DOA: Taxpayer Bill of Rights goes nowhere in a hurry, columnist Milan Simonich writes.
After a two-hour delay on a cold, dreary afternoon, Republican Rep. Rod Montoya pitched his Taxpayer Bill of Rights before a legislative panel known as The Cemetery.
There is good reason for the nickname. Once Democrats on the House Consumer and Public Affairs Committee got the floor Tuesday, it took them only 10 seconds to bury Montoya’s proposed constitutional amendment.
The Democrats allowed Montoya and his supporters to have their say. But they didn’t debate any points he made on behalf of his bill, House Joint Resolution 5.
Rep. Angelica Rubio, D-Las Cruces, instead moved to table the measure. She and the other two Democrats on the committee then voted to block Montoya’s proposal from advancing. The two Republicans on the committee voted to move it forward, though they knew they were beaten as soon as Rubio made her motion.
Republican bills go to The Cemetery to die.
Montoya modeled part of his proposal after a Taxpayer Bill of Rights that voters in Colorado enacted in 1992. I knew the Colorado measure well, as I was working as an editor at the Denver Post when it became law.
Colorado’s Taxpayer Bill of Rights has ranged from controversial to reviled. Many residents complained that government services eroded after the restrictions on taxes and spending took effect, even though Colorado’s Front Range had one of the country’s hottest economies.
Montoya, of Farmington, said he borrowed only parts of the Colorado initiative. His proposal for New Mexico would have restricted expenditures and tax increases. The state could have exceeded prescribed spending limits only if three-fifths of both the Senate and the House of Representatives voted to do so.
Montoya said New Mexico, with Democrats controlling the executive branch and both houses of the Legislature, is being fiscally irresponsible. An oil boom in the southeastern section of the state led to a surplus and the state’s first $7 billion budget last year.
Spending increased more than 12 percent then, and another increase of more than 7 percent is being considered now by legislators.
Democrats say former Gov. Susana Martinez, a Republican, had been miserly with staffing state agencies, preventing government from delivering quality services or taking care of people. Montoya isn’t swayed. In an interview, he said his colleagues on the Democratic side of the aisle are too willing to raise taxes and spend more money. “We’re just too damn arrogant up here,” Montoya said. Another part of his proposed constitutional amendment would have rebated part of state surpluses to the citizenry. And he meant citizen literally.
Fifty percent of unencumbered funds would have been returned “to United States citizens who are residents of the state, as determined by law, including allowance for dependents.” Taxpaying immigrants, legal or not, wouldn’t get back any money.
The other half of a surplus would have remained under state control to help pay for K-12 public schools.
Had Montoya’s proposal cleared both houses of the Legislature, it would have gone before voters in this year’s general election.
He didn’t expect to win, at least not now. Democrats control the House of Representatives 46-24, their biggest margin since the 1990s. Montoya isn’t giving up, though. He believes his message that the Democrat-dominated Legislature is overspending will one day be accepted by most people. Then, he said, economies and rebates will be made.
“This is the first step in what is going to be a continual drumbeat on our side. The spending that’s going on is not sustainable,” he said.
Before his bill was killed, Montoya had bantered a bit with House Speaker Brian Egolf, D-Santa Fe, a mere spectator in the committee room. Montoya wanted to know what was wrong with his proposed bill of rights.
Egolf had a ready comeback. “We already have a Bill of Rights. I like the First [Amendment] better than the Second, but they’re all pretty good,” Egolf said.
Montoya, outnumbered politically and pushing an idea that has been problematic in a neighboring state, still has a point. Four years ago, oil prices plunged and New Mexico’s government was so broke it had to raid the savings accounts of certain school districts in order to pay the bills. It could happen again, given the state’s dependence on extraction industries.
Knowing the committee was ready to kill his bill, Montoya got in a final jab. Instead of legislators creating new programs, he wanted to know why school districts hadn’t been repaid money that was stripped from them when times were terrible.
It’s a message he hopes will resonate back home, even if few at the Capitol lend him an ear.
Ringside Seat is an opinion column about people, politics and news. Contact Milan Simonich at msimonich@sfnewmexican.com or 505-986-3080.