Editorial: Gov. should veto this wreck of citation reform

The legislative plan sitting on Gov. Susana Martinez’s desk to streamline the state’s system of processing traffic citations makes sound public-safety sense. Unfortunately, Senate Bill 131 contains an amendment that is a fatal accountability wreck.

Lawmakers in both chambers approved the bill, which would require all citations to go through the courts. It unifies the current bifurcated system that funnels uncontested citations that are paid through the Motor Vehicle Division.

For drivers, the reform gets rid of the roadside dilemma of whether to admit wrongdoing and pay a ticket or take it to court. For law enforcement and the public, the uniformity of everything running through the courts should reduce chances of citations going off course. But the Senate Finance Committee crashed any chance at public accountability and personal responsibility by barring penalty assessment records from being added to the online court database “if the case is closed.”

Talk about an impetus to just pay those tickets so your current or future boss can’t do a quick database search to learn you don’t stop on red or obey the speed limit in the company vehicle. And talk about a roadblock to employers and insurers who benefit from an easy and unified way to check driving records online.

This information is public record, and easy access to it honors the state’s open records laws. Yet the amendment defends its secrecy with the proclamation “records are subject to disclosure under the Inspection of Public Records Act.” As Gwyneth Doland of the New Mexico Foundation for Open Government, points out, “when a parent wants to check on a driving record of (a) potential baby sitter, she is not going to file an IPRA request. But she would look at a public website to see if the baby sitter is a safe driver.”

The underlying unification of the state’s citation system makes SB 131 a valuable piece of legislation. But its Senate Finance Committee amendment is a non-starter. The governor should veto SB 131.

This editorial first appeared in the Albuquerque Journal. It was written by members of the editorial board and is unsigned as it represents the opinion of the newspaper rather than the writers.