Special session’s challenge: Accord or acrimony

Can Gov. Martinez and Democrats avoid crisis, or will politics get in the way?

For a special session of the state Legislature last fall, Gov. Susana Martinez added reinstatement of the death penalty to an agenda in which balancing the budget initially was supposed to be the only issue. The Republican governor’s maneuver, just a month before the general election, was designed to cast attention on Democratic legislators that her camp called soft on criminals and hoped to defeat with a flurry of crimeand-punishment ads.

Now, eight months later, Martinez has set the agenda for another special session, this time adding a tax reform proposal and confirmation hearings for university regents, even as her Democratic foes in the Legislature say the sole focus should be the budget.

Special sessions cost about $50,000 a day, and that was one reason Martinez called them sparingly during her first years in office. But lately she has made more use of them, partly because of chronic budget problems and partly to advance her political agenda or jab at her enemies.

When legislators meet again in special session starting at noon Wednesday, their agenda will have been outlined by a Republican governor who has always seemed more comfortable sparring with them than collaborating. Martinez campaigned as an outsider — a former prosecutor who had not been part of the Legislature and who depicted it at times as a club out of touch with New Mexicans.

But voters dealt a blow to her party’s legislators in the last election, returning Democrats to power in the House of Representatives and giving them a larger majority in the Senate. The tough tone of Martinez’s campaigning days may not help as the state’s finances hang in the balance.

New Mexico’s colleges and universities, for example, still do not have state funding in place for the fiscal year that begins in July. Just as significant, the budget previously approved by the

Legislature might not cover the state’s expenses for the entire year. The test this week will be whether Martinez, after years of viewing the Legislature as a target, can work with majority Democrats to avoid crisis.

That lawmakers are meeting in special session for the second time in eight months reflects just how difficult even basic governance has become.

A former New Mexico governor, Republican Garrey Carruthers, said the dynamics of state politics has changed since the days he walked the floor of the House and Senate to win votes for certain policies.

“New Mexico was more at peace and the economy was going along pretty good,” said Carruthers, who was governor from 1987 to 1991 and now is chancellor of New Mexico State University.

Now New Mexico has the highest unemployment rate in the country and Martinez and majority Democrats have been at odds for years.

Martinez wants lawmakers to tackle tax reform and confirm her picks for university regents during this special session, but they can ignore her demand and potentially set up another showdown. Martinez, though, has also said she hopes the session is a short one, which could alleviate some of the pressure to take on the complex issue of tax reform in just a few days.

Democrats have cautioned against taking up big issues during a special session, when lawmakers may not have complete data about the cost of changing the tax code.

“We still don’t have a tax plan from the governor,” Senate Majority Leader Peter Wirth, D-Santa Fe, said Friday. “Clearly, that’s central to her solution. It’s just really hard to start to get your hands around what it is when we haven’t seen anything and the pieces keep moving.”

During the last few weeks, Martinez has seemed to soften her tone on some of the issues she had called on legislators to take up during the special session.

She has said she would support reinstating the gross receipts tax on groceries if it’s part of a broader tax reform plan. While the proposal is unpopular with many Democrats who argue that a tax on food would fall hardest on the poor, it has also demonstrated a step back from the governor’s outright rejection of any increase in taxes.

Asked if she would agree to legislation to fix the budget even if lawmakers do not confirm her picks for university regents or pass tax reform, she said higher education will be funded.

And after the governor met with Democratic lawmakers on Friday, a spokesman described the gathering as “productive,” different from the pronouncements in the last couple months blasting leading legislators.

Some Republican lawmakers also say the Legislature should study tax reform closely rather than rushing a vote on a plan that lawmakers had not seen as of Friday afternoon.

Sen. Bill Sharer, R-Farmington, has called for an analysis of tax reform and then a separate special session to act on the issue. Wirth said Sharer’s proposal has bipartisan support.

The governor’s response if lawmakers do not pass tax reform will reveal a lot. She could accuse the Senate in particular of stalling on an issue that she has said is ready for a vote. If she accepts a plan to study tax reform and vote on later, it would mark a shift toward the sort of collaboration that senior Democrats describe as rare.

Martinez has called few special sessions compared to her predecessors.

Bill Richardson, a Democrat, initiated six special sessions between taking office in 2003 and ending his second term in 2010. Republican Gary Johnson called three special sessions and a session for redistricting. Legislators also called themselves back into session during the final year of Johnson’s administration to override his veto of the state budget.

Martinez called a special session shortly after the start of her first term in 2011, but that was unavoidable. Legislators must meet every 10 years in special session to redraw the boundaries of political districts based on the latest census data. But she did not call another special session until 2015. That session lasted only one afternoon — just long enough for lawmakers to approve an agreement to fund brick-and-mortar projects around the state, like roads and water systems.

The governor called last year’s special session as New Mexico’s economy slumped and the state’s treasury emptied. But even then, Martinez had been hesitant to bring lawmakers back to the Roundhouse. Senate Finance Committee Chairman John Arthur Smith, D-Deming, had been asking for a special session since summer to fix the state’s budget. Martinez initially dismissed his requests as unnecessary, but then she convened a special session in late September as New Mexico faced a $600 million shortfall.

With just one month before an election in which control of the state Senate and House of Representatives was at stake, Martinez added more than budget issues to the agenda. She called on legislators to also consider reinstating the death penalty and other crime measures.

The Senate, controlled by Democrats, passed a budget plan and went home. The House, then controlled by Republicans, obliged Martinez with days of committee hearings on the crime bills. Republican House members even approved a bill in the predawn hours to reinstate the death penalty.

If Martinez’s special session agenda was intended to shape the election, it didn’t work. While Martinez may have sought to shift attention to crime, the state’s fiscal crisis allowed Democrats to campaign on the governor’s economic record. Democrats won back the House and expanded their majority in the Senate.

The session, which dragged from Sept. 30 to Oct. 6, cost a total of $201,360 because the Senate met for only a couple of days during that time and the House took a day off, too.

Over the last decade, the average daily cost of special sessions has proven higher, ranging from about $28,000 in 2007 to $50,000 in 2008.

Allowing a special session to drag on might be counterproductive for a governor, something Democrats are mentioning.

“Never go into a special session without knowing how you’re going to end up,” Richardson said during an interview in March. “And make ’em as short as possible.”