Legislative Session

Another week has passed at the legislature, and there has been some motion with election reform bills. With ten days to go, things are sure to heat up.

The ban on campaign contributions from lobbyists and contractors: HB 118 is now known as the committee substitute for HB 118 and moves on to the House Judiciary Committee where it could be heard as early as today.

Same day registration: HB 123 passed House Consumer and Public Affairs and moves to House Voters and Elections, where it is not yet scheduled. Its "companion bill" is Senate Bill 161 (John Sapien), which passed Senate Rules today and moves to Senate Judiciary. An attempt to attach a mandatory photo ID provision failed.

An "independent" redistricting commission resolution has been introduced as HJR 15 (Karen Giannini) and would appear on the November 2010 ballot as a Constitutional Amendment if it passes both houses. The amendment is problematic as written because it creates a commission that is actually bipartisan and not independent, with the members being appointed by the leaders of the legislature.

Rhonda King's continuing effort to resolve the state's purchase of voting machines in 2006 has been introduced as HB 198. It holds the counties harmless for the purchase and maintenance of the machines other than for ongoing storage. It will be heard in House Voters and Elections this week.

Public Campaign Financing: Both bills face uphill journeys on the Senate side. SB 51 (Eric Griego) would create a public campaign financing system for executive positions but has been scheduled to three committees. SB 67 (Feldman) would clarify the Voter Action Act but has not been ruled germane.

State Ethics Commission: There are a number of bills on both sides that address and implement a state Ethics Commission that are awaiting hearings in House Judiciary and Senate Rules Committees. This will almost certainly result in a compromise bill. Loyda Martinez of Common Cause has an opinion piece that outlines the essentials which I have copied below.

Ethics Commission

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Albuquerque Journal
Sunday, February 07, 2010

Ensure Ethics Panel Can Make Difference

by Loyda Martinez, Board Member, Common Cause New Mexico

We're dipping into the last hectic days of another legislative session. As was the case last time around, we're faced with a half dozen different proposals to finally create an independent ethics commission in New Mexico. On the one hand, this is a good thing. It shows an enthusiasm among legislators to have New Mexico join 40 other states in establishing an independent, bipartisan body to field and investigate ethics complaints against public officials. Furthermore, all of the current bills are significantly better than the ethics commission bill that passed the House during the 2009 regular session.
On the other hand, the task of combining these various proposals into a single consensus bill is daunting. Luckily, Sen. Linda Lopez, who chairs the Senate Rules Committee, and Rep. Al Park, who chairs the House Judiciary Committee, seem to be up to the task. They both seek to gather the Senate and House versions of these bills, debate the fine points, and come up with one solid bill in each chamber to push through to the legislative finish line.
For good-government advocates, of course, the debate over the fine points is key. Basically, that debate comes down to balancing two equally valid values. First, the commission has to protect the due process rights of public officials accused of wrongdoing. If a commission is set up, it will inevitably receive frivolous complaints that need to be filed in the trash can where they belong. Yet at the same time, a commission must have enough teeth to launch serious investigations of nonfrivolous complaints. Otherwise, New Mexico would just be wasting money it doesn't have.
Balancing these two important values is difficult. Here are the elements Common Cause would like to see in an ideal ethics commission bill:
1) A good commission will have independent subpoena power to ensure the commission's access to key witnesses and relevant documents.
2) A simple majority quorum is the best way to ensure anything gets done. Although requiring a super-majority (or a super-super-majority) for the commission to take any action is tempting, this would be a very unusual step and might well result in a do-nothing commission.
3) Some level of confidentiality regarding ethics commission activities is appropriate to protect the right of respondents. Excessive secrecy, however, will decrease the legitimacy of the commission in the eyes of the public and make it impossible to judge the body's effectiveness. Ideally, only the initial complaint and investigation should be confidential. Once the commission determines that there is enough evidence to proceed to a formal hearing, there is no reason that the proceedings should not become public, and any ultimate finding of guilt or innocence should of course be published. A recent report from the New Mexico Foundation for Open Government does an excellent job of analyzing the issues presented by the excessive emphasis on confidentiality in the current crop of bills.
4) Several of the proposals give the accused access to legal counsel paid for by the state. Under these proposals, if the commission finds that an ethics violation has occurred, the accused has to reimburse the state for the cost of the legal defense. This sounds good on paper, but the expense to the state is unknown and could be quite substantial. By way of comparison, the New Mexico Judicial Standards Commission does not offer judges paid legal representation. It's conceivable that such a provision actually would discourage people from filing complaints with the commission because they would feel obligated to hire their own attorney to be on an equal footing with the respondent.
There are a couple other sticking points that aren't a huge concern to Common Cause but that have made it difficult to get a bill through both chambers and on the governor's desk. The big one is figuring out an appointment scheme for the commission that satisfies both the governor and the Legislature. Maybe splitting the appointments right down the middle is the best compromise — with a couple left over coming from the state Supreme Court.
In addition to investigating complaints against public officials, a good ethics commission would have several other duties. For one thing, it would be required to draft a code of ethics for the executive branch, which currently doesn't have one. A commission could also conduct trainings for officials and state employees to help instill a culture of ethics in New Mexico government. Finally, the commission would need to issue advisory opinions to answer questions by government officials about whether or not a specific kind of behavior is or isn't ethical.
Can we finally come together and get this done?

Corporate personhood

Another busy week ahead at the New Mexico Legislature- House Bills 118 and 123 both have hearings scheduled on Tuesday. HB 123 is the Same Day Registraion bill in House Consumer Affairs, and HB 118 will be heard again in House Voters and Elections. HB 118 was tabled Thursday, mostly due to the fact that a 'committee substitute' was introduced that morning and legislators wanted more time to study it.

But some of the opposition to HB 118 are already arguing that the recent Supreme Court decision in 'Citizens United' makes prohibiting campaign contributions unconstitutional. This isn't true, because Citizens United only rules on independent expenditures, not direct contributions.

We believe Citizens United is a horrible decision, and that is why Voting Matters has joined over 50,000 individuals and organizations in signing on to the Move To Amend. The goal of the movement is to amend the US Constitution to specifically declare that corporations are not persons and do not share in the rights of persons. The ball is moving, and we urge you to go to www.movetoamend.org, sign on to the petition, and get involved in what may be the political struggle of our generation.

Lobbyist and Contractor Contribution Ban

Last week, I mentioned two Senate Bils that would reduce the effect of big money interests in New Mexico elections. On the House side, they managed to wrap both bills into one, and make some improvements. HB 118 was introduced by Representative Jose Campos, chair of the House Voters and Elections Committee. HB 118 will be heard in House Voters and Elections on Thursday morning at 8:30 in room 317. Voting Matters encourages a Do Pass recommendation from the committee.

Same Day Voter Registration

Representative Jim Trujillo (D-Santa Fe) has introduced HB 123. HB 123 would allow early voters the oportunity to register to vote and vote on the same day. Unfortunately, the provision does not apply on Election Day.

Voting Matters has long upported repealing the provision of law that requires voter registration 28 days before an election, and HB 123 is a step in the right direction. While we would have preferred a bill that abolishes the 28 day provision altogether, we do support HB 123 and hope it will lead to even further easing in the process of voter registration and participation.

Statistics bear out that states which allow Election Day Registration have higher rates of voter participation than those that prohibit it.

Likewise, we wonder why the process of registering to vote is made so difficult. Instead, we'd like to see our government facilitate the process. Voter participation would increase if the govenrment removed the additional hurdle of requiring voters to register themselves.

Why shouldn't a person become registered to vote when they first interact with the government- when they get a job and start paying taxes, or apply for government services or a driver's license, or graduate high school? These are certainly viable solutions and we hope the conversation will change from same day registration to universal voter registration.

2010 Legislative Session

The legislative session began Tuesday at noon, and will last 30 days this year. While it is always uncertain what electoral reforms will be discussed, we know several bills will be forthcoming in the realm of governmental ethics. Senate Bill 43 and House Bill 43 would create a state ethics commission to create standards and investigate complaints against elected and appointed state officials.

Three bills we at Voting Matters are actively supporting are Senate Bills 48, 49, and 51. Senate Bill 48, introduced by Tim Keller, would prohibit campaign contributions by state contractors. Senate Bill 49, introduced by Eric Griego, would likewise prohibit donations from business entities and lobbyists.

Senate Bill 51, also introduced by Senator Griego, would expand the Voter Action Act to include state executive and legislative candidates. The Voter Action Act is the law that implements the public campaign financing system for Public Regulation Commission and certain Judicial candidates.

These are three solid reforms to our election system that will reduce the effect of big money on our government decision making process and we will be following them closely in the weeks to come.

Party Primary Expenses

In Wednesday's Farmington Daily Times, New Mexico Secretary of State Mary Herrera reports that her office is lacking the funds to pay for next year's major Party Primaries. She estimates the cost at about $4 million.

This raises an interesting question. Why is the state paying for an election that includes only select voters? According to statistics published at the Secretary of State's website www.sos.state.nm.us, there are 201,000 voters who choose to register in a minor party, or no party at all. That means that nearly 20% of all registered voters are prohibited from voting in primary elections.

So we put out the question- does the funding and the process of party primaries need to be reformed?