House upholds teacher leave veto
Republicans unite to block override effort on bill they’d backed
SANTA FE — An attempt by the New Mexico House to follow in the steps of the Senate and override Gov. Susana Martinez’s veto of a teacher sick leave bill failed Friday, leaving the veto in effect.
On a party-line vote, the House voted 36-31 in favor of the override — or nine votes short of the two-thirds majority of members present that would have been needed to approve it.
The override bid was launched by Rep. Christine Trujillo, D-Albuquerque, who said the vetoed bill would have helped teachers and students.
That view was backed by other House Democrats.
“If a sick teacher has to force herself to come to work … that ultimately impacts student learning,” said Rep. Stephanie Garcia Richard, D-Los Alamos.
Rep. Jim Smith, R-Tijeras, however, called the override attempt premature and pointed out that teacher attendance makes up only 5 percent of educators’ overall state-sanctioned evaluations.
“I’m confident we can work with the governor to come up with a reasonable solution,” Smith said.
Martinez vetoed the bill last week, despite its having received overwhelming support in both legislative chambers. That included a 64-3 vote in the House on Feb. 20.
The Senate then voted 34-7 to override Martinez’s veto, with Sen. Craig Brandt, R-Rio Rancho, leading the charge. The vote marked the first time either legislative chamber had moved to successfully override a Martinez veto.
However, without the support of House Republicans, whose leadership had vowed not to back the override attempt, the effort appeared doomed from the start in the 70-member House.
The legislation, House Bill 241, would have allowed teachers to take all their contractual free time, which is 10 days annually in most school districts, without facing a deduction on their evaluations.
Under the current system, educators can be absent from the classroom for three days without penalty but lose points on the fourth unexcused day.
The two-term governor said in her veto message that she understood the desire to help teachers, but that the proposal went too far. The attendance component of evaluations, she said, had led to a substantial drop in teacher absences, which saves money by decreasing spending on substitute teachers and helps students learn.
Teachers unions, which supported the override push, have taken issue with the governor’s stance.
One union leader, Stephanie Ly of the American Federation of Teachers-New Mexico, was also critical of Rep. Jason Harper, R-Rio Rancho, the bill’s original sponsor, for not supporting the override attempt.