News
Legislative session ends on collegial notes
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By Robert Nott and Daniel J. Chacón, The Santa Fe New Mexican
In the end, as Dean Martin liked to sing, everybody loves somebody — at least, sometime. That was true in the waning minutes of this year’s legislative session as lawmakers from opposing parties and with markedly different views of political philosophy bid goodbye to one another with hugs, handshakes and fare-thee-wells. Absent was any sense of partisan conflict as legislators, weary after 60 days of debates, decisions and defeats — as well as victories, of course — bid adieu to it all for another year at noon Saturday. In the House of Representatives, there was a more collegial feeling of mutual respect, even if the two parties’ respective legislative goals were often at odds.
After debating and voting on a broad omnibus tax package that had curved its way through the last week of the session like a hard-to-catch serpent, members of the House took on about six Senate bills, approving them rapidly in the last hours of the floor session. The House benefited from an influx of new vitality courtesy of over 15 new members in both major political parties as well as the energy of two new floor leaders — House Speaker Javier Martínez, D-Albuquerque, and House Minority Leader Ryan Lane, R-Aztec.