WHAT PASSED

The budget

HB 2: The $5.4 billion proposed budget trims spending by more than $150 million, or roughly 2.7 percent. Of that, roughly $35 million of the savings come from public schools. More than $41 million in cost savings would come from higher education. The budget includes a $22 million increase in spending on Medicaid, the government's low-income health-insurance program.

Public employees

HB 628: Would save nearly $111 million by requiring state workers and educators to pay more into their pensions while the government reduces its payroll contributions by a similar amount. The bill also will delay higher state payments to shore up the retirement fund for public-school employees and college faculty.

Education

SB 427: Would assign schools the grades of A to F based on student achievement and other factors, such as high-school graduation rates. This was one of Gov. Susana Martinez's priorities.

SB 78: Would require the Public Education Department to establish guidelines for bullying-prevention policies for local school boards. Every local school board would have to have a policy by August 2011, and every public school would have to implement a program by August 2012.

Health

SB 38: Would set up a New Mexico health care exchange, which is a requirement under the nation's health care law. In addition to setting up an exchange, the bill would provide for the appointment, powers and duties of a 10-member board of directors and proposes that two existing nonprofits, the New Mexico Medical Insurance Pool and the Health Insurance Alliance, help run the exchange.

SB 208: Would strengthen the state's power to review health insurers' requests for premium increases.

SB 37: Would allow people to donate unused prescription drugs to doctors, licensed clinics and health care facilities. The bill would exclude controlled substances, like hydrocodone and oxycodone, from the donation program and would require the licensed providers to examine and certify that the drug has been properly stored and is suitable for redistribution. The bill requires the patient to accept all the risk and would release donors and participating providers from liability.

Crime

HB 365: Is an expansion of Katie's Law, which will allow law enforcement to collect DNA samples from suspects who have been booked on felony charges. It's named for Katie Sepich, a New Mexico State University student who was murdered in 2003. Currently, the law applies only to certain violent felonies. The governor pushed for the bill and has said she'll sign it.

SB 321: Would allow courts to order an assessment of a person convicted of a fourth-degree drug charge to determine the offender's need for treatment. The court could refer the offender to a substance-abuse treatment program for 18 months or fewer. If the offender successfully completes the program, the court could dismiss the charges.

SB 96: Would establish fees on prison inmate phone calls, which would help fund a victim-notification system when inmates are released.

HB 298: Would strengthen language in the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act and require more information from sex offenders when they register. It also would add to the act the crimes of kidnapping and false imprisonment of adults and criminal solicitation of a minor by an electronic device.

HB 196: Would allow some witnesses under the age of 16 to avoid having to testify in criminal and civil court proceedings. It would allow judges to hold hearings to determine what effect open-court testifying would have on a child witness and allow some minors' testimony to take place on closed-circuit television.

Business

HB 607: Would cap at $50 million what New Mexico can pay out each year in rebates to qualifying TV and film projects through the state's film-production tax credit. It also would add a staggered schedule the state must use when paying out rebates to qualifying productions.

SB 44: Would formalize the tracking requirements and generally tighten the film-production tax credit.

SB 19: Would tighten a program that gives advantage to New Mexico businesses in contracting with the state. The current system is meant to give companies in the state an edge by granting them a 5 percent preference in pursuing state contracts. Bill supporters said the system has been abused by out-of-state companies that only meet New Mexico tax residency requirements on a short-term basis before bidding on state contracts. SB 19 would ensure those tax dollars go to New Mexicans.

Ethics and transparency

SB 327: Would put information about public schools, including budgets, salaries and expenditures, on the state's Sunshine Portal.

SB 432: Would expand the Government Conduct Act to include local officials as well as state officials. Attorney General Gary King pushed for this measure.

SB 52: Would require public records to be transmitted electronically if requested, and if the transfer is possible with existing resources.

Miscellaneous

SB 17: Would remove the governor from the State Investment Council in two years. Removing the governor from the council was a recommendation of a consultant who said the governor in this state has far more influence over investments than governors do in most other states.

HB 161 and SB 47: Would require the state Taxation and Revenue Department to prepare an annual tax-expenditure budget detailing the real costs of all tax credits, exemptions and deductions.

SB 63: Would require increasing minimum percentages of local food procurement by state and local governments during the next five years.

HB 15: Would ensure that every person serving in active-duty military receive burials in accordance to their wishes. It would require that the Department of Defense Record of Emergency Data form be the only information used to direct burial or disposition arrangements for military members because military personnel fill these forms out themselves.

SB 109: Would establish the squash blossom as the official state necklace.



WHAT FAILED

Immigration

HB 78: Would have prohibited driver's licenses issued to illegal immigrants. The bill passed the House after a rancorous two-day debate. But it was heavily amended in the Senate, and in its current version, it would still allow undocumented people to get licenses. The two chambers never could agree on a compromise.

Crime

HB 371 and HJR 6: Both a bill to change the death-penalty law and a memorial to amend the state constitution to bring back capital punishment died at their first committee hearing in the House.

SB 348: Would have made reckless mistreatment of, abandonment of or failure to provide necessary sustenance to an animal a fourth-degree felony if those acts lead to great bodily harm or death of an animal. The bill also would have made it a fourth-degree felony to engage in or cause another person to engage in bestiality.

Property taxes

SB 108: The long-awaited fix for a property-tax law that has been declared unconstitutional by several judges would have directed assessors to recalculate the value of homes that changed hands between 2004 and 2010 and cap the amount that all residential property values can increase at 3 percent per year going forward. One version of the measure passed the Senate but was amended before passing the House — and then time ran out before the bill was reconsidered by the full Senate.

Elections

HB 308 and HB 577: Would have required voters to present photo identification.

SB 547: Was aimed at tightening campaign-finance disclosure laws dealing with groups that are not formally associated with political parties or individual candidates.

Education

HB 21: Was targeted to end "social promotion" by requiring teachers to hold back third-graders who lack basic reading skills rather than allowing them to move along to the next grade. This is another bill strongly pushed by the governor.

SB 292: Would have frozen the tuition of students on the lottery scholarships at the level it was when he or she first received the scholarship.

HB 302: Would have protected teachers who taught "controversial scientific topics." The sponsor, Rep. Tom Anderson, R-Albuquerque, denied the bill was aimed at promoting the teaching of "creationism" in public schools. However, a group that opposes Darwin's theory of evolution ran a full-page newspaper ad promoting the bill, and science groups opposed the measure.

Government

SB 187: Would have required government agencies to share information with a new Program Evaluation Division of the Legislative Finance Committee. It passed both chambers of the Legislature on unanimous votes but was vetoed Friday by the governor. Former Gov. Bill Richardson vetoed a similar bill in 2009, which prompted the Senate last year to override the veto.

Finance

SB 1: Would have authorized the state to issue up to $300 million in bonds purchased with money from New Mexico's permanent funds. Proceeds from the sale would have been used to help plug all or part of the hole in the state operating budget for the year that starts July 1.

Public employees

HB 351: Was designed to prevent political appointees from landing protected classified positions in state government during the last year of a governor's administration. The bill's sponsor, Republican Rick Little of Chaparral, said the measure was a response to multiple examples of exempt employees appointed by former Gov. Bill Richardson landing classified jobs in the waning months of Richardson's administration last year. Gov. Martinez backed the bill, as did the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.

Environment and energy

HB 461: Would have authorized local governments to bond against gross-receipts tax revenues for energy-efficiency and renewable-energy projects. The bonds are now only accessible to schools and state agencies.

HB 46 and SB 51: Would have provided protections to farmers who have unintended possession of a genetically engineered product.

HB 565: Would have legalized cultivation of industrial hemp.

Ethics and transparency

HB 378: Would have let judges enhance the sentences of public officials convicted of corruption and would not allow convicted officials to lobby the Legislature.

SB 259: Would have allowed a judge to impose a fine on the sentence of a public official convicted on corruption charges. The fine could have been equal to the salary and benefits that the convicted elected official received in that position. It also would allow a judge to order the official's pension forfeited.

SB 247: Would require those convicted of corruption charges to lose their pensions.

HB 383: Would have created a new public-corruption unit within the Department of Public Safety.

SB 18: Would have given New Mexico its own version of a powerful anti-fraud weapon that a series of attorneys general in New York have used to prosecute everyone from a former New York state comptroller to President Barack Obama's former car czar. Among other things, the bill would expand the definition of fraud and allow the attorney general to find a violation of the act without having to prove criminal intent.

HB 604: Pushed by the Santa Fe think tank Think New Mexico, the measure would have outlawed campaign contributions from contractors and lobbyists. It died in the House.

HB 368: Would have required that the records of public officials be open to public inspection. The bill, which passed the House unanimously, was inspired by former Gov. Bill Richardson, who attempted to seal his records for eight years.

HB 406: Would have made state motor-vehicle databases available to anyone who requests them electronically. Taxation and Revenue Secretary Demesia Padilla said her agency gets $6.3 million a year from a Kansas-based company that for the past two years has had a contract to sell the data, and making the information available electronically would have threatened this source of revenue.

HB 367: Would have required most public meetings to be webcast — both audio and video.

SB 49: Would have required a number of Public Regulation Commission documents such as case information, notices, summaries of rate and plan filings, and annual utility reports to be posted on the state's Sunshine Portal.

SB 53: Would have required the state auditor or an independent expert to review proposed planning and development leases before they could be finalized by the state land commissioner.

SB 347: Would have prohibited campaign contributions to land commissioner candidates by those who hold contracts with the State Land Office.

Miscellaneous

SB 342: Would have allowed radio stations that devote 20 percent of their air time to New Mexico musical acts to get credit for as much as 15 percent of the gross-receipts tax they owe.

HB 259: Would have allowed a person riding a bicycle to slow down and cautiously make a turn or proceed through an intersection with a stop sign if safety does not require a stop. In the case of a red traffic-control signal, the bill stated, a person on a bicycle should stop before entering the intersection and yield to other traffic.