At the Roundhouse: March madness

No, not basketball. I’m talking about spring-season Legislature.

I’m stuck in a big round building in Santa Fe observing MLA, or Mixed Legislative Arts.

This is the annual, few-holds-barred cage fight that starts with one person, representing voters back home or his or her own conscience, offering up an idea and trying to persuade 111 other people, who may not agree or even be particularly interested, to go along with them.

Believe me, it gets rough. Lots of kicking and screaming. And it all comes to a head in spring.

Watch your step: It’s also the season when the wind blows, snakes start taking in the sun, folks downstream figure out they aren’t going to get any water and poisonous clouds of head-exploding pollen billow off the juniper trees.

Sometimes I wonder why I live here.

I know I’ll soon be back to praising our sky, people and food preparations. And for the record, I always park on the outdoor, top deck of the parking structure at the Sunport so, as soon as I land back home, I sense it all at once.

But it can be a bumpy trip through the windy months.

On-court collision: Maybe it was spring that got to Kiki Saavedra and Michael Sanchez on Thursday afternoon in an MLA episode 10 days out from the end of a grueling 60-day session.

Sanchez, the Senate majority leader, stalked out of a House Appropriations and Finance Committee meeting after Saavedera, the chairman, announced the House committee would not hear any more Senate bills.

Sanchez was there to present his Senate Bill 2, to bolster aviation safety. Saavedra told Sanchez it wouldn’t be heard because, he alleged, the Senate was behind in considering bills from the House.

Sanchez went up to the committee dais to talk to Saavedra and marched out of the room after determining that Saavedra wasn’t kidding.

The Senate majority leader then instructed all of the Senate committees that were meeting to shut down.

It all blew over in an hour.

Other House leaders said they didn’t think there was a Senate slowdown on their bills.

Sanchez told me had talked to House leaders after the Saavedra incident and everything was patched up. Senate committee hearings were to resume as usual in the morning.

Typical spring storm. Short lived. March madness, Roundhouse-style.

And, in terms of any committee disruption, many in the building were eager to clear out for the annual 100th Bill Party over at Sweeney Convention Center anyway.

Journalistic dribbling: A third-floor friend has been making fun of me for writing about Roundhouse atmospherics instead of issues in depth.

You know: The Capitol halls were dark and quiet. A whimper was heard …

But I’m not going to admit that I resort to writing about atmosphere because I can’t get a handle on anything deeper.

I’m going to blame it on juniper poisoning.