Smith’s about-face on conference committees thwarts the speaker’s shenanigans and shows the importance of opening the meetings to the public
I didn’t think I’d have an example until next session that I could use in a column about why the New Mexico Legislature was right to open conference committees to the public.
But a bullying move by House Speaker Ben Lujan and an about-face by a state senator who has vehemently opposed opening conference committees in the past gave me the ammunition to write that column today.
So, without further ado, here’s a perfect example of why it was so important that the Legislature approve a bill last week that opens conference committees and most other legislative meetings to the public.
A stinky proposal
The story begins with House Bill 820, sponsored by Lujan. Officially, the bill would have allowed bigger cities and counties in the state to issue bonds to finance private projects. The bonds would be paid off through lease payments.
The reality, however, is that some developer asked Lujan to help him find a way to build a project at the Santa Fe Railyard. Hence, a bill with wide-ranging impact, all for the benefit of one developer. A bill that would give governments the ability to issue taxpayer-guaranteed bonds to help private developers make money. The proposal, frankly, stunk.
Many members of the House saw that. Last weekend, the bill died on a tie vote, 31-31. There was much wailing and gnashing of teeth, some arm twisting, and a motion to reconsider the bill. That motion was approved. But Lujan was still not destined to get his way. Though the majority of House members voted in favor of the motion to reconsider, the House again killed the bill, this time on a vote of 33-33.
If at first you don’t succeed…
Proposal dead, right? Once a bill has been brought up for reconsideration and fails a second time, it cannot be brought up again.
That’s no problem for the most powerful member of the New Mexico Legislature. He found a new, completely unrelated bill, Senate Bill 584, and slipped the proposal into it during a meeting of the House Taxation and Revenue Committee.
He’s done such things before. After the Legislature intentionally didn’t OK his proposal fund $75 million for water lawsuits three years ago, Lujan secretly slipped it by them in another bill. That act was so egregious that his best friend at the Capitol — Gov. Bill Richardson — used his authority to line-item veto the provision out of the bill.
As for this year’s amendment, Lujan chose a different tactic. As time expired on the session, when members were tired and overwhelmed and less able to fight, he brought the developer-bond proposal back up for yet another vote on the House floor.
A typical bullying tactic in Santa Fe.
But one that paid off for the speaker. A proposal that had twice failed the test of the public scrutiny sailed through the House on the third try on a vote of 65-0.
A new weapon
Oh no you don’t, said the Senate. This was about the same time Senate leaders, including Finance Chairman John Arthur Smith, D-Deming, were trying to stop — unsuccessfully — the movement to open conference committees to the public. (Smith actually joined the bandwagon and voted for opening conference committees on Thursday, but not before arguing against opening them during the debate. He has argued against and voted against opening them to the public in past years.) Meanwhile, the Senate quickly stripped the Lujan amendment from SB 584 and sent the bill back to the House.
But the beaten-down House stuck with its leader and insisted on the Lujan amendment. That type of stalemate between the House and Senate is why conference committees exist. That’s when three members from each chamber get together to negotiate a compromise. Until Saturday, no such meeting had ever been open to the public.
Smith, still stinging from losing Thursday’s debate on whether conference committees should be open or closed, sensed an opportunity to use a new weapon in this battle with the speaker. So he announced on the Senate floor, less than two hours before the end of the session, that lawmakers would preempt the bill they approved Thursday — a bill that will mandate open conference committees starting in July — by opening the conference committee on SB 584. He tantalized the media into attending by calling it “a historical event.”
Historic it was. Smith and others, appropriately, called Lujan out for trying to pull a fast one, with Smith saying Lujan’s action — slipping the amendment into the bill for the benefit of one private developer — created a “cloud of suspicion.” The conference committee stripped the Lujan amendment from the bill and killed the proposal Lujan had worked so hard to win passage of for his developer-constituent.
A bully exposed
Publicly shamed because the conference committee was opened — and exposed as the bully he had been — Lujan quite literally lost it. Following a night in which lawmakers worked more than they slept, Lujan went on a rant against Smith in an interview with the New Mexico Independent and Santa Fe New Mexican that included profanities. He said the allegation that his act created a cloud of suspicion was “ridiculous” and came “out of (Smith’s) stupid head.”
Then Lujan called Smith a racist. Asked to explain, he said Smith is racist because the senator accused him of something that was false.
It got worse. Lujan then tracked down Smith and chewed him out in front of journalists and other lawmakers on the Senate floor just moments after the session adjourned.
“You are full of shit,” Lujan told Smith. “… You are not worth a darn. That’s what’s the matter with you. You are a racist S.O.B.”
That’s the most powerful and one of the more ethically challenged state lawmakers at his most exposed and his most raw, folks. It happened because, for once, he didn’t get away with being a bully.
And that is thanks to an open conference committee.
The moral of the story
The moral of the story? Sen. Smith, the next time you try to fight a proposal to make the Legislature more transparent, you might remember how transparency in this instance gave you the tool you needed to stop Lujan’s shenanigans.
This article has been updated to reflect Smith’s vote on the conference committee bill.