Session breakdown

By THE Santa Fe NEW MEXICAN February 17, 2006

PASSED

Here's a sampling of bills that passed both the House and Senate:

Budget

HB2: Would provide more than $5 billion for operating state government.

Capital outlay

HB622: Would finance roughly $762 million in public-works projects across the state.

SB301: Would finance more than $142 million in capital-outlay projects.

Anti-corruption

SB344: Would bar prospective government contractors from giving campaign contributions to state or local officials involved in contract awards during the bidding process.

Crime

SB216: "Katie's Law" would require DNA samples be taken from those arrested on certain felony charges.

HB179: Would prohibit the possession, distribution and sale of methamphetamine within a school zone for any private, public or parochial school.

HB211: Would ban over-the-counter sales of pseudoephedrine -- an ingredient for manufacturing meth.

Education

SB600: Would allow charter schools to be under local school districts or the state Public Education Department.

Health

HB24 and SB381: Would allow an employer to take up health-insurance coverage for its employees through both the Health Insurance Alliance and a state or federal agency offering health-insurance coverage based on employees' income

SB267: Would help pay for health insurance for impoverished children who are not eligible for Medicaid coverage.

Taxes

SB88 and HB365: Would repeal the nursing-home-bed surcharge imposed two years ago.

HB613: Would allow the Taxation and Revenue Department to contract with private collection agencies to seek payment of taxes at least 120 days past due.

Spaceport

HB88: Would allow the state Spaceport Authority to expend funds, incur debt for the improvement, maintenance, repair or addition to property owned by the state or local government.

HB89: Would abolish the Space Commission and the Space Commercialization Division of the Economic Development Department and transfer the resources of the division to the state Spaceport Authority.

HB473: Would enable local governments to impose, upon voter approval, a regional spaceport gross-receipts tax, in increments of one-sixteenth percent, not to exceed one-half percent.

Environment

SB269: Would create a tax credit for individuals and businesses who install solar-power systems.

HB687 and SB628: Would establish new safety standards for underground mines.

Hunting

SB395: Would crack down on poachers of "trophy" animals such as elk.

SB157: Would ban "cyberhunting," which allows people to shoot live game by controlling a camera-equipped rifle with a computer.

Film

HB577: Anti-piracy bill sought by the film industry would prohibit unauthorized recording of movies.

HB358: Would raise the film-production tax credit from 5 to 20 percent and give an additional 5-percent tax credit for companies that build a sound studio of at least 55,000 square feet and produce television series for at least four months in the state.

Elections

SB295: Would require all counties to use a paper-ballot machine for all elections.

Savings Accounts

HB112: Would establish Family Opportunity Accounts by which the state would provide matching funds to low-income New Mexicans who start savings accounts.

FAILED

Here's some of the bills that failed to make it through the Legislature:

Minimum Wage

SB449: Would have raised the state minimum wage to $7.50 an hour for most workers.

Tax Cuts

HB82 (consolidated with 15 other bills): This legislation rolled 16 tax measures, incorporating about $46 million in tax cuts, into one bill.

Ethics/Campaign Finance Reform

SB722: Would have given the state Board of Finance more oversight of the state Treasurer's Office.

SB367: Would have required more disclosure about campaign contributors; required more frequent reporting of contributions; prohibited candidates from taking more than $100 in cash from a single contributor in a 24-hour period; and required campaign-disclosure reports to list the cumulative amount of contributions received from a donor.

HB180: Would have prohibited elected state officials and their family members from selling goods or services to the state without competitive procurement procedures and forbidden "coercive political activities" by elected state officials, such as forcing an employee to contribute to a political campaign.

Payday Loans

HB409: Would have capped fees on payday loans and would have limited the number and amount of loans a person could take out.

Roads

HB833: In its original form, would have financed $250 million in road projects. The amount was reduced to $30 million in the Senate, and legislators didn't approve a compromise.

Mental Health

HB174: "Kendra's Law" would have provided court-ordered treatment for mentally ill people judged to be dangerous to themselves or others and deemed unlikely to survive safely in the community without supervision.

Medical Marijuana

SB258: Would have made marijuana legal for patients suffering from some serious medical conditions.

Aspartame

SB654: Would have banned the sale of the artificial sweetener aspartame in New Mexico.

The New Mexican [This article can be accessed directly at http://www.freenewmexican.com/news/39607.html

And from the Albuquerque Tribune:

Session limps to close with no minimum wage boost

February 16, 2006 | 02:20 PM, Kate Nash, Tribune Reporter

SANTA FE - Exhausted lawmakers rapped their 30-day session to a close at noon today as lobbyists, advocates and even some lawmakers struggled to figure out which bills beat the adjournment deadline.

One that nearly passed with less than a minute to go was a minimum-wage-hike compromise that slid through the House but stumbled in the Senate.

Scruffy, sleep-deprived political junkies filled the House and Senate galleries to get a look at the last hours of a session required by law to end at noon today.

Those last hours weren't pretty. Lawmakers on the floor were short-tempered with one other as they raced the clock. Others seemed to have checked out, leaning back in their chairs, eyes closed.

Added to that atmosphere was the suspense of whether an angry Gov. Bill Richardson would call a special session, as he has threatened.

Richardson, a first-term Democrat, has said the Legislature came up short on many of his "Year of the Child" initiatives. With bills and amendments flying back and forth between chambers, the status of many of those was unclear when the session adjourned.

The Governor's Office said he planned a 1 p.m. news conference to react to the work of lawmakers, whose main purpose in Santa Fe was to write a state budget. They did that: A $5 billion spending plan is awaiting Richardson's signature, veto or line-item veto.

In the waning hours, lawmakers were able to accomplish some of the tasks Richardson put forth four weeks ago.

The Senate at 11:15 a.m. passed a capital outlay measure for statewide construction projects. It's headed to Richardson's desk.

A measure that would help Albuquerque Public Schools build two new high schools on the West Side was approved by the House. But it was unclear whether all of the $115 million the administration sought for APS was approved.

The House early Wednesday approved SB 446, a measure by Senate President Ben Altamirano, a Silver City Democrat, to raise the minimum wage from $5.15 to $6.75 next year and $7.50 in 2008.

But because the House amended it, House and Senate negotiators had to meet in private this morning to work out a compromise that ultimately failed to pass both chambers.

In another last-minute negotiation that failed, a sweeping tax measure, HB 82, passed the House but not the Senate. Among other things, it contains a working families tax credit the governor wants.

Failure of both measures could spur a special session.

After staying in session until 3:30 a.m. today, and with minds that were functioning on fumes, patience grew thin as adjournment loomed.

"Senators, pay attention," Lt. Gov. Diane Denish admonished in a hoarse voice over a clearly groggy Senate.

"We're on amendment 162552.1," she said. The change was to a payday loan bill, which they discussed at one point, then skipped over.

Despite all the work that was left undone when the gavel came down, House Speaker Ben Lujan, a Santa Fe Democrat, praised members for their hard work.

"As we depart, I just want to say it's been great working with you," he said to the House membership, each of whom faces re-election this year.

[This article can be accessed directly at Albuquerque Tribune Legislative Roundup]