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New Mexico lawmakers, with less than 48 hours left in their 30-day session, awoke Wednesday to snow on the ground and ice on the Capitol’s Fourth Floor.
The snow was expected to disappear fast, like legislators preparing to return home after their constitutionally required adjournment at noon Thursday.
But the cold reception of chief Fourth Floor occupant Susana Martinez to lawmakers’ work so far wasn’t looking like it would thaw easily — or soon.
Much of the Republican governor’s sizable agenda for the 30-day session was frozen on the Roundhouse’s lower floors.
Democrats continued to resist some of Martinez’s key education plans and tax cuts. And, as the day before adjournment began, the governor and lawmakers were at odds over capital outlay projects, including the $30 million interchange proposal for Paseo del Norte in Albuquerque, and a move to shore up the unemployment compensation fund.
Check these stories from Deborah Baker, Dan Boyd and Jim Monteleone from this morning’s Journal:
http://www.abqjournal.com/main/2012/02/15/news/teacher-ratings-get-nod-in-house-3.html
http://www.abqjournal.com/main/2012/02/15/news/funds-at-risk-for-paseo-project.html
It was looking like repealing driver’s licenses for illegal immigrants and protecting southern New Mexico’s still-on-the-launch-pad Spaceport from certain lawsuits would be issues consigned to Campaign 2012.
And Campaign 2012 — with all 112 seats in the Legislature on the line and Martinez certain to battle district-to-district to improve her odds over the remaining two years of her first term — was shaping up to be an ice storm of record proportions.
Martinez on Tuesday threatened to veto the $5.6 billion budget adopted by lawmakers if her tax cuts didn’t reach the Fourth Floor, too.
The veto threat stirred the usual flurries of special session talk down through the circular halls of the Capitol’s four floors.
It was too early to tell, of course, even with time short. Much can happen fast when lawmakers decide to make it so.
But Democratic leaders have suggested all along that they weren’t interested in doing much during the 30-day session beyond adopting a constitutionally required balanced budget.
And the separately elected lawmakers, who gather in Santa Fe for only a month or two annually, never react well to high pressure from the Fourth Floor’s year-around resident.
Stay tuned to ABQjournal.com and Legislature 2012 for the latest developments.
-- Email the reporter at jrobertson@abqjournal.com. Call the reporter at 505-823-3911
