Governor wrong to starve other branches
We feel that it can never be a good thing for the people of New Mexico if one branch of our state government, whether the executive, legislative or judiciary, gains too much power over the other two. Our system of checks and balances enshrined in the state Constitution is designed to prevent any one branch from becoming too powerful.
It is not just a theoretical problem, either, because when our government is out of balance, there are real consequences in people’s lives. This is what is we are seeing in the fight over funding of the state’s courts, and to a lesser degree, in the acrimony over what level of funding is necessary to operate the Legislature.
The state’s executive, Gov. Susana Martinez, to put it bluntly, is bullying the other two branches of government. It is both wrong and reckless. The Legislature is the people’s branch. The judiciary is the branch that makes sure there is justice in our society.
Using her power of the pen to veto money approved by the Legislature to pay for its own and the judiciary’s functioning, the governor has been hard at work playing partisan, political games. She recently did so in order to convince a distracted public that the state court system and the Legislature impose large, sprawling expenses upon the taxpayers. It is simply not true.
Combined, New Mexico’s judiciary and Legislature make up just over 3 percent of the total cost of state government annually. The Legislature uses less than three tenths of one percent of the entire state budget. The remaining 96 percent of all spending is mostly absorbed by the executive branch, overseen by Gov. Martinez.
Our courts in New Mexico have been strapped for cash for quite a few years. Now it’s catching up. They need an emergency request of $1.6 million to pay jurors until July. The Legislature appropriated the funds for juries that were due to run out on March 1. The governor vetoed it twice and said the courts should be more frugal.
This creates a serious problem. Without jurors, there can be no jury trials, constitutionally guaranteed to all who face jail. State law requires that jurors be paid for their time. Without the possibility of jury trials, judges would be forced to dismiss charges against defendants, setting them free and conceivably putting public safety at risk.
At the start of every meeting of our citizen Legislature, the two chambers pass a measure to pay for the costs of functioning, for staff and so on. Earlier this month it passed with bipartisan support. Legislators generally know what it costs to put on a session, and governors tend to respect that amount. It’s less than 3 tenths of one percent of the budget.
This year was different. The governor vetoed the Legislature’s “feed bill,” called it “irresponsible” and said reduce the budget. To get the staff paid, legislators sent back a new bill that lopped off $300,000.
Senate Minority Leader Stuart Ingle, a Republican like the governor, stated afterward that the Legislature has actually reduced its own budget repeatedly over the past years as revenues fell.
The judiciary and Legislature are branches of the state government coequal with the executive under the state’s Constitution. It is wrong that Gov. Martinez is now causing havoc with their ability to carry out their work.
Our economy is in a long downturn. Gov. Martinez’s willingness to starve state agencies to keep intact her reputation for never having raised taxes—– her sole achievement — imperils many key services upon which we all depend. It also threatens the viability of the two other branches of government and our constitutional system of checks and balances.