Scant signs of progress with special session a week away
Chances dim of compromise between Gov. Martinez, Legislature before May 24
With one week left before a special session of the state Legislature to finish work on a government spending plan, Republican Gov. Susana Martinez and top Democratic lawmakers are keeping their distance, casting doubt on whether they will be able to reach a compromise before the session.
Asked Tuesday about talks with Democrats, Martinez referred to a meeting in April with Senate Majority Leader Peter Wirth and House Speaker Brian Egolf, both Santa Fe Democrats.
As for meeting recently with any Democrats, the governor said, “I know my staff has.”
A Martinez spokesman said last week the governor “has been in discussion with legislators for weeks and has put forward budget plans.”
“If she’s talking to any Democrats, they aren’t any Democrats I know,” Senate President Pro Tem Mary Kay Papen,
D-Las Cruces, said Tuesday.
Egolf said his only contact with the governor’s staff occurred when the new deputy chief of staff, Nick Piatek, recently called to give Egolf his phone number.
Cool relations between the governor and the Legislature aren’t new, even when one party is in control of both branches. But the standoff between Martinez and lawmakers over a budget for the fiscal year beginning July 1 has been especially bitter.
The governor signed a budget in March but vetoed all money for the Legislature and higher education in a bid to force lawmakers to meet in special session to finish a spending plan without raising taxes. Democrats, who control both the House and Senate, responded by seeking to have the vetoes overturned, but the state Supreme Court last week declined, at least temporarily, to get in the middle of the squabbling.
“There hasn’t been anything actually decided upon because we were waiting for the lawsuit to be resolved,” Martinez said Tuesday.
It would be unusual for lawmakers to meet in special session without at least a broad agreement on legislative action. Otherwise, sessions can drag on, at a cost of about $50,000 a day, or lawmakers can adjourn without even taking up what the governor had proposed.
Martinez is adamant about what she would like the Legislature to do during the session: pass tax reform and a balanced budget without raising certain taxes.
House Republicans released a similar plan Tuesday that calls for funneling bond money usually spent on public works projects into the general fund to pay operating expenses. The plan also calls for taking about $12.5 million from the Legislature’s retirement fund, though the plan’s administrators argue that would be unconstitutional.
Egolf said that while he expects to meet with the governor this week, there have been no formal meetings among legislators. Egolf said he’s spoken with a few lawmakers in both chambers from both parties.
Wirth said he spent Monday at the Capitol meeting with legislative leaders and staff working on budget solutions. Senate Democrats, he said, will caucus this week.
Asked if he, like Egolf, was hoping to meet with Martinez by the end of the week, Wirth said, “I am always willing to meet with the governor. We are taking this one step at a time.”
Martinez has embraced the idea of a tax proposal that unanimously passed the House but died in the Senate in the regular session of the Legislature that ended in March.
That bill, sponsored by Rep. Jason Harper, R-Rio Rancho, would eliminate nearly all gross receipts tax exemptions, deductions and credits with the goal of broadening the tax base and allowing the state to lower overall rates. The measure would end gross receipts tax exemptions for nonprofit organizations, for example, and it would tax internet sales.
The governor has said she would also consider bringing back the gross receipts tax on food, as long as it was part of a package that reduced tax rates. For years, she’s steadfastly opposed tax increases of any kind.
Senate Finance Committee Chairman John Arthur Smith, D-Deming, has urged caution about undertaking sweeping tax reform in a special session, especially without agreement. He noted the state Taxation and Revenue Department has yet to do a financial analysis of the tax reform measures Martinez has called for. “That’s sort of critical,” he said.
A report published Tuesday shows the cost of one provision in the governor’s proposed tax overhaul could be larger than legislative analysts originally thought in March. The provision is designed to alleviate “pyramiding” — the taxes that pile up on goods and services sold between businesses.
Speaking to reporters Tuesday after reading The Very Hungry Caterpillar with students at Placitas Elementary School, Martinez said lawmakers know all they need to know about the tax-reform proposal. Lawmakers have discussed it in one form or another for about a year, and the House passed a version without the food tax by a vote of 63-0.
“Now it’s just time to vote,” she said.