Lawmakers, watchdogs want greater transparency on budget
Susan Boe still remembers her surprise when she discovered the door was locked at the state Capitol.
Looking through the small window of a legislative hearing room, she could make out members of the House Appropriations and Finance Committee. She had been tipped off that they were talking about the budget and she wanted to sit in on the meeting, which she assumed was open.
Boe, then the executive director of the New Mexico Foundation for Open Government, had assumed wrong.
The meeting was closed, offlimits to outsiders.
“It was pretty frustrating,” Boe said last week, recalling that day nearly five years ago when she tried to get a sense of how lawmakers were finalizing the state budget. “We represent the public, so I assume that meant it was offlimits to them, too.
“That seems to be the M.O. over there.”
Legislators long involved in the budget-making process – including former Sen. John Arthur Smith of Deming, the longtime chairman of the influential Senate Finance Committee – acknowledged budget discussions and decisions have taken place behind closed doors.
“I can assure you that the practice that we did is the historical practice in New Mexico state Legislature,” said Smith, who served in the Senate for 32 years before being defeated in June’s Democratic Party primary.
It works like this, Smith said: As the deadline for coming up with a final budget approaches, influential lawmakers on both the Senate and House finance committees convene “work groups” to hash out final details.
In Smith’s case, that meant calling in a couple of members of his committee – an equal number from each political party but not a quorum, he said – to leave a floor session to discuss what needs to be done to balance the budget.
“I would bring in Republican and Democratic budget people and say, ‘How do we work this out?’ “he recalled. “That would happen at the 11th hour, right at the very end.”
On the House side, members of the House Appropriations and Finance Committee could convene outside hearing rooms in what Chairwoman Patty Lundstrom, D-Gallup, also calls work groups.
Lundstrom said nothing is secretive about the work. Rather, she said, it involves her pulling in some budget experts to learn more
about various programs. Those people might include members of her committee, a member of the Senate, a member of the Legislative Finance Committee or an advocate for a particular program.
“If I want to call people in and ask them questions about components about the bill, that’s completely OK in my mind,” she said. “Often that happens with any piece of legislation. I am the primary sponsor of House Bill 2 [the budget bill]. If I want other people’s participation, I’m gonna pull them in. I don’t think that’s preventing anyone from knowing what’s going on.”
She said anyone tracking any piece of legislation can follow where it is and what changes are made to it throughout the session.
“If someone is thinking there’s
lots of deals being cut behind closed doors, all you have to do is look at what we started with, what we are recommending and what those differences are,” she said.
But Lundstrom’s case falls short for open government advocates. Under the scenario outlined by Lundstrom, they say, the budget ship has already sailed.
“Why do they have to meet offline to fix an amendment?” asked Melanie Majors, the current executive director of the Foundation for Open Government. “Why can’t they do that in an open hearing?”
Smith counters that time constraints often force legislators’ hands, requiring quick decisions. Sometimes, he said, other senators make it clear they do not want to be part of the final decision-making group because those choices, particularly if they involve cuts, can be unpopular with constituents.
Still, he said, “I understand the perception. It’s not that you are trying to be secretive. You are trying to meet a deadline to get out of there.”
But Foundation for Open Government representatives and some lawmakers say it doesn’t have to be that way, and they argue it’s time for a cultural change in the way both chambers do business when it comes to ensuring the budgetmaking process is transparent.
The solution is simple, they say: Just turn all closed-door meetings into open-door meetings.
“People need to see how it works,” Majors said. “The public might have a better understanding of the tough job legislators do if they could see what happens when they put it together.”
In her view, all that is needed is a legislative rule change, one that makes it clear any official discussions about the budget remain open to the public.
“Let’s put into effect new rules that all budget negotiations should be done in public, with 72 hours’ notice, and not take any input until we have everybody there and they can see how hard this is,” she said.
Sen. Mimi Stewart, D-Albuquerque, said that in talking with senators who want to succeed Smith as the influential Senate Finance Committee chair, they all tell her the same thing regarding the issue.
“Every one of them had ideas on how to change the committee to make it be more accessible to other members of our caucus and attempt to do more work in the open,” she said. “I’m really hopeful that we are going to be able to change the way the committee works and have it be more transparent.”