House deserves praise for increasing transparency
Heath Haussamen
The New Mexico House of Representatives took three giant steps forward in the area of government transparency today by approving resolutions that allow the expansion of webcasting and require, for the first time, that floor roll-call votes be posted online.
The House, on voice votes that were unanimous or near-unanimous, approved:
• House Resolution 1, sponsored by Minority Whip Keith Gardner, R-Roswell, which allows the expansion of webcasting from the House floor to include video.
• House Resolution 2, sponsored by Jeff Steinborn, D-Las Cruces, which makes permanent a temporary House rule that allows webcasting of committee meetings during legislative sessions.
• House Resolution 3, sponsored by Zachary Cook, R-Ruidoso, which requires that House floor roll-call votes be posted on the Legislature’s Web site within a day of the votes being taken.
All three resolutions began the day still needing the approval of the House Rules and Order of Business Committee, but were quickly moved through the process to final passage. The New Mexico Foundation for Open Government was quick to praise the changes.
“The Legislature has responded to an overwhelming public demand for access to its proceedings,” FOG Executive Director Sarah Welsh said in a news release. “Just a year ago, webcasting was wildly controversial – now it’s a no-brainer.”
“With these new rules, we’re another big step closer to comprehensive, real-time access to our elected officials,” she said. “Imagine sitting in your living room in Silver City or Raton, and watching your representative argue the finer points of a new tax bill before a key committee… now that’s open government.”
The Senate already has video webcasting from its floor and posts its floor roll-call votes online, but it doesn’t have official webcasting of committee meetings.
Don’t expect video webcasting from the House floor to begin immediately. The next step is determining the cost of such a move. All official legislative webcasting can be found here.
The House deserves nothing but praise for approving these three rule changes today. These are huge steps toward making legislative proceedings and action available to the state’s citizens like never before. It’s a good day for open government in New Mexico.
Update, 3 p.m.
Steinborn wrote in an e-mail that his bill not only makes the temporary rule allowing audio webcasting of committee meetings permanent, but it actually mandates audio webcasting of committee meetings this session and mandates audio and video webcasting of committee meetings in future sessions. Even better!
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I’m certain my cousin from Santa Fe understands that the legislators are still getting their per diem and NOT using them on the weekends is dumb. The budget issue is big enough to, frankly, focus on it – wouldn’t that be clever for a budget session? The leadership of the House is simply wasting time – they don’t have a solution because there isn’t any capital outlay with which to control the actions of the D caucus – is there? The Speaker has lost his teeth and his stroke – look what happened in the House Rules Committee the other day when he berated two women who were starting to video tape the proceedings … and then he left the room and they were allowed to take pictures. Come on … business as ususal isn’t going to cut it in this session – the legislators need to be in the Round House doing the peoples business. Period.
The deal is not done. We need archives and cameras on everything.
The conditions of public service are the prerogative of the public,
and not of the politician and public servant.
Astute -
The House Appropriations and Finance Committee is meeting right now, as I type this comment. The full House and Senate, with attached staff, do not need to be in the building while this is done. To run a session costs $50,000 a day, and I think you’d agree, it’s better to save some funds and let the committee do their work rather than having legislators and staff roaming the halls for no reason.
Kudos to the Reps for shining more daylight on the legislative process. For too many years the legislature has operated in the dark. It’s about time they passed these rules changes. And notice, Republicans have been the members taking the lead on these ideas.
Since it is an election year and his job is on the line, Jeff Steinborn is getting a few licks in to convince the people of District 37 that he is serving their interests. Isn’t this a good dog and pony show to watch the Progressives scramble for votes and recognition by getting on the conservative bandwagon? I don’t think the people are deceived into believing that he is not working for the Wilderness Alliance all this time.
Maybe he should quit the Wilderness Alliance and become a true conservative. Wouldn’t that be a hoot?
And to think, had Rep. Arnold-Jones not taken her webcam to the Roundhouse in the first place none of this would be happening. It’s time for the GOP to wake up and get behind the only candidate who can win in November, Lady Sunlight.
This is good news! I have to ask, however, why the costs and requirements aren’t already known. That said – I’m proud of Gardner, Steinborn, and Cook for sponsoring these changes, and that it is a bipartisan effort.
Having said THAT – why are the House and Senate adjourning until Monday when the budget has yet to hit a committee? Why isn’t the budget the first order of business to complete and why are all of these other distractions being fronted and paid attention to? WHERE is the Leadership – on either side of the isle – in getting the budget taken care of? WHERE are they?