Cocoposts

Roundhouse Bill Stalker

What could possibly be more riveting than scanning proposed state legislation? If you can't find some bill in there to follow you have a life bereft of excitement associated with the mechanics of bill processing, the mystery of deal-making, the hidden meaning behind nearly every vote. Or, maybe you just have a life. Few lists contain so much to alternately horrify, delight and bore depending on your view and mood.

Bill stalking is an art. Of course the New Mexico Legislature website provides the Bill Finder and Bill Locator but I prefer my title. 'Stalking' reflects the thrill of the hunt and how killing bills is actually as big a part of the game as passing them.

You can tell a lot by who introduced the bill. To get irritated, start with members of the party with whom you most often disagree. If you want to find hope and optimism, it's in there too. And sometimes bills aren't about party but are about doing the right thing, like SB63, Mary Kay Papen's bill on racehorse testing standards for example.

Some bills beg for questions. Like what the devil is behind SB70? Pete Campos's bill would change all State Monuments to 'historic sites' which just seems downright wierd and unneccessary. Why rename the Camino Real International Heritage Center? And what about historic sites that aren't historic because they're prehistoric or paleolithic?

See what I mean?

Discovering the context, history and purpose of bills is a hunt worthy of full-time journalists and lobbyists. Wording can be misleading or only hint at the impact. Existing law can be confusing, making bills that amend them even more so. Something that may at first glance look awful could represent a real improvement over what's already on the books. And visa versa. Take all that and inject new personalities into the mix of legislators and it's a recipe for a political feast - or at the very least, messy sausage-making and good stories.

Roundhouse In-Between Time

Among the most interesting Roundhouse traditions is that of waiting.  The 'in-between times' after something and before something else are a little magical in how subjectively we experience them.

I took a comfortable train on a cold day to Santa Fe for the opening of the 2013 New Mexico Legislature and arrived perfectly on time for the wait. The Governor was scheduled to speak at 1:00pm and started at about 2:00pm. But this is not considered late at the Roundhouse where time is warped by various necessities that defy regular clocks.

The fact of waiting obscures how much is going on in the in-between. The members of the legislature are  famously overwhelmed with constant activity. Of course those employed during the session are dancing fast with specific responsibilities and divisions of labor. They are counted on to learn and repeat their steps with increasing speed in a sort of red shoes dance until the end of the session when they all fall down exhausted. 

Much in-between time is consumed by countless small proprieties and ceremonies that change very little from year to year. The portentous gavel knocking, endless introductions, prayers and pledges are all part of the historic choreography. As are the pretentious announcements of decisions made during other in-between times.

Changing tradition is hard, including the tradition of bill-making. Opening legislative committee meetings to webcasting - adding a public eye into previously sparsely attended late- night committee meetings is not how it's always been done. Progress is slow. Senate restrictions on archiving in particular are likely to limit effectiveness.

Webcasting is likely to change the committee meeting tradition and improve transparency and public awareness. But back room deals will never be made in the front of the room. A consequence of increased committee transparency may be that agreements are made outside of committees. While we wait in the in-between time.

Sine Die

"The past is never dead.  It isn't even past."  William Faulkner

In twitter time the Roundhouse legislative session is ancient history.  At the risk of sounding melancholic, I miss the time when last Saturday wasn't ages ago. If this was the nineteenth century, the legislators (all men) would still be drunk.

At the gavel banging Sine Die they would have emerged from the old capitol building into similar spring sunshine.  The capitol in those days was an ornate domed affair* with broad steps descending northward toward the Santa Fe River and the town.  From the steps speeches were delivered to assembled crowds and the Governor at the time may have spoken.  Legislators may have stopped to listen or snubbed the Guv and continued on to waiting carriages.

There'd be more hats and facial hair and less bathing. The scent of pomade, horse poop, cigar smoke and body odor would be on the wind and in the hotel bar.  La Fonda was precursor to the Rio Chama as primary legislative watering hole - a designation that endured well into the twentieth century. 

Fabian Chavez, in the book, Taking On Giants by David Roybal, describes a 1963 confrontation in La Fonda with a liquor industry lobbyist.  The powerful liquor lobby was like the oil and gas industry of the day. Chavez had attempted reform legislation that angered some.  (No telling if they stormed out of committee hearings en masse.)  The lobbyist got drunk and grabbed the Senator by the lapels saying, "I elected U.S. Senator Dennis Chavez.  I elected Senator Clinton P. Anderson, and I own the legislature.  I bought you a thousand times."

Fabian later said, "they thought that if they contributed to us, they owned us."

Ah, tradition!

*The capitol was later stripped of these embellishments and renamed for an unhappy war event.

Capitol Candlelight Vigil

Say No to politics of hate tonight, March 7, 2011 6pm at the Capitol. 

Picked up this flyer at lunch yesterday at a great Mexican restaurant on Cerillos Road.  The vigil is against the hate represented by the driver's license bill headed to the Senate - that would further undocument undocumented workers.  This is improbably believed by some to be safer for the public.  Now they'll all ride  horses, which is cool.

In truth, the problems of immigrants and with immigration policy are being exploited. The pretension that the bill solves something relies on a narrow estimation of these problems.  One loud bill effort, cheered along by the teaparty and lauded in the conservative press, is far easier than addressing fraud, unjust laws or the fed's ham-fisted war on drugs.

Sobering story in The Los Angeles Times for contrast with the sheer triviality of this bill.

More than 11,000 migrants, primarily from Central America, went missing last year crossing Mexico on their way to the United States, according to the Mexican National Human Rights Commission. Most were captured by drug gangs demanding payoffs. Many remain missing. In the single largest massacre in Mexico's four-year conflict, 73 immigrants who refused to work for their captors were slain last summer.

 We do not know what monster we are fighting.

But we can wave our silly little bill at him.

Roundhouse Compass

  A compass is useless in a directional crisis if you don't happen to have it with you.  But there's no excuse to be willfully ignorant when you've got one.  I suppose it's a little like a man I know who has a GPS in his car but won't listen to a woman's voice telling him where to go.  She's always saying, recalculating, recalculating. I think he enjoys trying to confuse her.

The debate and outcome of the driver's license bill on the House Floor felt historic  -  not in a good way.  I felt like a House groupie with a hangover when it was over - the rapid-fire phrases: mister-speaker-gentleman-from-donaana, and motion-to-go-out-of-the-order-of- business-committee-reports ringing in my ears. 

Roundhouse Showdown

Last night Representative Andy Nuñez tried to put a controversial bill up for a vote on the House floor and Speaker Lujan swept it out the door.  The Santa Fe New Mexican has the story. Reporters expected it and the Governor's staffperson had been waiting to film the stunt all day.  Watch dizzycam here.  It captures all the R's gesturing at the press after the Speaker left the chambers.  They're all looking up and saying, "Did you see that Trip?"  He did.

Before this staged drama came the long contentious debate about the film bills.  And before that came the long contentious debate about the budget.  And before that came a lot of tedious talk about cowboys.  I can boldly speak for cowpeople everywhere when I say no one really wanted to stay in that room a second longer. No one but those itching for the Nuñez drama.

Earlier in the afternoon Representative  Thomas Garcia had taken obvious pleasure in hours of verbal evisceration on budget amendments.  He grilled until well-done and the time limit was up.  This limit is called "Rule 20" I understand.  If they debate any longer, unicorns start dying.

What Would Bronson Cutting Do?

Searching for a New Mexico politician to respect* sent me back to the beginning of the last century - to  U.S. Senator Bronson Cutting.  What would he think of industrial hemp and genetically engineered seed? In Bronson's day hemp was grown in New Mexico. Testimony on Representative Begaye's Industrial Hemp bill included that of a man who recounted how his grandfather grew it successfully in Truchas for many years.

House Bill 575 is at least the fifth attempt at legislation for industrial hemp production.  In 2009 there were memorials and two bills that died.  Two bills in 2001 died in committee. In 2000 HB 388 died in committee. In 1998 a bill passed both houses, but was vetoed by Governor Johnson. (Go figure.)

Efforts to liberalize hemp elsewhere are having a similarly bumpy ride.

In the House Agriculture committee debate on HB575, Representative Cervantes suggested the bill didn't need all that pesky licensing and fees wording. The bill was temporarily tabled for gutting and hasn't been seen since.

Now, if it was about using genetically modified hemp seed from Monsanto, we might get somewhere.

The Seven Burros of Bronson Cutting

About my favorite sculpture at the Roundhouse is the bust of Bronson M. Cutting. His big chubby face greets those approaching the capitol from the east where he faces Atalaya Hill, the direction of his beautiful home, Los Siete Burros, located on Old Santa Fe Trail. (Historic Santa Fe Foundation)

The bronze was commissioned by his friends and admirers and dedicated at a ceremony in 1939 on the anniversary of his death in a plane crash four years earlier.

Bronson Cutting fell in love with New Mexico and its people upon his arrival in 1910 and devoted the rest of his relatively short life to improving their lot.  His "rare combination of moral courage, modesty and marked ability" was directed at fighting injustice and advancing progressive policies.

Although nominally a Republican, he shunned party regularity to champion progressive reform in state and local government. After his service in World War I, Cutting organized the Hispanic veterans through American Legion chapters and forced the Republican and Democratic parties to adopt progressive planks and candidates and to include qualified Hispanics in their administrations. Once elected to the United States Senate in 1928, Cutting criticized the weak efforts of Presidents Herbert Hoover and Franklin D. Roosevelt to end the Great Depression. (Bronson M. Cutting: Progressive Republican, by Richard Lowitt.)

Stephen Fox describes the political scene in Desert Exposure: 

In the north they danced to the tune called by the Maxwell Land Grant Company, coal mines and the Santa Fe Railroad; in the south it was the Phelps-Dodge and Chino mining companies and the El Paso Railroad. The Republicans also made mutually profitable alliances, blatantly exchanging bribes for votes, with the old Spanish land-grant ranchers and stockmen who controlled the Hispanic counties in the north.

The Democrats were clustered in "Little Texas," the southeastern part of New Mexico that was settled in the late 1800s by former slaveholders from the neighboring state. The Democrats were virulently racist, even by the minimal standards of 1912. (...)  

Cutting declared a plague on both their houses: Republicans were too crooked, he decided, and Democrats were too anti-Hispanic. Instead he became a party unto himself. His main allies, it turned out, were Hispanics, who then numbered about 60% of all New Mexicans.

Putting Down Same-Sex Marriage

Witnessed House Consumer and Public Affairs Committee action on the bills about same-sex marriage this week.  Claus at Clearly New Mexico has the full story.

Testimony included chilling pronouncements about the government's role in baby-making and defining what marriage is about - which is babymaking.  In this world view, all married women are breeders and only married women breed. The rest of you can go jump in a lake.

Proponents of the three bills stressed the need to vote in order to "put the issue to rest."  This has gone on too long, proponents say. A vote will end the controversy.  By the end of their testimony I was certain "put to rest" meant "put down" like a horse with a broken leg - let's put these civil rights out of their suffering.

Such a vote stirred up a nest of nasty and didn't put anything to rest in California.  And Politics USA finds growing distain for the "social wedge issues trick" even within the GOP.  Defining marriage gets government out of our lives how exactly?

Representative David Chavez stressed over and over that voters "want this resolved."  But it's the ignorance, bigotry and hatred behind these bills that needs resolution.

Oil and Gas Daze

Today at the Roundouse we'll honor the extraction industries for bringing us our two favorite energy sources.* If you had any doubt about our complete reliance on oil and gas and the industry's devotion to keeping it that way, Marita Noon will give you the what-for.  (Las Cruces Sun Times)

And the New Mexico Oil and Gas Association will brag that the industry is "our past, our present and our future."   That is just plain creepy to me.  So's their goal of brainwashing kids educating the public about the industry's "innumerable benefits." 

Reminds me of lecturing an 18th century Irishman on the benefits of the potato.