2021 Legislative Session

Lawmaker, advocates pursue greater sunshine from lobbyists

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Lobbying at the Roundhouse is a little bit different from other states. Put a crop of unpaid “citizen legislators” and well-paid professional lobbyists in a building together, and a certain culture develops in which lobbyists become key sources of information for lawmakers. “When I have colleagues that come in here from other states, or from the national level, they’re amazed at the degree of access that folks have here, and it’s more of an informal kind of a situation than it is at a lot of other venues,” said Dan Weaks, a professional lobbyist. In contrast to unpaid, understaffed legislators, lobbyists—many of whom have significant monetary resources at their disposal—can play an outsized role in the policymaking process, said Sen. Jeff Steinborn, D-Las Cruces, who has witnessed employers hire as many as 10 lobbyists for a single issue. 

“They had a lobbyist posted at every elevator.”

Another senator didn’t mince words. The system we have “empowers lobbyists over the people’s elected representatives, and that’s a pretty dysfunctional system, in my view,” said Sen. Jacob Candelaria, D-Albuquerque.

2019 legislative session

Lobbyists weigh in on disclosure, ban on spending proposals

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House State Government, Elections and Indian Affairs committee discussing HB 131. As the House of Representatives geared up for a late night on the floor last Monday, a group of lobbyists were asked to provide dinner for legislators: green chile cheeseburgers from Lota Burger. A few days later, on Thursday, Rep. Jane Powdrell-Culbert, R-Albuquerque, thanked a group of “lobbyists, about 40” who paid for what’s now an annual tradition — a catered lunch for House members from her extended family’s restaurant, Powdrell’s barbeque. The mood on the floor was jovial. To some, the displays did not quite square with the lawmakers’ vote the previous Sunday to ban lobbyist spending on lawmakers during a legislative session.

2019 legislative session

Roundhouse hall talk: “The barber is in the House”

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*This article has been updated twice

A stylist applies make-up to a state lawmaker at a pop-up salon at the New Mexico state capital on March 4. Stacked on the table are make-up compacts, and in the background another stylist is blowdrying hair. Need a haircut? If you know a lobbyist, and you’re a lawmaker, you might get a free cut. And conveniently, you could get the cut, or a blow-out, or even help with your make-up, right here in the Roundhouse.

2019 legislative session

House ups the ante in lobbyist regulation bill

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Rep. Dayan Hochman-Vigil responds to questions about HB 131 on the House floor, while her fellow Democrat and co-sponsor, Sen. Jeff Steinborn, looks on. It was originally just a simple bill requiring lobbyists to report to the Secretary of State all the bills they lobbied on, and their position on the bills if they took one, within 14 days of the end of the session. But before HB 131 was passed by the House of Representatives last night 62-0, it was amended to include a sweeping ban on lobbyist spending on lawmakers during a legislative session. “My intention is to limit a lobbyist from making any expenditure, whether they’re providing a committee dinner, whether they’re putting drinks in your office, whether they’re putting cookies on your table, it’s removing them from the process,” Republican Minority Leader Jim Townsend of Artesia said when explaining the amendment. State legislators are already barred from soliciting campaign contributions from January 1 through the end of each legislative session.

2019 legislative session

Public disclosure of legislation a lobbyist works on moves forward

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Lobbyist Tom Horan talks to the House State Government, Elections and Indian Affairs committee about why he opposes a lobbyist disclosure bill during the 2019 legislative session. An effort to require more transparency from lobbyists passed its first hurdle in the House. The idea behind HB 131 is pretty simple: lobbyists would report a few weeks after a legislative session ends what bills they worked on, including their position on each bill, if they had one. One of the bill co-sponsors said the measure aimed to help the public have a greater understanding of how policy is made. “We’re approached in the hallway, approached in the bar, people talk to you at a reception,” Sen. Jeff Steinborn, D-Las Cruces, told the House’s State Government, Elections, and Indian Affairs Committee Monday.

Senate Rules quick to pass lobbyist loophole fix

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The Senate Rules committee made quick work this morning passing a bill to reverse a measure in 2016 that reduced the amount of spending lobbyists are required to report. This year’s bill, sponsored by Sen. Daniel Ivey-Soto, D-Albuquerque, is included on the so-called “rocket docket,” a list of bills assigned to just one committee with the goal of fast-tracking them for signature by New Mexico’s new Democratic governor, Michelle Lujan Grisham. This video created by New Mexico In Depth in 2017 features Ivey-Soto explaining the problem created by the 2016 changes to lobbyist disclosure requirements.The rocket docket bills all previously passed the Legislature only to be vetoed by former Republican governor Susana Martinez. In her speech to a joint session of the Legislature on opening day, Lujan Grisham singled out Ivey-Soto’s bill, saying she favored signing the lobbyist disclosure measure. In front of the Senate Rules committee today, Ivey-Soto gave a familiar rundown of what happened in 2016, explaining that a bill he sponsored that year “inadvertently” dropped requirements that lobbyists report spending under $100.

Lobbyists dole out quarter million in lead up to session

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Santa Fe is known for food. Really good food. In fact, the culinary scene is known to foodies across the country – maybe the globe – thanks to periodic travel and food pieces over the decades in a variety of publications, including the New York Times. So it is no surprise that lobbyists would exploit Santa Fe’s culinary abundance as a way to build or maintain relationships with New Mexico’s policy makers. Forty one lobbyists, according to filings at the Secretary of State’s office, spent $35,000 since early October, about half of it at restaurants and hotels, on small groups of legislators, or in a few cases, legislative committees.

2018 Legislative Session

Ski passes, newspaper ads and meals: A look inside lobbyist spending during the session

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What do ski passes, meals and newspaper ads all have in common? Lobbyists or their employers have purchased them in recent weeks as part of their ongoing efforts to build relationships with or bring lawmakers around to their perspectives on issues. According to mandatory reports filed since January 17th, lobbyists or their employers have spent more than $75,111 so far this session, slightly more than $68,000 spent by this time last year. About half the expenses were in the form of meals at restaurants in and around the Roundhouse, mostly larger events to which all legislators were invited. Lobbyist Natasha Ning told New Mexico In Depth (NMID) she was lobbying to establish a new scholarship at New Mexico Military Institute (NMMI), called the New Mexico Opportunity Scholarship.

Transparency

Compliance with ABQ lobbying rules falls way short

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One way to cut through the din of constant political noise during an election is to look at the money flowing through the political system. Laws that require campaign and lobbying reports are meant to help the public learn about groups or people attempting to influence election outcomes through donations, or official decisions by spending money on elected officials once they’re in office. Those laws are only worthwhile, though, when they are followed. Take, for example, Albuquerque’s lobbying ordinance. It looks good on paper.