The last night and morning of the 2009 session was true to tradition: underlying hysteria with a thin veneer of shared accomplishment, pride and most of all-- relief. The Senate and the House worked into the wee hours on Friday night (Senate recessed at 1:30 a.m; House went until about 4 a.m), with some dramatic developments. You've probably read about these, but let me give you the eyewitness account. News came to the Senate about midnight that the House had killed the TIDDS bill. We couldn't believe it, as the bill, which guaranteed over $400 million in tax breaks to SunCal, had smooth sailing all along, passing the Senate 29 to 9, with plenty of time to make it through. Surely SB 249 would be reconsidered. And it was-- loosing again on a tie vote. Whoa, I thought, anything is possible now, including the passage of my long-sought-after campaign contributions limits, which at that point, was still pending in the House.
After the Senate adjourned, I went to the House to see whether they would hear the substitute bill on this subject that the Senate had sent them, which they had improved through two committee hearings. They did! Rep. Al Park, Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, carried it on the floor, fending off amendments for about two hours. By about 3:15 a.m., I was feeling a little weary, so I went back to my office to sleep on the couch. It was there that I heard the result over my office loudspeaker-- 49 yes, 17 no. A big margin, with some bipartisan support. The Senate still had to concur (which it did the next morning) but I was overjoyed. I've been pushing for this since my first session in 1997, when I carried a bill with the support of then-Attorney General Tom Udall.
I slept soundly in my office that night, lulled to sleep by the sounds of a group of students from the College of Santa Fe who spent the night in sleeping bags beneath my window, protesting the failure of the Senate Finance Committee to hear a bill which would have prolonged their life. They were playing guitars gently and murmuring among themselves.
The next morning I was disappointed to find that my bill to allow doctors to recycle prescription drugs unused by one patient to other patients (SB 40) was caught in the crossfire between the pharmaceutical companies and the trial lawyers, and would not be heard on the House Floor. But I was excited to hear the Sen. John Arthur Smith, acting in the spirit of the bill to open legislative conference committees which we had passed the previous night, announced that he was going to hold the first open conference committee on SB 584, sponsored by Sen. Ortiz y Pino
Well, I think it safe to say that the first open conference committee did not disappoint. A last-minute amendment attached to Sen. Ortiz y Pino's bill in the House by the Speaker was removed, amidst great discussion, and the committee report was adopted by both chambers. But that was not the end, as you doubtless have read. After the Noon adjournment of the Senate, as we were all milling around on the floor, there was an angry exchange between the Speaker and Sen. John Arthur Smith. The Speaker was angry that his amendment had been defeated and felt that his motives had been impugned, but he over-reacted. He has since apologized. Chalk up the explosion to the end-of-session frenzy. But chalk up the exposure of the last minute amendment-and possibly its rejection-- to open conference committees.
I've been following your campaign contributions limits bill, and had a question about it. It talks about limits on persons, PACs, and political parties, but not by corporations. Are contributions by corporations to candidates forbidden, unlimited, or addressed elsewhere? In other words, how do they compare to the new limits in your bill?
Posted by: michelle meaders | April 05, 2009 at 11:52 PM