Santa Fe, NM – Senate Majority Leader Michael S. Sanchez (D-29-Bernalillo and Valencia) today said he and Senate Democrats may be willing to support calling a special session of the Legislature following Governor Susana Martinez’s reported comments this week. Sen. Sanchez has sent out the following statement:
If the Governor and the Legislature do not get an agreement on a capital outlay spending package, thousands of needed jobs will be lost across New Mexico this year. For Senate Democrats, creating jobs is the most important priority. At this point, only a special session can accomplish it.
We would have to be certain in advance that the Governor is serious about coming to a compromise on capital outlay. It cannot be another round of ‘my way, or the highway’. That approach has failed to move a majority of Senators in the past, and is unlikely to persuade them now.
The Senate’s bill must be the starting point for negotiations, because it was the only plan that had bipartisan support. Both Republicans and Democrats in the Senate rallied around that bill and passed it 40-1. That kind of spirit – doing what is best for the people of our state, politics aside – will be absolutely necessary for a special session to be worth it.
All debate about what goes in and what comes out of a capital outlay list of projects must occur in the open and in public. It was last-minute backroom deals by the House majority and the Governor that brought us to the current impasse. The Senate cannot have hugely expensively projects that we have never seen dropped in our lap in the final minutes of a session again.