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Saturday, January 31, 2009

Bolo-Basher Gets His Due in Senate

By Deborah Baker
Associated Press
          SANTA FE — A new House member criticized the Senate during a debate on bolo ties, and retribution was swift: He was summoned to the Senate to give a public apology, and issued his own bolo tie.
        The good-natured exchange Friday followed the House's vote a day earlier to change its rules to allow members to wear bolos in the chambers.
        Even though the bolo — sometimes called the bola or string tie — has been New Mexico's official neckwear for two years, House rules hadn't permitted wearing them on the floor. Some bolo-sporting senators have been refused entry to the House in the past unless they switched ties.
        Rep. Benjamin Rodefer, a freshman Democrat from Corrales, was one of three House members who voted against the rules change.
        "I find that we seem a bit more organized and professional than our brothers on the other side," Rodefer said Thursday. "I would like to maintain that."
        Senators grumbled about the comment during a floor session on Friday.
        "I think we're very professional regardless of what we have around our neck. ... We just march to a different drummer than they do on that side," said Majority Leader Michael Sanchez, D-Belen.
        The House is more tightly controlled than the Senate, which has a propensity to turn brief discussion into long-winded debate.
        "I would say that I misspoke yesterday on the floor of the House," Rodefer said during his brief appearance on the Senate floor. "I meant no disrespect to this august house."
        He was presented a small bolo tie with a clasp in the shape of a sheriff's badge, put it on over his striped necktie, and headed back to the House.
        The Senate also voted for — and then shelved — a tongue-in-cheek measure offered by President Pro Tem Tim Jennings, D-Roswell. It called for the expulsion from New Mexico of House members who had voted for the bolo tie as official neckwear, then refused to allow them in the chamber.
       

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