lobbyists, government contractors who are involved in procurement of billions of dollars

of state services, New Mexico is one of only eight states right now without an independent ethics commission overseeing these things. We have an opportunity through this constitutional amendment, which we will all have a right to vote on in 2018, to create an ethics commission in the state. And to really ensure that our government is following the law and working for us. And when there are problems, we're going to have an agency we can go to that will investigate, take care of business and, and root out problems and corruption. And so it's such a great opportunity for our state. Echoing that, this is our opportunity to, to firm up the foundation of state government, the fact that it goes, it goes into the constitution that everybody can vote on it, means everyone has a stake in, in cleaning this up, making sure that, that there's that transparency and accountability moving forward. So it'll be on the ballot in the 2018 election, okay, well, we'll be reminding people as it gets closer to the time.

We're speaking today with Senator Jeff Seinborn and Representative Nathan Small, and I'd like to now move to the bills that you've worked so hard at, either of you can go first. But we're, I guess we're both looking at you, Jeff. We always defer to, you learned a deferred of the Senate. Okay, but you did so many renewable energy bills, pharmacy bills. Yeah, so, so I think the two bills, aside from the ethics commission, I've been working for a few years to try to tackle this issue of pharmaceutical drugs, and just like people struggle with high price, the drug, so does the state government. State government of New Mexico spent in 2016 over $680 million on drugs between Medicaid, Department of Health, retired teachers, state workers, prison inmates. That $680 million was a 54% increase from two years early. These are staggering sums that we were spending as a state, and what I came down to stand was, we were not a state government getting everybody to work together to maximize our

state purchasing power and to work together and use best practices to negotiate with the pharmaceutical industry. So I sponsored legislation to create a pharmaceutical drug benefit purchasing council to get them all working together to maximize best practices of cost containment. And you know, I invited all the agencies in together when the session started to get their feedback to learn from them. We ultimately, I ultimately submitted a 10th draft of the legislation, and I was really pleased. We ended up passing it through the Senate without a single Republican vote, which was kind of amazing and unheard of, especially with the power of the pharmaceutical lobby. And ultimately, yes, the bill has now passed the House as well, also with bipartisan support it's on the governor's desk. And this is something I really need the citizens of the state to get New Mexico to lead the way on, and show that here in the state, we can get a better deal on prescription drugs and call the governor, call your representative, tell him to support pharmaceutical reform.

It's House Bill 354, Senate Bill 354. Okay. We'll skip back and forth. Could you each have many, many bills? Your innovations in teaching bills and the limit on the amount of days that kids can be tested, these are really popular bills. Thank you. Thank you. A popular, important, and needed, and we saw these, I was proud to be a primary co-sponsor with those, and living down in Las Cruz, especially when we talk about the innovations in teaching. There were, and testing, during the campaign, I talked with test administrators who said there was too much testing in schools. That was their job, and they said there was too much of it. Dear friends who were teachers, who were teaching two classes at the same time to different levels, and innovations in teaching to give a little bit more flexibility on the evaluation piece would have been, and will be, if signed, I think such a key incentive and a key way to say thank you, even in a very tough fiscal climate.

We also, I was proud to sponsor House Bill 340, which passed the House overwhelmingly. We're going to make some tweaks, but this would create a 20-year strategic plan for education, and it was something that the Hatch School Board President brought to me. And I think we received a lot of excitement about that also. So the process isn't over. We hope that these pieces of legislation are signed, but I think we're starting to see a sea change that is going to be much more student teacher, family, friendly. And I think that's very needed at this time. And just to go back with Senator Steinborn's, the pharmaceutical purchasing council, it passed the Senate unanimously with no opposition. And I was actually kind of a treat because I was in the speaker's chair while when that piece of legislation came up, and so great to see that. And of course, Representative Ferrari, Joan Ferrari, was the House sponsor. And she, she really helped make that happen.

Well, we made a lot of progress and a lot of friends. I'll go back to you and your renewable energies on state building. Yeah. So this is another government reform opportunity to save money and just kind of achieve a win-win. In New Mexico, it owns over 750 buildings. And we only use solar power on two of them. And so this was something I also started working on the last few years about, well, why aren't we doing more to deal with this? And so introduced a memorial last year to kind of study it. And so this time, I decided that this should be a state policy to require our state to basically when we can save money and take advantage of modern financing, which can literally allow us to get solar systems with no upfront money. They will finance them for you, and you will still save money on your utility bills. Then under those circumstances, the state should absolutely be using renewable energy. And so I have a bill to do that, which also passed with great bipartisan support.

It's Senate Bill 227, and so it requires that for all of our facilities, when we can get renewable energy with no upfront cost, that achieve a savings that we shall be utilizing renewable energy and the Department General Services Department, which manage all our buildings should issue a request for proposals evaluate and then release and move forward with a plan to do that. Now, this has an opportunity to say it was millions of dollars in energy costs, which cities and states and other countries are doing through solar power and other, but also create great jobs and invest in that industry and clean energy at that, so reduce our carbon footprint. So win, win, win, and so what a great opportunity for New Mexico, and I hope folks also encourage the governor to support this bill and sign in the law. You both had memorials about inviting that big outdoor retail show that left Utah because they were so shocked at what Utah was going to privatize their public lands and the outdoors

people wanted to keep public lands public. So let's hope that we get it, I think we're up against Denver for that big outdoor retail show. Denver Schmember. And what was great, you know, this is a bipartisan memorial, both in the Senate and in the House, and we've seen that the two industries that have created jobs here in New Mexico in the last few years, one is healthcare, the other is tourism. And so the outdoor retail industry and outdoor adventure, it is a key cog in our economic development. So this was a no-brainer, it was consented through the House from some Jason Harbour was a co-sponsor. And folks were just very excited that yes, we have to compete for this show. We know it's stiff competition. We also know that our formula with New Mexico true with the natural and cultural heritage is a winning formula for New Mexico. Well, you doubled down in that because you introduced the bill, why didn't anyone do this

center, the office of outdoor recreation, you know? Well, so this is a really neat idea that was brought to me by folks who were aware that there are several other Western states that do this right now. The state of Colorado created it, the state of Utah created it. There are several other states in Washington starting one and the governors in those states created these offices. So again, what we have going on here are our need for new jobs, maximize our great outdoors and the land of enchantment, it was kind of a no-brainer. So yes, I working with Nathan Small and Republican legislators in the Senate and the House got a great group of people together. We kind of sponsored all these bills as a package and inviting outdoor retailers to say this is an economic development target our state should be boldly embracing. I mean, it creates a billion dollars of economic development now and think about where we could go if we really focused more on it. So the memorial passed today and it's good news in the final hour of the session.

My memorial to create an outdoor study, this outdoor office of outdoor recreation pass. So hopefully we'll be getting that going too. Good, good. I need to ask you one of my personal favorites that got through this SB 3-HB 390. So there was another bill that was about horses that was going to reclassify a wild horse as livestock and put it under the livestock board, which probably, you know, we don't know how that would have turned out, but it did disturb me. And here's your beautiful equine rescue and shelter right of refusal, Bill. Thank you. I'm delighted it got through. Tell us about it. Well, this was a piece of legislation that was needed to, we have these incredible horse equine rescue shelters in the state, funds that are set up where they put in their own money to take care of horses and to make sure that horses that are picked up by the livestock board, a stray horses that are picked up by the livestock board, go to those shelters

first and not go potentially to slaughter outside of the state. We, I introduced this piece of legislation. Of course, being a horse, a horse person myself, it was a great bill, you know, I actually give a great deal of credit to the livestock board and to others through this process, we worked quite closely with them, animal protection voters in Mexico and others. But there is, we did not take horses away from the livestock board. That was a key piece and actually I remember talking about this bill before the session while I was out riding my horse. So we kept that there, but I think folks worked in a very collaborative manner across the aisle and it's my hope that this is a confidence builder, it's a small but important step that we can take forward. It's going to create better lives for horses and better end of life for horses and understanding that we have a far tougher and bigger challenge to deal with and to tackle when it comes to

what we might call wild horses, feral horses, mustangs. It is a multi-faceted issue that is going to take involvement and collaboration between a lot of stakeholders. I'm really pleased that we got House Bill 393 this year because I think it showed we could create that common ground and that with some hard work we could come together and get it done. And I think it actually passed unanimously in the Senate. We added an amendment that the horse had to be named Buttercup, but outside that, I'm just kidding. I know. It was a great bill. But it does fit with the outdoor recreation and also with tourism because people would love to come and go on, I don't know, trail rides and see wild horses. Well, you know, all of this fits together that New Mexico and the Land of Enchantment is about many things, our culture, but it's all about our incredible public lands and our wildness of our wildlife, which of course is another, you know, Nathan's great bill and

the other legislation that I carried on coyotes and, you know, and it's all part of what we should be celebrating and giving some protection to us. It's good. Oh, no. You know, again, it really goes under that success, some of the success. I would go back, I think, you know, we've talked about ethics and it's truly historic and I'm just kind of just still so pleased to have been able to be a part of it at that penultimate moment when things move forward to get to play a role in education. But I think as we're talking about now, really economic development and creating jobs was a central focus, probably beyond getting the budget and a solid, a responsible budget and a responsible revenue package, creating jobs. And so, you know, I know the Senator sponsored a lot of legislation there. House Bill 289 is one that I was very, so this is agricultural financing and it would open up the tools from the New Mexico Finance Authority for agriculture and value-added

agriculture. And it was unanimous in every single House and Senate committee. The most frequent question was, why are we doing this already? And we have so many examples of folks, especially coming back, perhaps, to the family farmer to the ranch, where value-added agriculture is the way that they're going to create more value, carve out their place, be able to stay here in New Mexico, create jobs, and so it was, I'm pleased, very pleased, that we were able to move that forward and hopeful that it's part of a job's package that all of us in the state, regardless of what side of the aisle we're on, that we can take advantage of. Well, we've come to the point where you each have about 45 seconds left to speak to your audience, to speak to the voters out there. And I want to put this in the context of the end of a very successful session where you've done really important legislation, and I'm honored to have you here.

Give us your last 45. First of all, all the positive. We accomplish really important things in this session, make no mistake. The ball is in the governor's court, but Ethics Commission, coming to the voters, we've been fighting it for decades. We've increased the minimum wage and sent that bill to the governor's desk. We have a chance to do major pharmaceutical reform, major boost and renewable energy protection of wildlife. So number one, make, understand the governor has 20 days to sign most of these bills with the exception of the constitutional amendment. So get involved. If you've heard something today you like or other bills, call the governor. She's thinking about whether or not to sign these bills. Number two, great challenges remain on the budget. It's possible will be in a special session. They're making news as we speak outside this door that we, you know, but know that we're working hard to try to resolve a budget that moves the state forward and builds up this state, not makes these devastating cuts and we're fighting. Beyond that, yeah, thank you so much for having me. Echoing those points, we've passed serious and positive pieces of legislation, a responsible

budget that reinvests an education in health care and in job creation, a revenue package that begins to close some of the corporate tax, holes, loopholes, deductions, exemptions and credits. Those are significant steps forward, but you know, I think that's where we are. We've made some of that progress. Now it's the chance for the executive, of course, hopefully to sign the budget, a responsible budget, a responsible revenue package. We know there's a great deal of work to be done, but I think we've modeled some good ways to move forward this session and it's just a privilege to be up here with Jeff, with the other elected officials and to, with you, Rayne, I mean, what a treat, this is awesome and I'm very excited that staying together, we can accomplish some very needed things. Well, Augusto is me, oh, the pleasure has been mine.

I'd like to thank our guests today, we'll do Senate first, as the rules are, Senator Jeff Steinberg, and Democrat from Dunianna County, and Representative Nathan Small, Democrat from Dunianna County. Thank you for all your hard work, you can go relax now. Thank you. Thank you. You bet. Bye bye. And I'm Lorraine Mills. I'd like to thank you, our audience, for being with us today, and report from Santa Fe. We'll see you next week. Report from Santa Fe is made possible in part by grants from the members of the National Education Association of New Mexico, an organization of professionals who believe that investing in public education is an investment in our state's economic future. And by a grant from the Healey Foundation, Tau's New Mexico.