Archive for March 3rd, 2010

A Democratic senator told me this afternoon that he thought the plan for the day was that the senate would come in, vote for the house stuff, and the house would come in and vote for the senate stuff. Any details would be reconciled and that would be that for the special session.

Every time a party would have a caucus (A caucus is a meeting of the members of one party from either the house or senate), things seemed to unravel even more, I was told. This was about ten hours after the house had worked until 3 AM this morning.

The comments seem to explain my sense, developed from watching the house for an hour around noon today, that no commitment existed to getting the job done. But then why break precedent. After all, it’s been five or six sessions, regular and special, since the legislature got the job done.

The debate I watched was about the general obligation bond measure to be considered by the voters this fall. The matters were trivial, consuming time as the state’s massive deficit continues.

One legislator asked about an Eastern New Mexico University project being moved from to G.O. bond slate from severance tax financing in order to entice more people from Curry County to support the G.O. bond. Apparently this move hadn’t been executed and the legislator asked that it be done.

The second topic was even less important on the scale of things. It had to do with bumping the allocation for a project back to $1.5 million from $350,000. A amendment was proposed. Then Rep. Keith Gardner, Roswell Republican, initiated a discussion about whether the amendment was amending an amendment. (Don’t ask.)

Mostly I celebrate our citizen legislature. Not today.