But the election beckons and the political opportunity has passed. Conservatives are on the ascent nationally and the Democratic Governor and legislative leaders are determined to conduct a pragmatic, low-key, risk-off session.
A Senior Alligator of long standing (a darn good source for those new here) comments:
First and foremost this is about re-election. There’s enough in the governor's agenda to satisfy the Democratic base but probably not enough to please independents or build a bridge to Republicans. The crime proposals and things like new facilities for the T or C veteran's home are important to insulate her from attacks and will make for good media ads. She probably could use more around healthcare and rebuilding the system after COVID. But overall it’s miscellaneous bits and pieces. There is no overriding theme that you might expect in a soon-to-be post Covid era that has harshly exposed the fault lines in the state's physical and human capital infrastructure.
Not that this is startlingly new. The administration has been all about centrism and small steps since taking office in 2019. That calculation will be evident when the next round of rankings are posted and reveal the state has either worsened or stagnated in education, incomes, child well-being, crime and addiction.
There's no magic wand for all of that and no administration shoulders the entire blame but if the wand isn't waved, you get no magic.
THE RISK
Top Dems say their risk lies with increasingly disgruntled middle class voters who have been hammered by the pandemic and turned off by the progressive agenda emphasizing, among other things, climate change and being "woke." Biden's numbers show many of them abandoning ship and the Guv's somewhat anemic numbers reveal the same.
Senate Majority Leader Peter Wirth, sensing the changing tide, pledges tax rebates for low income households and those whose working lives have been impacted by Covid. The amount of those rebates will send a message to those voters. If they are akin to MLG's symbolic proposal of a one eighth of a cent cut in the gross receipts tax, they could border on pointless--except to the TV consultants.
BILLS BLOWING UP
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| Cervantes and MLG |
Thus you get Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Joseph Cervantes publicly executing MLG's chief crime proposals. The Las Cruces trial lawyer swatted them away with a statement that had the anti-ABQ throngs roaring approval:
“It’s a problem that Albuquerque has largely created for itself,” Cervantes said, pointing out violent crime rates in some parts of southern New Mexico are much lower than in New Mexico’s largest city. “It’s not really about changing state law.”
The crime administrations here--Mayor Keller and BernCo District Attorney Raul Torrez may have both been re-elected--but that doesn't mean their crime-fighting efforts have won the confidence of the state. They haven't.
In 2018 Torrez's office (with the help of local media) publicly harangued the legislature to get a budget boost of over $4 million, saying it would result in crime reduction. It did not.
In 2018 ABQ raised the gross receipts tax three eighths of a cent or over $50 million a year for mostly public safety and and that didn't do the trick, either.
Cervantes is only pointing out the obvious--progressives have lost the fight against crime in ABQ and he isn't there to give them cover.
PROGRESSIVE FOLLY
Other blindspots include the Guv's highly touted hydrogen hub plan, already pronounced dead by the hard to please enviros. But "hydrogen hub" is another of those made for TV (and maybe campaign contributions) plays.
Then there's the progressive folly of floating a $50 million bond issue that would raise state property taxes in the name of "conservation projects." Raising taxes on humble abodes in the middle of epic surpluses? Only an Ivy League graduate living in a $2 million Santa Fe hacienda with a three Volvo garage could dream that up.
That, too, has (thankfully) been placed in an early grave by House Appropriations Committee Chair Patricia Lundstrom.
Much of the state's giant surplus will be gobbled up by pay raises for teachers (over $400 million), more cops and better paid ($100 million) and pay hikes for state employees ($55 million.) That will finally end the parsimony of the previous Martinez administration when it comes to public employees.
The '22 session is set up for small successes and small losses. Anything else will be what we call "news."
COUP D' NADA
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| Sens. Stewart and Lopez |
Joe, it wasn't a coup d'état. it was a Coup d' nada."
(We broke the news Jan. 6 of Lopez's ambition to become pro tem).
The Sunday afternoon coup attempt came in the form of a no confidence resolution floated at the closed door meeting of Senate Dem Caucus by Lopez. She is upset with Stewart for advocating a redistricting plan that would have spared two senate Republicans from being placed in the same district and that would have diluted Native American voting strength. That plan ultimately failed.
Lopez was also encouraged in her coup effort by Stewart siding last year with a high-level legislative staffer who mocked Native Americans. She perhaps also saw fertile ground for a movida when House Speaker Egolf came under fire for dissolving the committee that dealt with the state's historic Spanish land grants.
The caucus rejecting the resolution left Lopez open to the criticism that while Stewart has her issues, Lopez has lost her political instincts, raising the question of not whether she can take Stewart out after this year's election, but whether she will be challenged for her position of Senate Majority Whip. The thinking being if you can't whip a vote to advance your own cause, how good is your vote-counting on the Senate floor?
While Lopez is guilty of a poorly executed attempted overthrow, her not-so-shy play is a sign of a state that is ever growing in the percentage of non Anglo residents and a legislative leadership that doesn't quite represent that. Lopez's longing to oust Stewart may or may not go away but the thorny matter of race at the Roundhouse will not.
INTO THE WEEDS
Hi, Joe – I am on a crusade to try to eradicate the incorrect use of the term, “the call” when referring to short sessions. There is no “call” in a regular session, which this one is. The “call” refers to the proclamation calling the legislature into special session and specifying what can be considered in that special session. A regular session, on the other hand, convenes.
This will be the second regular session of the 55th Legislature, which has had two special sessions that were called by the governor. What people probably are referring to as the "call" is the constitutional need for nonfiscal matters to be introduced with a message from the governor. Although not required, a governor may also issue messages on bills in the longer (60 day) sessions. Thanks, Jonelle Maison.
Thank you, Jonelle. We understand only two people at the Roundhouse knew that--lobbyists JD Bullington and Joe Thompson--who secretly rewrote the definition of those terms and had them approved on a midnight voice vote some 20 years ago. You have now outed them, and to the benefit of the Republic and our Great State.
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(c)NM POLITICS WITH JOE MONAHAN 2022
(c)NM POLITICS WITH JOE MONAHAN 2022