GOP lawmakers challenge Navajo water deal
Republican legislators want NM high court to nullify settlement between state, tribe
SANTA FE — A group of Republican legislators is asking the New Mexico Supreme Court to nullify an historic water rights settlement between state government and the Navajo Nation because it was not approved by the Legislature.
In their filing before the high court, the lawmakers compare the Navajo water settlement — which ended decades of litigation and was accepted by then-Gov. Bill Richardson’s administration in 2010 — to state government’s gambling compacts with tribes, which do require approval by the Legislature.
Friday’s emergency petition — which comes after the state Court of Appeals issued a decision upholding the Navajo water deal in April — says the 10 GOP lawmakers are not taking a position for or against the “Richardson/Navajo agreement,” which settled water rights claims in the San Juan River basin in northwestern New Mexico.
“The only point is a constitutional one — that the agreement must be submitted to the Legislature, so that all 112 legislators can evaluate the agreement for themselves, as part of the legislative process that applies to all legislation,” the petition states.
“As representatives of all people of the state and citizens in their legislative districts, Petitioner-Legislators reserve their constitutional right to vote for the Richardson-Navajo agreement, to amend it, to propose alternative legislation, to vote against it, or to not vote on it at all, using their best judgment.”
The Supreme Court has rejected similar arguments before. In 2014, the state’s high court denied a request by a group of lawmakers and a farmer who contended Richardson lacked the power to unilaterally bind New Mexico to the water agreement. The Supreme Court issued a one-page order without explaining its legal reasoning. The court had been asked to nullify the settlement and require proposed water deals to be sent to the Legislature for approval or rejection.
The Court of Appeals ruling in April let stand a 5-year-old decision by former appeals court Judge James Wechsler, while overseeing a lower court, in favor of the settlement.
The settlement recognizes the Navajo Nation’s right to divert 635,729 acre-feet of water per year, which translates to consumption of 325,756 acre-feet annually. It increases the nation’s share of the New Mexico’s water from 6 percent to 10 percent, according to a 2013 Journal analysis.
Melissa Dosher-Smith, spokesman for the New Mexico Office of the State Engineer — the state agency which negotiated the settlement — issued a statement Friday about the legislators’ court petition. “These arguments were raised in the Court of Appeals, which rejected them,” she said. “We expect a similar outcome in response to this petition.”
The Republican lawmakers who filed Friday’s petition are: state Sens. Ron Griggs of Alamogordo, Steven Neville of Aztec, William Sharer of Farmington and Pat Woods of Broadview; and state Reps. Zachary Cook of Ruidoso, Paul Bandy of Aztec, Rod Montoya and James Strickler of Farmington, and Jimmie Hall and Larry Larrañaga of Albuquerque.