It was a small part of the State of the State address; it warranted a throw-away line from our recap of the speech from Gov. Susana Martinez to a joint session of the Legislature and a sea of dignitaries and guests.
Gov. Susana Martinez during the 2016 Legislative Session. Photo Credit: Andy Lyman.
Someone shouted “Shame on you!” at Martinez during her now-annual section on drivers’ licenses.
KRQE-TV found out who it is: Rep. Christine Trujillo, a Democrat from Albuquerque.
Trujillo is a retired educator and frequently clashed with the Martinez administration.
She told the Albuquerque TV station that she has no regrets.
“I said, ‘Shame on you!’ because I think she was antagonistic,” Trujillo told the TV station. “It made me very angry.”
While she told the station she has no regrets, Speaker of the House Don Tripp, R-Socorro, said that it “is inappropriate on the floor of the House.”
A spokesman for the governor called it “petty heckling.”
From our report on the State of the State:
While she spoke, someone on the Democratic side of the House shouted out. It wasn’t clear from the press gallery who it was, whether it was a member or one of the hundreds of guests.
Deborah Martinez said, on Twitter, that someone shouted “Shame on you!”
While Martinez, who works for KSFR, said it was Rep. Sheryl Williams Stapleton, D-Albuquerque, that turned out not to be accurate.
It brought to mind another famous political heckle; U.S. Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C., couldn’t contain himself during an address by President Barack Obama to a joint session of Congress (it was not the State of the State) on health care reform in Sep. 2009.
Wilson yelled, “You lie!” at the president.
He was reprimanded by Congress later that year in a largely symbolic gesture. It did not hurt his electoral prospects; Wilson remains a member of the House.
