Fewer bills might save bad legislators from themselves
It was a cold day and nerves were frayed. After an exhausting two-month session, only an hour remained for New Mexico legislators to make decisions on important laws.
Then-Rep. Monica Youngblood, R-Albuquerque, stood at close range as senators debated one of her prized bills.
Youngblood wanted people whose job is “eyebrow threading” exempted from having to obtain a cosmetology license.
It was the sort of oddball proposal that caused laughter and fury in the Senate. Someone who didn’t want to go through the expense or trouble of obtaining a cosmetology license had a legislator’s ear, if not her stylish eyebrows.
Sen. Cliff Pirtle, R-Roswell, made spirited arguments against Youngblood’s bill. Pirtle’s wife, Aysia, was a licensed cosmetologist. The verifiable skills of anyone rearranging eyebrows had the senator’s attention. Pirtle didn’t want a loophole.
He lost the argument, as senators approved Youngblood’s bill 27-12. ThenGov. Susana Martinez later signed the measure into law.
The bill was one of 21 that Youngblood sponsored or co-sponsored in the 60-day session of 2017. In addition to the eyebrow bill, two of her other proposals became law.
One amended the state Barbers and Cosmetologists Act to provide for a hairstylist license. The other bill, which Youngblood sponsored with four other representatives, set minimum disclosure requirements for the sale or lease of energy generation systems.
Youngblood’s other 18 bills failed, though many received hearings.
Establishing priorities has never been a strength of state legislators.
Everyone who’s set foot in the Capitol knows lawmakers want to tell their constituents they passed important legislation. They waste time, money and paper introducing a raft of bills in hopes that a few will be approved, even if they are inconsequential or counterproductive.
Now, House Speaker Brian Egolf, D-Santa Fe, is floating a lead-filled trial balloon for the upcoming 60-day session. He suggests that each of the 70 state representatives introduce no more than five bills.
This would amount to a starvation diet for House members.
They introduced an average of 19 bills per member in the 60-day sessions of 2015 and 2019.
In the 2017 session, when state government was broke and pet projects had little chance, the average was 16 bills per member.
At five bills, Egolf is being as generous as he is unrealistic. Every lawmaker could find a way to circumvent a limit on proposed legislation.
Lawmakers already introduce “dummy” bills, which they prefer to call emergency measures. These are blank pages that can be turned into specific proposals for the “health, safety and welfare” of the public.
Every legislator will say he or she needs to have emergency bills available to respond to the needs of the people. They usually don’t mention the clamoring of lobbyists or leaders of political action committees who make campaign donations.
Rep. Zach Cook, R-Ruidoso, introduced a bill in 2019 to give tax breaks to certain horse tracks. Cook told me his friends at Ruidoso Race Track and Casino wrote the bill, then handed it off for him to sponsor.
Though introduced late in the session, Cook’s bill advanced to the full House of Representatives before dying on a 33-32 vote.
Sometimes, a lawmaker wants to pass a bad bill for personal reasons.
Rep. Andrea Romero, D-Santa Fe,
sponsored a measure in 2019 that would have fined private companies if they refused to purge “damaging” information about people from their websites.
The professional staff that helps legislators draft their bills knew Romero’s proposal amounted to an assault on the First Amendment. Anyone arrested on suspicion of committing a serious crime might claim newspaper and television websites had to remove coverage of the case.
Romero pulled the bill after Egolf spoke to her. By then, staff time had been wasted on drafting her proposal.
Other inane bills to help a buddy have gone further.
Sen. Pete Campos, D-Las Vegas, in the last three years introduced bills to designate a “state chile song” and an “official state winter holiday song.”
Neither bill cleared the Legislature, but both squandered precious time in 60-day sessions.
Campos, a senator for 30 years, doesn’t mind wasting legislative sessions on trivia if he can please cronies.
In 2019, he introduced 25 memorials — proposals that eat up time but have no force of law. One of Campos’ memorials recognized “the contributions of the Department of Political Science at the University of New Mexico.”
A five-bill limit might save the worst legislators from themselves. Then again, since all politics is retail, they’re not especially concerned about the greater good.