EDITORIAL: State lawmakers could use some help making the legislative sausage

The Second Session of the 56th Legislature ended much like it began — with pomp and circumstance.

Lawmakers closed the 30-day session Thursday morning with hugs and kisses and emotional speeches for retiring lawmakers in both the House and Senate, not exactly displaying a sense of legislative urgency.

The House didn’t get going Thursday until just about an hour before the end of the session at noon. As the clocked ticked down, the House approved a mass of memorials and resolutions in a single vote. In terms of actual legislation, the Senate passed seven measures and the House passed 13 memorials on the final day of the session.

With less than a day left and numerous substantive bills awaiting final approval, lawmakers turned their attention at the end to the great Smokey Bear specialty license plate debate. The license plate bill passed the House by a 62-0 vote on Wednesday, and was rushed through the Senate Thursday morning, where it passed by a 41-0 vote.

The time spent on such an inconsequential matter hardly bolsters the argument for salaried lawmakers.

Lawmakers introduced a whopping 658 bills this session, most of which never had a chance. Some weren’t even printed, but did grab headlines and score political points back home for a day or two. Of course, lawmakers also passed dozens of memorials and resolutions as they do every time they convene in Santa Fe.

In total, lawmakers passed 72 pieces of legislation over 30 days, or about 2.4 bills per day. Any particular bill’s chance stood about an 11% chance of making it to the governor’s desk. Lawmakers didn’t make enough sausage in the recent 30-day session for a church picnic or decent-sized backyard barbecue.

The lack of substantive measures, particularly on crime, has an agonized Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham contemplating calling for a special public safety session to consider measures such as requiring behavioral health treatment for defendants deemed dangerous and incompetent to stand trial, “rebuttable presumption” legislation that would allow prosecutors to recommend defendants accused of certain violent crimes be held in jail before trial, a bill making it a third-degree felony for a felon to be found with a firearm, and legislation that would require people to be at least 21 years old to buy guns.

“Both houses are well aware that I’m frustrated,” the governor said at the completion of the session.

The firearm purchasing age bill sat on the House calendar and was never heard by the chamber, like several other weighty bills, including proposed constitutional amendments that would have abolished the governor’s power of the pocket veto, and standardized the annual legislative sessions at 45 days while also allowing any topic to be considered every year.

Several lawmakers pushed legislative modernization initiatives, but the only modernization effort that passed this year was contained in the annual budget bill. The $10.2 billion budget approved by lawmakers includes $6 million for legislative district staff, office space and equipment.

Appropriately administered, providing lawmakers with staff makes sense.

Members of the legislative branch are the closest contacts New Mexicans have to the Roundhouse, and to state government, in general.

During sessions, every two House members share a legislative assistant. House committee chairs have one full-time staffer during sessions. Outside of sessions, lawmakers are mostly on their own, unless they are in leadership positions, which share two to three staffers in each chamber, per political party.

Constituent concerns often fall on others, such as the chief clerk’s offices of the House and Senate, or between the cracks.

There is no question state lawmakers are inadequately staffed. Many of them put in long hours studying legislation during and between sessions and handling constituent matters year-round. Having inadequate staffing shifts power to the lobbyists for their expertise, and to the Governor’s Office to set the agenda.

The budget bill instructs the Legislative Council Service to impose guardrails and guidelines on how staff funding can and can’t be used, with guidance from the Legislative Council.

Legislative staff funding may not be used for any political or campaign-related activity, in line with congressional guidelines. Staff members of Congress no doubt have their political loyalties, but they must take leaves of absence while working on the campaign-related activities. No federal funding may be used for election purposes.

While some state lawmakers have expressed concerns that staffers will become campaign aides, New Mexico can follow the same guidelines as Congress, with proper oversight.

Having district offices is rural areas also makes sense and could be a stark improvement in the Legislature. So does consolidating offices in more urban areas. So does cutting back on the vast amounts of time lawmakers waste during legislative sessions doing such things as reading the bios of their job shadowers and watching performances on the floor.

Yes, providing proper staff for all 112 state lawmakers may be expensive. But the state has the money and no rewriting of the state Constitution is necessary, unlike providing lawmakers salaries.

It is now incumbent on state lawmakers to prove they can utilize staffing for the public’s good, and not for political purposes. If they’re successful, then the discussion can move to the more thorny issue of providing salaries for citizen legislators.