Serving the High Plains
Serving the High Plains
We celebrated Sunshine Week (March 15-21) by looking at the disgraceful manner in which our state’s budget is produced. The process by which the state’s budget is finally formed is a complicated one, punctuated with many committees and sub committees of both the House and Senate.
When the Fiscal Year 2020-21 $7.6 billion budget was approved Feb. 20, it was only after a select group of staff and legislators met in secret for weeks. The fruit of those many secret meetings was 160 amendments cutting $160 million from the budget.
The public can’t know about these amendments, nor the budget cuts, until the committee then meets with the full Senate Finance Committee, hours before the session officially closes and after a dearth of discussion votes to pass the budget.
It’s not clear who comprises the committee. There is no list on the Legislature’s website and there’s no official schedule or agenda.
The reason this floating committee can meet in secret is because the Legislature can make its own rules that contradict the New Mexico Open Meetings Act. The Act states all public bodies must meet in public. The Legislature has a rule that this subcommittee to the finance committee can meet behind closed (and locked) doors because it is an advisory committee, not forming policy.
We’d argue 160 amendments is beyond advisory, especially when the Finance Committee approves these amendments with little/no discussion. This group is significantly changing the state’s budget without public input, discussion or even consideration of outside ideas.
The weak argument by those inside the secret meetings range from the group’s need to “talk turkey,” bad language being used and an assumption that if the meeting was open to the public, the Legislature couldn’t do its job in 30 days. We’d argue they don’t.
House Appropriations Committee chief of staff Bill Valdez in 2016 even said to the Santa Fe New Mexican the closed meetings were “for everyone’s protection.” He did not elaborate from what we mere mortals were being protected.
Ironically, it’s not just the public being kept out of its government’s business. Most legislators aren’t allowed entrance. House Speaker Brian Egolf could not get into this year’s closed meetings.
We reached out to our legislators giving them a chance to be indignant about the lock-out. None responded to emails. Give them a chance to get sanctimonious on issues they support and they’ll blow up your in box. Ask them about a touchy subject that could anger high ranking staff such as Legislative Finance Committee Chairman David Abbey or fellow legislators and there’s no response.
The New Mexico Foundation for Open Government was instrumental in 2009 in forcing the Legislature to open conference committees, which were once closed to the public. It was argued at the time by opponents that opening the conference committees would just force the decision-makers further underground. These sub-sub-committees could be proof of such claims.
These secret meetings don’t technically break state law because the Legislature can make rules to exempt themselves from state law, to a certain degree. These closed committees are one of those exceptions.
Just because they’re legal, doesn’t make them right. They’re unethical and absolutely anti-transparency. The legislators and staff should be put under the microscope of the newly formed State Ethics Commission. They’ve bent the rules as far as they can without breaking them.
— Rio Grande Sun