Standoff may doom special session

Kate Nash | The New Mexican

2/19/2008 - 2/20/08

Just an hour after this year's legislative session ended, Gov. Bill Richardson vowed he'd ask lawmakers to again consider his health care bill — the exact same measure.

Unless he changes his mind, however, some lawmakers say his proposal will meet the same fate in a special session that it met in the regular session.

"If he wants to call us back and offer the same bill he offered, there's hardly anybody that supports that bill in that form," Rep. Mimi Stewart, D-Albuquerque, said. "I don't know what he's going to accomplish."

Richardson has yet to set a date for the special session, something he could do by week's end.

In the last session, Richardson's bill to require all New Mexicans to get health insurance starting in 2010 was gutted and then passed by the House. It died in the Senate when it didn't get a hearing by the Senate Finance Committee in the last days of the session.

Although Richardson administration officials say they had worked for months on the proposal, many lawmakers say they didn't have enough time to consider its ramifications. Others said they just plain opposed it.

Richardson's office, however, said Tuesday that there are no changes in store at the moment. "That's the bill with the plan that makes the most sense," spokesman Gilbert Gallegos said.

Even if there were changes to the measure, the bill is likely to be assigned to the same committees as it was last time, including the House Health and Government Affairs Committee, where it was stripped of its insurance mandates and the requirement that employers pay into a health care system that would cover 400,000 New Mexicans now lacking insurance.

Members of the committee, chaired by Stewart, don't seem likely to change their minds.

"I'd like to see us take the bills how they left the House. That would be a good starting point," said Rep. Luciano "Lucky" Varela, D-Santa Fe. "If we get the same old original bills, we'll have to start all over again."

When another of Richardson's bills left the House committee, it provided that a new Health Coverage Authority — which would oversee changes to the health care system — would appoint its own executive director. Richardson has said he wants to appoint the director and isn't willing to compromise on that point.

At the same time, lawmakers don't appear to be backing down either. "That was the feeling of the majority of the members of the House," Varela said regarding the appointment issue.

Beyond the House committees, though, Senate Minority Whip Leonard Lee Rawson said he doesn't see any Republicans in his chamber going for the measure, either.

"I see no reason for a special session unless the governor has gotten people to change their position," said Rawson, R-Las Cruces. "If he's not going to change the bill, then you've got to change people's position on the bill."

While it's unclear whether those changes will happen, Stewart said something at the Roundhouse — and with Richardson in particular — has changed.

In the past, she said, "he's been able to convince the Legislature to pass bills that we haven't necessarily liked. It doesn't seem that it's working with health care. It's too big an issue; we're not experts in it."

Some lawmakers are still upset about the 30-day session that ended last week.

Stewart is angry about some of Richardson's vetoes of money to pay for programs she sponsored.

One would have expanded a "kindergarten plus" program while the other would have funded off-reservation American Indian health programs.

"If he's angry at me, he's taking it out on Native Americans and kids in poverty in Bernalillo County," Stewart said. "Not a wise choice if you ask me."

Richardson's office said the vetoes had nothing to do with the sponsor. As for the off-reservation health care veto, the Governor's Office said he signed $60,000 in another bill that would go to the same purpose. The governor is leaning toward signing a related urban Indian health care bill sponsored by Stewart, his office said.

And as for the kindergarten plus program veto, Gallegos said, the governor didn't want to permanently fund it until he could see how a pilot project is going.

Stewart also sponsored sweeping changes in the state's school funding formula, which passed the House but died in the Senate.

Stewart said Richardson worked against the measure, but Gallegos said Education Secretary Veronica Garcia worked with Stewart on concerns the administration had with the accountability aspects of the bill.

Meanwhile, Rawson said Richardson's $16 million in vetoes within the $6 billion state budget bill were politically motivated.

"You could see the vetoes in House Bill 2 were targeted at specific legislators or other elected officials because he didn't approve of their position or statements, and I think that's unfortunate," the Republican said.

Richardson's office, however, denied the vetoes were politically motivated.

"Senator Rawson has some nerve," Gallegos said. "Most legislators would likely agree that Senator Rawson, as a member of the Senate Finance Committee, acted in a politically motivated way when he refused to even consider health care reform, funding for the Rail Runner and funding for public schools."

Rawson said the Legislature did substantial work on the health care issue, passing 18 health-related measures, including bills tied to the state's medical insurance pools, healthy eating, malpractice insurance for nurse-midwives and mental illnesses in children.

Another key measure Richardson wanted from the last session was an electronic medical records act, something the Senate rejected late in the session. The measure would have made patient medical records available online, something the governor said he'll try for again in the special session.

Contact Kate Nash at 986-3036 or knash@sfnewmexican.com. Read her blog, Green Chile Chatter.