Special session slowed by technology woes.
Problems with webcasting going offline seemed to have been resolved Friday
The problems started almost as soon as the gavel struck to mark the opening of the legislative session.
After Senate Majority Leader Peter Wirth called for a moment of silence Thursday to observe the death of George Floyd and followed with some opening announcements, he noted that if at any time during the session the live webcast were to go o±ine, the chamber would stop its proceedings.
Seconds later, that very thing happened.
This interruption, or some version of it, happened over and over again throughout the first day of the special session — in numerous committee meetings and on the House and Senate floor. Wash, rinse, repeat.
Each time, it raised the level of frustration in the state Capitol. By the end of the first day, which was — you guessed it — cut short by the broken webcast, House leadership said the technological woes could push the session past its targeted end date of Saturday.
“We basically lost a day due to technical difficulties,” House Speaker Brian Egolf said late Thursday night.
By Friday, as the webcast appeared to be back up and working well, Egolf revised his forecast and said he thought the session could indeed finish by late Saturday night.
But the gripes over technology — how they affect this session and perhaps others in the future — were still reverberating around the Roundhouse.
“It slowed things down,” Rep. Kelly Fajardo, R-Los Lunas, said about the previous day. “We didn’t get anything done.”
Four months ago, no one could have imagined being back in session so soon, with legislators walking around with odd pieces of fabric over their faces and some lawmakers Zooming in from remote locations.
But then came the COVID-19 pandemic, and with it the new reality of having to fill a massive budget hole left by the global health crisis and oil crash. Legislators now must address that problem and tough issues like police reform, brought to the fore by the death of Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police.
Though the Legislature has offered a live video broadcast of its proceedings on its website for years, its importance is heightened by the fact that the public has been barred from entering the Capitol due to health concerns. That makes the live feed the only way for New Mexicans to follow their legislators.
Raúl Burciaga, who heads the Legislative Council Service, which is charged with maintaining the webcast in addition to other needs at the Capitol, has heard plenty from state residents who were unable to tune in.
The complaints streaming in, he said, were plentiful and varied. At one point, there was video with no sound. Some had browser issues, with the livestream working on Firefox but not Google Chrome. For some, the feed worked outside the Roundhouse but not within.
And then, it would just go completely down.
“It was the perfect storm,” Burciaga said in an interview.
The last straw came around 10 p.m. Thursday, when the webcast went down as the Senate was debating a bill to provide low-interest loans to small businesses in need of coronavirus-related relief. After a long wait for a restart, Wirth told the floor the problem was too substantial and the chamber would recess for the night.
“It was really frustrating last night to have technology shut us down,” Wirth said Friday. “We were right in the middle of a very passionate bill.”
It appeared the webcast failure had nothing to do with all the odd pandemic-induced alterations in legislative proceedings — it was a server problem. It was also unexpected because the livestream had a strong track record coming in. During the regular session earlier this year, it worked fine.
While the Legislature is in charge of recording the video of its proceedings, its live feed is hosted on a cloud server owned and maintained by an external company, Sliq Media Technologies.
The Quebec-based firm specializes in webcasting and has a slew of legislative clients worldwide, including the U.K. House of Commons, the Senate of Canada and about 10 U.S. states, according to its website.
Nevertheless, the company couldn’t quickly diagnose the problem when New Mexico’s live feed went down.
It wasn’t until 2 a.m. Friday that Sliq figured out it had a “corrupt database” in its server and the company would need some time to fix it, Burciaga said.
“That gave my staff at least a couple hours of rest,” he said.
At 6 a.m., the company said the problem was resolved. Tests were performed, and a feed of an 8:30 a.m. House committee meeting on Friday was sent into the ether without a hitch.
Burciaga said he accepted responsibility for the troubles though it wasn’t the Legislature’s corrupt server, adding he should have had a backup option in place.
He did that Friday, saying the legislative body could move to
Facebook Live if the problem returned. As of late Friday, the webcast was chugging along just fine.
Still, some members remained peeved about how technology has changed procedure.
Fajardo said the House Commerce and Economic Development Committee forgot to make a required motion before voting on a bill during a meeting held by video conference. She said legislators made the procedural mistake, which later required a revote, because they were still trying to get used to legislating on Zoom.
“We’re in this special session that’s very much needed. We have to create a budget,” Fajardo said. “But instead of focusing on what we need to be focused on, all this other stuff has been added.”
There are plenty of other oddities as well, such as not being able to see people’s faces.
“This is a new experience for me, to be interviewed by a cast of reporters while they’re all behind masks,” Rep. Patty Lundstrom said at a news conference Friday. “This is just a new world.”
Legislators moved fast to make up for lost time Friday, with both the House and Senate taking up bills they had meant to debate Thursday night. They even got a message of encouragement from Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham.
And though Egolf said he believes the session could be done by late Saturday, Wirth demurred.
“Certainly, I hope to,” he said.