2008 Legislature: Ailing progress (02/01/08)

January 30, 2008
2008 Legislature: Ailing progress

"At a news conference just 15 days ago, an upbeat Gov. Bill Richardson repeated two key words for lawmakers as they convened in Santa Fe: health care, health care, health care.

On Wednesday, halfway point for the legislative session, Richardson used the same words — with a much different tone.

"I said before the session that the focus of this 30-day legislative session would be health care, would be health care, and would be health care," he said, "and up until today we saw very little action."

Unfortunately for Richardson's agenda, the only action on his proposal was a vote by a key House committee on Wednesday morning to strip the bill of its mandate to insure all New Mexicans and ship the measure on to its next stop in the Roundhouse.

The governor deemed the move "unacceptable" and called the assembled lawmakers a "do-nothing Legislature, especially on health care."

But legislators have had their own words for Richardson. To paraphrase: not so fast, looks too expensive and stop the power grab.

"I think it's critical that we do this right and not that we just pass something so that we can tell folks we're dealing with it and it appears that that's what the governor wants to do," Rep. Justine Fox-Young, R-Albuquerque, said.

Richardson's plan, House Bill 62, has faced scrutiny from Republicans and Democrats. Critics in particular didn't like the governor's desire to have more authority over appointments to a new Health Coverage Authority than lawmakers, something on which Richardson said he would compromise.

The governor seemed frustrated as he spoke to reporters, even suggesting he would travel around the state to talk to voters about health care. All 112 seats in the Legislature are up for election this year.

"I believe that the people of New Mexico won't stand for the Legislature becoming a do-nothing Legislature," he said. He stopped short, however, of saying he would campaign against people who aren't supporting his bill as it was introduced.

Halfway into the session, however, there is progress on other bills the governor is pushing.

Richardson wants lawmakers to approve embryonic stem-cell research, domestic partnerships and ethics reform.

Two of those measures — a move to allow embryonic stem-cell research in the state and a bill that would give domestic partners the same rights as married couples — have been approved by one of the two chambers.

But while Richardson said bills related to ethics reform are "moving," a better word might be "limping."

Until Wednesday, Richardson's health care bill was stuck in the House Health and Government Affairs Committee, its first stop in the legislative process. It now goes to the House Appropriations and Finance Committee before hitting the House floor for debate.

Rep. Mimi Stewart, D-Albuquerque, who chairs the committee, bristled at Richardson's suggestion that little work had been done on his proposal.

"We have spent hours on his bill. We scheduled an extra hearing to hear the other bills before us," she said. "We've tried to move as fast as we can. I think we've worked as hard as we possibly can in a 30-day session to try to move his agenda forward along with our revisions."

Her committee took out the part of the bill that mandates insurance, and it would no longer require employers to pitch in. Under the version that left the committee, a Health Coverage Authority by October of next year would determine the impacts of the insurance mandate.

Rep. Luciano "Lucky" Varela, D-Santa Fe, supported changing the bill to not mandate insurance coverage for everyone.

"To mandate is a very strong word, and we were trying for an alternative to that," Varela said. "The fact that we took out the mandate, now we can work on how to make it easier for employers as well as the employee mandate."

Varela said Richardson shouldn't yet judge what work lawmakers have or haven't done. "I think we can assess the Legislature after the 30-day session," he said. "Then we can tell whether we did anything."

Although it might not be what the governor intended, Varela remains optimistic that a health care reform package will make it through the session, which ends Feb. 14.

Meanwhile, the House committee on Tuesday approved a measure that counters what Richardson wanted regarding the new Health Coverage Authority. The competing plan calls for the authority by 2009 to develop a plan to cover all New Mexicans. Richardson had wanted the authority to implement his plans much sooner, not keep studying them.

The seemingly slow pace of some of the governor's key measures might not mean much in a place where bills can be rocketed from one committee and to the House or Senate floor for debate in a matter of minutes.

But the debate — and the compromise — on the health care bill in particular does show that lawmakers aren't embracing Richardson's agenda with open arms, as they have on past measures. Richardson in his first years in office was able to get lawmakers to pass tax cuts and to fund a major commuter rail project, for example.

The governor has struggled somewhat in recent years, though, to get lawmakers — especially on the majority Democrat side — to go along.

Ethics reform is one example.

Richardson said his ethics bills are making slower progress than he'd like, but he's optimistic about their eventual passage. "Ethics is progressing," he insisted. "I just want to do it a little faster."

Asked whether he put so much focus on health care that he hasn't given more time or energy to ethics issues such as changes in campaign-finance laws, the governor denied it. "I've spent a lot of time on everything." He said he's had private meetings with legislators over ethics bills. He scoffed at a question about whether he was using ethics and other bills as bargaining chips to get his health care bill passed.

Reform advocates, however, privately have expressed frustration with the progress, and in some cases complained about the content of this year's batch of ethics bills.

Sen. Dede Feldman, D-Albuquerque, noted most of the ethics bills got introduced late in the session. "I don't know what the hold-up was," she said. "The messages for those bills just didn't come down until late. That must have been an executive decision."

In a 30-day, primarily financial session, nonbudget issues must be accompanied by a "message" from the governor to be considered.

By Wednesday's deadline to propose legislation for this session, nobody had introduced a campaign-contribution-limit bill that comes anywhere near what was recommended by the governor's Ethics Task Force.

Senate Majority Leader Michael Sanchez, D-Belen, has introduced two bills concerning contribution limits. Senate Bill 264 would limit campaign contributions to state candidates from "persons" to $2,300. Steven Allen, executive director of Common Cause, said the bill is unacceptable because it doesn't specifically include corporations, unions, political parties or political action committees.

Some legislative staff members say that in the original Campaign Reporting Act the definition of "persons" includes people and "entities." Sanchez's SB 387 specifically limits the bill to persons "not required to register pursuant to the Campaign Reporting Act" — which means PACs and political parties specifically are excluded.

Fiscal impact reports on both bills quote the Attorney General's Office, saying without limiting contributions to PACs and political parties, "the harm that this bill intends to remedy may simply be channeled through political committees — which was the experience of early federal campaign laws."

SB 387 so far has only been heard in the Senate Committees Committee and is scheduled for a Senate Rules Committee hearing Friday. It also must go through the Senate Judiciary Committee before it goes to the Senate floor. If it passes there, it will have to go through the House.

As for other ethics legislation, a bill to establish an independent ethics commission, HB 309, sponsored by Rep. Mary Helen Garcia, D-Las Cruces, has yet to receive a committee hearing.

HB 564, sponsored by Rep. Gail Chasey, D-Albuquerque, which would add candidates for statewide offices to those eligible for public financing of their campaigns has a hearing scheduled today before the House Voters and Elections Committee.

A bill to require more frequent reporting of campaign finances, SB 312, sponsored by Senate Republican Whip Leonard Lee Rawson of Las Cruces, has received some bipartisan lip service. However, it has not yet received a committee hearing.

"There's still plenty of time," Richardson's chief of staff James Jimenez insisted when asked about the ethics bills.

While he may get some of the initiatives he asked for, Richardson appeared unwilling to back down on health care reform. "I'm not giving up on this issue," he said. "I'm turning the heat up, and I'm going to go around the state and make the case that every New Mexican deserves universal health care."

Contact Kate Nash at 986-3036 or [ email ].

Contact Steve Terrell at 986-3037 or [ email ].