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The New Mexico Senate quit work at about 8:30 p.m. on Sunday, probably so all those guys in bolo ties and jeans could hurry back to their hotel rooms and get weepy over the latest episode of “Downton Abbey.”
The House, like the Senate, held floor sessions through the weekend, too.
Adjournment of the 30-day session comes at noon Thursday and the question that prefaces how much legislators will get done is what they want to get done.
I wonder what a soap opera writer could do with a plot involving the Legislature’s majority leadership and Republican Gov. Susana Martinez. I’m sure we would be exclaiming at the TV one way or another.
“Oh, those Democrats.”
“Oh, that governor.”
In the meantime, see Deborah Baker’s status report on legislative action and inaction from the Sunday Journal: http://www.abqjournal.com/main/2012/02/12/politics/the-clock-winds-down.html
And see Baker’s story this morning, “Budget Plan Heading to Full Senate,” http://www.abqjournal.com/main/2012/02/13/politics/budget-plan-heading-to-full-senate.html for a report on House and Senate action Sunday.
The senators mostly had a busy, serious day. And just as Baker’s deadline passed — before senators rushed off to melt over the “Oh, why don’t they just get on with it” romantic suspense between Cousin Matthew and Lady Mary — they passed a couple of more notable bills.
These included: Sen. Michael Sanchez’s substitute for Senate Bill 1 to help consumers in mortgage foreclosures; and Sen. Tim Eichenberg’s Senate Bill 145 to modify and “fix” the state’s controversial property tax lightning protections.
And before they got out of there, senators also debated special liquor licenses for bed-and-breakfasts.
This led to discussion of “What is a Mimosa?,” “Is champagne a wine?,” and whether it’s advisable to drink something Sen. Clinton Harden, R-Clovis, called “piñon greasio” first thing in the morning.
I’m not sure they were kidding.
On another score, if you missed the results of the Friday night basketball showdown between the House Aggies and the Senate Lobos to benefit the UNM Cancer Center, scroll down farther in the Legislature 2012 blog or click on this link: http://www.abqjournal.com/main/2012/02/11/politics/legislature/house-aggies-edge-senate-lobos.html
-- Email the reporter at jrobertson@abqjournal.com. Call the reporter at 505-823-3911
