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Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Lujan Takes Back Remark
By Phil Parker
Journal Northern Bureau
SANTA FE Â — House Speaker Ben Lujan on Monday retracted his remark from Saturday's close of the legislative session that Sen. John Arthur Smith is a racist.
But he continued to defend his unsuccessful last-minute effort to add a legislative amendment that could be used to finance a movie theater planned at the city-owned Santa Fe Railyard.
Smith, in a public conference committee, had called the amendment suspicious.
Lujan, D-Santa Fe, said he had only three hours of sleep following a late-night House session Friday night when he confronted Smith in front of reporters minutes after the Legislature's adjournment. He called Smith, D-Deming, a "racist S.O.B." and told the senator that he was "full of (expletive)."
"Maybe my choice of words could have been better," Lujan said. "But there was no reason to make an accusation things were suspicious of any kind."
He said he had intended to confront Smith in front of reporters but said he wished he hadn't used foul language.
At a conference committee Saturday morning, Smith said a "cloud of suspicion" was over an amendment Lujan added to Senate Bill 584. The bill involves spending the state's Public Project Revolving Fund on projects like charter schools. Lujan's amendment would have allowed for bond-issue financing for public-private projects like commercial development in the Santa Fe Railyard.
The amendment didn't fit, Smith said, and it looked familiar. Previously in the session, Lujan sponsored House Bill 820, which would have allowed local governments to finance private developers with bonds that would be backed by public gross receipts taxes if developers couldn't pay up.
Lujan had his eye on the gaping hole in the Railyard, where a 10-screen movie theater is tentatively supposed to open next year. Construction of the theater has stalled.
"It (HB 820) didn't mandate an appropriation or anything like that," Lujan said. "It just would have allowed that project to be considered for funding, help of some kind ... to provide the city and developer the opportunity to build something in that Railyard that would have provided jobs. That's my only interest."
HB 820 suffered an odd fate, dying twice on tie votes on the House floor. "It was like a comedy of unbelievable events," said Senate Pro Tem Tim Jennings, D-Roswell. "For the speaker to lose that bill twice on tie votes is very unusual."
The 11th-hour amendment to the Revolving Fund bill was added by Lujan and was meant to do what Lujan had intended with HB 820.
"So in the conference I was asking questions about what the project (amendment) was all about," Smith said. "No one knew. I said at the time 'Maybe we should get the speaker in here.' "
Smith said New Mexico Mortgage Finance Authority officials said the amendment didn't fit with that type of funding. It was removed and the bill passed.
"The bill was not suspicious," Smith said. "What is suspicious is when you see something happening again and again and again to see it get through. You try to dig deeper. In the 11th hour we don't catch things, usually. ... There was a full-court press out to get that legislation through."
Word got back to Lujan, who didn't like what he said Smith was implying. "I think they thought I had some interest in the property," Lujan said. "That I was trying to promote myself and help myself. That was far from the truth, and that's what got me aggravated."
Jennings said he has worked with Smith for 25 years. "To think he is prejudiced is absurd," Jennings said. "I don't care what anyone says. ... He's not racist. That's bull."
Sen. Carlos Cisneros, D-Questa — vice chairman of Smith's Senate Finance Committee — said he understood why Lujan's emotions were running high Saturday morning.
"Toward the latter part of the session, everybody is grumpy; we're exhausted, annoyed and frustrated because we're trying to pass our own bill, assist House members to get stuff done and we can't get it quick enough," Cisneros said. "There's a lot of frustration. People have a propensity to say things that they wouldn't ordinarily.
"John Smith is an honorable person. I didn't see him in the session at any point utter any derogatory statements toward anybody. He was very clear in his quest to balance the budget and be very fiscally conservative in terms of his approach to finance."
Smith said there are no hard feelings.
"I've given him (Lujan) the benefit of the doubt that he was tired," Smith said. "The speaker's a worker and he pours his life into the system."
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