Report from Santa Fe; Walt Rubel/Steve Terrell

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. Today we have two esteemed journalists to help us figure out this legislative session. From Las Cruces, the Las Cruces and News, we have Walt Ruble. Thank you for joining us. I'm glad to be here. And we have from the Santa Fe and New Mexican Steve Terrell. Thank you for joining us. Well, tell us a little about your background. First I want to say, we're taping the day before the end of the session.

There is no way that we know what's going to happen. We hope the budget will pass. Of major issues we'll be able to talk about. But in terms of the final blow by blow, we'll have to wait and see. But I've invited you here for your wonderful perspectives. You've been doing this for a long time. And let's look at it from a historical point of view and a regional point of view, too. Let's start with you, Walt. Tell me a little about your background. Sure. I've been at the Sun News since 2002. I came up here in Santa Fe in 2004 and spent three and a half years up here enough to cover four sessions during the Richardson administration. Then went back to Las Cruces and I'm now the opinion page editor at the Sun News. And when you were doing the Santa Fe Bureau for the group media news? Yeah, media news group. Your work was carried in most of the rural, outlying cities, Farmington, Las Cruces. Where else? Las Cruces Farmington, El Magardo, Carlsbad, Riyadoso, Silver City, and Deming. And I hope I have it for coming in.

Yeah. So it's really important to have a non-Albacurkey Santa Fe-centric perspective sometime. That was really the big reason for opening the Bureau. No offense against the Associated Press, but their coverage logically tends to focus on the population centers of Albacurkey and Santa Fe. And we felt like there really wasn't anybody specializing or targeting Southern New Mexico. And so that was why they sent first, Paula Penel, was the first Bureau Chief of the Me up here. And we're missing that this year. We have temporarily shut down the Bureau. But we certainly plan to reopen it as soon as possible in the future, because we do feel it's critical for Southern New Mexico to be represented up here. Now, for the North, you've been with the New Mexican, you've been for 26 years. 26 years at the New Mexican, I've been covering the capital now for 14 years, this is my 14th regular session. And many hands who are not just a political reporter, you're also a DJ, you're a blogger, you're the voice for music.

Well, the New Mexicans are the only one that pays me, so. Well, you dance with the one and what brings you, as Bruce King used to say. But you're also the host of a wonderful program called the Santa Fe Opera. I do a couple of music shows at KSFR here in Santa Fe, Public Radio. And so I wanted you to talk about the tone, the sense that we have of this session. You had described it in terms of a television program. Why Kingdom? No. A friend of mine who asked not to be identified called it the Seinfeld session, because it's a session about nothing. And it's here at the last full day of the session, I think it's holding true to that. They did pass a budget last night. It's going to the house today and- The Senate passed a budget last night. The Senate passed a budget, yes. Let's be clear. And that's goes to the house today, so we'll see what happens there. But let's talk about why the session is different, because in the usual order of things, the house passes a budget, the Senate quibbles with it, they have a compromise committee,

and it goes up to the governor. Usually this would have been long done by the day before the end of the session. So how do you see, why is this happening? Steve, I really get the sense that this is the session of the two missing Democrats in the house. I agree. I agree. You know, the sickness of Philip Archulette and Ernest Chavez has really left the Democrats with a one-vote margin, and not a lot of room for error there, you'd get one defection, which they had. Would you be regular? Yeah, that's right. That's exactly right. And so that's really been enough to tie the house up. Now, I expect that what passed the Senate last night will probably get through. I think so. I haven't heard any rumors to the otherwise, but I think you're probably right. Yeah, I think that in a lot of ways, the story of the session was told right before it happened when we realized these two Democrats were going to be missing, and it's because the house is so tight, close to the Democrats and Republicans. Another factor was the death of representatives of easily, and so the Democrat and the governor

appointed Vicki Paraya a Republican, so that's another number. Now they do have one Republican out, representative Hamilton has been ill for a couple of days. So anyway, it's in flux all the time. I think let's talk a little about how the last session ended, because one of the, well, I'll let you say it, but one of the impulses for the last minute deal and went down was nobody wanted a special session after 60 days. And so they were way more flexible, but we'll talk about that. What we're concerned about is the threat of a special session will accelerate them wanting to get this budget out and done. But I'll start with you, Walt, can you briefly talk to our audience, refresh their minds about what happened at the last 15 minutes or so? Sure. And Steve, you were here, and I just followed it from afar in Las Cruces. So if I get anything wrong, let me know, but my understanding was that not only in the last minute, but after the last minute, when, you know, by the Constitution, it should

have been gabbled to a close, a comprehensive tax package was introduced. That included tax cut for corporations that was paid for by repealing the whole harmless. And what that was was several years ago when they repealed the tax on food and some medical services in order to make municipalities and counties whole, the state reimbursed them for that lost revenue. And what happened last session was in order to pay for that corporate tax cut, they took away the whole harmless, and they also gave cities the ability to pass an increase in the gross receipts tax, which Las Cruces was the very first community in the state to do. Right. Yeah. It was a loss of revenues being phased in for 15 years, so there was a two-year grace period and then 15 years. Right. So actually 17 years.

There's been talk about fixers. There's been a couple of bills about fixing the whole harmless thing, but I don't think it's going to, nothing really has emerged. Well, and from the standpoint of Las Cruces, they're desperately hoping that it doesn't emerge, because at least the Harper bill would say that municipalities would not be able to pass a tax increase until 2015. Las Cruces has already passed their tax increase along with Otero County and the City of Corralis. And so how that would work, I'm just not sure, but I certainly, and it gets back to the whole thing, when Las Cruces passed its tax increase, we as an editorial board at the Sun News, were very critical of that. Our position was you've got two years before it even starts, and then it gets phased in for 15 years. At some point in time you are going to need that money, we understand that, but why rush and do it now? And their answer was, we don't trust the legislature. They haven't been honest with us about this issue in the past. And so we feel like we have to move right away, or they're going to come back the next

year, and they're going to rescind that ability. And they haven't done that, but they have certainly taken steps or making noises to lead you to believe that some point in the future they could. And I should also add, real quickly, that the governor's office did everything they could to oppose the tax increase in Las Cruces. They passed it the first time, and it was rejected by the Department of Tax and Revenue, because it didn't exactly follow the bond ordinance. And so they had to come back and pass it again, and that put them outside the 90-day window, which means that it won't take effect until the middle of the year, instead of January, which it originally would have. Well, the other thing about how that happened was, I mean, really nobody saw that coming. It really came down to the dead of the night. It looked bad, because the vote was actually after the noon deadline, although the speaker has... Yeah, the speaker says it wasn't, and there have been some grumbling to the otherwise, but no one actually has legally challenged that, and so. And it's a year ago now, so it's not going to happen.

But the other thing was that many of the lawmakers did not have the bill. They had not seen the bill. Most of them hadn't read it. Yeah. The DFA, cabinet secretary, perhaps had misinformation that it would be revenue neutral, turned out it wasn't. Right. And honestly, I don't think anybody voted because of his Tom Clifford's testimony to that. But yeah, it was, if you were depending on that, you get some false information at the last minute. Yeah. It just does sort of wreak a bad government, though. But I, in my opinion, I mean, this was obviously rushed through. I mean, I get that the session ends at noon, and that a lot of things get rushed through on that final day. I understand that. But this was a comprehensive, complicated, complex bill that they were given misinformation on. Maybe that didn't matter. But, you know, it's certainly that's not in civic class. That's not the way they tell you.

Right. Yeah. Sometimes I did a column after it happened, gave some other examples from the past, where last minute things, and it was last minute stuff that created the PRC. Yeah. And that's what that was. Yeah. And, you know, even the PRC bill got more hearings than the tax deal did. Well, that's why it was so important for me to ask you to today. You since 1982, covering government. You, 26 years with the New Mexican, 14 in the very capital. Yeah, I'm really happy. But we need the historical perspective. You know, a last man learns from history that he doesn't learn from history is the old line. And so we're trying to give a historical context. So here we are at the same time in a way, taping the day before the end. Do you anticipate any end runs like this? Of course, you know, here we are. We don't know what's going to happen. Yeah. If you'd asked me the same question last year at this time, I would say no. No.

Yeah. Yeah. And everybody's going, yeah, nothing's happened this session. It's a do-nothing session. Yeah. Yeah. But no. I mean, it would be my answer. I don't see anything. I don't anticipate. Yeah. Well, let's talk a little bit about one other thing that's special about Las Cruces. Not only were you the first city to raise the grist receipts tax because of that comprehensive tax package, but you have a unique position with the spaceport and taxation. Give us the briefest version of how Donia and the county has been asked to step up on the spaceport. Right. Well, in 2007, Governor Richardson and Rick Holman's, his economic development secretary at the time, came down to Las Cruces and really did some serious arm twisting. In order to convince people to pass a hike in the grist receipts tax, that would help fund spaceport operations. His message to us was that if you guys don't pass this tax, the spaceport isn't going to happen, because the lawmakers from the northern part of the state aren't going to spend $200 million on something

that doesn't have local support. And so, despite all that, it was very close going into that election. And I believe the only reason the election passed was because they added a sweetener at the end where 25 percent of that money would go to local school districts to pay for STEM programs, science, technology, engineering, and math. And the Las Cruces school district has never lost a bond issue, and they're very good at convincing their students go home and pester your parents again to vote for this thing. And the tax ended up passing by the narrowest of margins, and I'm convinced it wouldn't have passed if not for that school portion. This year, and I should say that for six years, there was never a problem with that. This year, we understand that there is a problem. It's been suggested that that is a violation of the equalization funding formula, and there is an effort to claw back 75 percent of that school tax money. That bill has passed the House.

It cleared the Senate Education Committee today this morning. It still has to go through Senate finance and then the Senate floor, so it's a little bit iffy. We're obviously hoping that that bill doesn't pass, but I think the greater concern is that we win in the legislature and then end up losing in the courts if there's a lawsuit file. Well, we're speaking today with two distinguished New Mexico journalists, Walt Rubel, from the Las Cruces sometimes, and Steve Terrell with the Santa Fe New Mexican. See, we were talking earlier. You had a really interesting perspective. This is a session where people are making points, almost more than they're making laws. Can you... Yeah, there's so many... For one thing, there's all these constitutional amendments. Part of the reason for that is constitutional amendments that go straight to the voters and the governor doesn't have to sign it. So we have all these ideas minimum wage, for example, that pass the Senate probably do. I would guess it's not going to pass the House. To get a constitutional amendment in the House, you need half of the membership,

not just the membership president. So you need 36 votes. And with the two legislators missing, you don't have that. And especially if anybody defecs and something like minimum wage, the Republicans aren't going to... But there's a few other bills, too, where there's passed... And just... Like, well, we got the discussion going. Well, we had a good discussion on that. We got a good conversation. And we know there's no hope of it going in the other... Oh, another example is the proposed law to prevent legislators from becoming lobbyists for two years. It passed the House, that bill did. And by a pretty good margin, actually. But it goes to the Senate where that very morning, the Senate Rules Committee voted to table the identical bill from the Senate. And so it was dead on arrival, basically, unless something drastically changes that I haven't seen. And indeed, it was assigned to the Rules Committee where it's been sitting ever since.

And the budget, the issue of the bone of contention has been really a poultry percentage, this 20 million on education. Yes, 17 million now. And so I think everybody's made their point there. 17 million is in the Senate version of the budget. And it'll probably hold up in the House. I think it's seen as a compromise. And there's some restrictions on how it can be spent and stuff. Steve, don't you get the sense though that a lot of this is just because of its election year? Oh, yeah, yeah, that's true. That's another reason I don't want a special session. That's right. It cuts into fundraising for one thing right before the primary. I mean, I look at that hearing they held on the downs. And I think there are a lot of legitimate things to be looked at there. But why wasn't that done two years ago when it first started? Or over the interim. Yeah, that's right. Good to have been done in the interim, the time between the two sessions.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, a lot of great points were made. But again, there's no legislation coming out of that. That's right. They confirmed two of Governor Martinez's three state fair commission members. The third has not been heard yet. Or you've actually heard it, but they haven't voted yet. And I suspect they won't. So let's talk about the other controversial confirmations. Yeah. Talk about, you know, sensational taking the oxygen out of the room. There was Scandara. So I'm sure you heard all that. Yeah. I just think that the fact that she has not had a vote four years down the road takes the idea of advice and consent. The traditional role that the Senate has played and just flips it on its head. You know, now it's a performance evaluation. And I don't think that was ever the intent of, you know, a Senate confirmation. Yeah.

And what an anticlimax. Yeah. She's still, she's not confirmed. And yet she has not had a Senate floor vote. And so she still gets to serve same salary. She has to put the word designated in the title. Yeah. She took that out. That's right. She took it upon herself. Take that out. She has not been confirmed, but she has not been denied. So, yeah, you know, more typical on this yesterday was Ryan Flynn. Yeah, because he passed by a pretty good margin. He had like 11 votes against him. Is that correct? I was, I was interested in what Jerry Ortizipino, the senator from Albuquerque, said. He said, look, I disagree with what he did with the copper rule. And I think he made a big mistake there. But is he qualified to run this department? Yes. Is he, you know, is there any, you know, there's no criminal history or anything there? And so, you know, if, you know, the thing is about cabinet secretaries. If you don't like one, you don't confirm them.

Or even if you had the power and not to kick them out, it's, the governor just hired somebody else to do her ideas. And, you know, people voted for the governor in 2010. They have the opportunity to vote against her this year. So, you know, I think it's just, that's another one of those symbolic type votes. Oh, no, I can say in the Silver City area, there really was a lot of angst about the copper rule. Well, because it's their one or this can be polluted. Sure, sure. Yeah, I'm not saying that that's not a legitimate right. Right. No, you're exactly right. She'd have picked somebody just liking. Yeah. But, you know, the, the notion I forget which senator it was, but said, you know, I looked into his eyes and I could tell that he got it as people were making all of these complaints. And I flashbacks of President Bush looking into Vladimir Putin's eyes. So, you know, I just, the fact that he used to represent, I shouldn't say that, he used to work for the law firm that represented Phelps Dodge.

I know there's a lot of conflicts of interest in New Mexico government, and that's certainly not the worst of it. But, you know, he has done everything he could since taking that office to advance the interests of the mining industry in general. But that's the governor's interest. That's exactly right. That's exactly right. A couple of other, there were some invisible. Well, of course, it was the driver's licenses. And important issues, education got a lot of, you know, a lot of argument and discussion of the saving the lottery scholarship. That's what on the back of the liquor, liquor tax now. But the individual, the individual invisible issues, like the behavioral health problem. I mean, that is really important. And there were other issues, ethics where, you know, every year, we wait for, you know, finally for New Mexico to have an ethics commission with any teeth in it. There are these like stealth items that never get discussed. What is your, what items you see that should have been brought up?

Well, that's, for us, the big thing was water. I mean, we, in southern New Mexico, we are looking down the barrel of the gun with a U.S. Supreme Court lawsuits against the state. And we are in this odd position where our surface water is controlled. We're considered part of Texas when it comes to surface water. And we're considered part of New Mexico when it comes to groundwater. So we have two different competing regulatory bodies controlling us. And we didn't think that was going to get resolved in this session, obviously. But we did hope that there was going to be more attention paid to it. And, you know, I think there will be some projects funded. And I think there will be some good that comes out of this session. But certainly not the kind of resolutions that we were hoping for. Yeah, this is a budget session. This is a 30 day session where the budget is the big deal. And so, of course, the governor had a Christmas list, an Amazon wish list of messages he sent out on various other topics.

But when, you know, if they can get the budget done, that's what they were here for officially. And to have conversations and symbolic gestures for other things. Yeah. I agree with you though that water is the underpinning of everything, of poverty, of economic development, of agriculture. You know, it just, and we, you know, what can we do? We need a huge comprehensive plan. We need a special session just on water. I agree. And Secretary Flynn came down to Las Cruces about a month before the session and made this pitch where they wanted to take 112 million dollars out of the capital outlay funding and spend it exclusively on water. And we were all on board with that. I mean, we couldn't have been a more receptive audience. But at one point I said, you know, let's see your list. Let's see your product, projects. And he said, well, we're not going to release that. I said, you're kidding. And you're going to ask the legislature to spend 112 million dollars and just say, trust us.

Yeah. And to me, you know, that sort of is reflective of the last three years up here. I mean, I think a lot of the governor's initiatives have been good. And I think there's a lot of support for them if she would reach out and work with the legislature at the very beginning of the process and have it be a cooperative process. But that just isn't how she's doing. What you're saying about not getting the list, I had Republican senators complaining about not getting a list of the water projects. And his reasoning was, well, you know, as soon as we give that out, people will say, I don't have enough for my district. And, okay, that's right. You're going to have to face some of that. But that's how the system works. That's what they call the legislature. But there are agencies in place. The water trust board has been a tremendous job representing the various interests of work. And, you know, I just think that we should have more transparency in the whole process. Remember, they passed a law that for a small community to request important water infrastructure,

they would have to have an audit done. Well, some of the audits, five or ten thousand dollars, some of these little tiny communities, can't do that. And so the big water users get more of the water. So, well, what was your most, what we most surprised at so far in this session? You know, like I said, I just came up here on Monday so I've been following a lot of it from afar. I thought there would be more on the mental health audit and the shutting down of those clinics. Yes. There's been a little bit of discussion, but once again, it seems like it's just been taking shots at the governor in an election year. And, you know, very little in terms of actual oversight and actual looking into. And I understand that the governor's office has kept that audit under seal. And so it's difficult for not only the legislature, but for all of us. At the Sun News, we joined with a group called New Mexico in depth to go to court to try to get that released. And we lost that lawsuit.

But I really thought that would be a bigger issue than it has been. I'd have to agree. I thought, you know, that was the big story coming out of the state government to do out the whole summer. And all these legislators definitely have opinions on that. There's a senator's... Michael Sanchez has a... I guess a memorial. Memorial, yeah, or I love memorials. But to basically give Sydney Squires the secretary of human services a vote of no confidence, he said it was going to be heard. It's been on the Senate calendar now for... I think since the first week or something. And they may hear it today who knows what they haven't got. Well, one thing that we all want is more transparency. I mean, that behavioral health issue is so nebulous. The audit hasn't been released to the accused providers, to the lawmakers. Even when the state auditor got a copy of the audit,

the conclusion was redacted. And remember what human services said. Well, we paid for the audit, not for the conclusion. And the conclusion was, they was not actionable fraud. So it was. And that's the interesting thing. The Attorney General's office released an incredibly redacted version of the audit so that it was almost useless. But it did have that little nugget in there that said there wasn't credible... I forget the exact... Yeah. It didn't find credible allegations. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And so it's just been huge turmoil. Another plea for transparency. You said you've been following it from afar. So have I. Because we've got the webcasting now. And I want our audience to remember you can go to nmledges.gov and you can click on what committee hearing is all over. I've got a caveat there. Sometimes it's down. Yeah, if there's a big controversial issue, like the Hanna Schendera confirmation, I was trying to watch that on the webcast. It kept going. You'd have like four seconds of dialogue. A better way to follow it actually was Twitter.

I was seeing... I watched the marijuana legalization webcast. And it went down right before the vote. I was reading quotes from various senators on Twitter. And then I'd see them... The webcast would come back on and I'd see like a minute later. I'd say, oh, that's okay. Yeah. So I can see into the future with Twitter now. Well, we've been asked to see into the future. But I ask you here in honor of your past experience and looking from the past to the future. Thank you so much. We've run out of time. We're guests today are Steve Terrell with the Santa Fe, New Mexican. Thank you for joining us. And Walt Rubel from the Las Cruces and News. Thank you for taking the time to be with us today. And I'd like to thank you our audience for being with us today on report from Santa Fe. We'll see you next week. Past archival programs of report from Santa Fe are available at the website reportfromsatife.com. If you have questions or comments, please email info at reportfromsatife.com. 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, Taos, New Mexico. Thank you so much.