Serving the High Plains
Serving the High Plains
The last time New Mexico was in this situation, Bill Richardson had just been elected governor.
It was 2003 and Richardson, a former congressman and high-ranking official in the Clinton administration, had just won election with about 56 percent of the statewide vote. He succeeded Gary Johnson, known as “Governor No” because of his propensity to veto just about anything and everything. So by the time Richardson came into office, with Democratic majorities in both the House and Senate, the circumstances were in place for a flood of new laws.
Sound familiar? It should. Congresswoman Michelle Lujan Grisham won the governor’s seat with about 57 percent of the vote; she is now succeeding Susana Martinez, who kept the Democrats in check with a veto pen of her own; and the pump is once again primed for a whole new flood of legislative initiatives.
On the opening day of this 60-day session, Lujan Grisham made it clear that there’s a new administration in Santa Fe that’s ready to turn the state in a new direction. She encouraged lawmakers to bring her their “rocket docket” (bills that Democrats couldn’t get past the Republican governor for the past eight years) and she laid out her own agenda to expand early childhood education, give teachers 6 percent raises, join an inter-state pact that is honoring the objectives of the Paris climate agreement (despite the federal government’s withdrawal), and a lot more that’ll cost a bundle of money.
All this wouldn’t be possible if not for the oil and gas boom mostly in the Permian Basin, giving state government a huge surplus of funds for the upcoming fiscal year. Like Richardson’s first year as governor, Lujan Grisham has both an ambitious agenda and the money to make it happen.
It’s also the perfect storm for wasteful and excessive spending — and lawmakers on both sides of the political divide see the risk.
After the governor’s State of the State address, the Republicans released a video on YouTube in which Senate Minority Leader Stuart Ingle, R-Portales, warned against overspending during the boom times, lest we become unprepared for the inevitable bust times to follow.
“We need to be careful not to overspend,” Ingle said, “or our citizens will be facing tax increases in the future.”
“Once you spend the money on obligations that occur year after year, it is nearly impossible to cut back on the spending. Cutting someone’s pay is not fun, so when money becomes tight again in the future, like it will, raising taxes will be the only option.”
Unfortunately for Republican lawmakers, however, they will have little control over how the surplus will be spent — and that also concerns at least one Democrat, Sen. William Soules of Las Cruces. He wants his counterparts to at least be heard.
In an op-ed released during the first week of the legislative session, Soules said the process works best with “both sides listening carefully and considering the other side’s viewpoint.”
“With the Republican Party losing significant strength in New Mexico it provides an opportunity for the Democrats to rule and make major changes without that careful consideration. A weakened minority makes it too easy to ignore the minority voice that serves as a check and balance against badly written or badly conceptualized legislation.”
Democrats, he said, must be “extra careful” that they are not passing laws just because they now “have the power to do so.”
Tom McDonald is editor of the New Mexico Community News Exchange. Contact him at: