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Lobbyists adjust to new reality of virtual session
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Mark Duran spends virtually every day inside the New Mexico state Capitol during a 60-day legislative session. But now, Duran is learning to adapt to a virtual environment amid a pandemic that prompted state officials to move most lawmaking over to the internet and keep the building closed to the public and others, including lobbyists like Duran who are a mainstay when the Legislature meets in Santa Fe. “As a lobbyist who is used to being in that building, sometimes 18 hours a day, the first thing that I am doing is accepting that this is a virtual legislative session, as hard as it is to accept,” said Duran, who has been a lobbyist in New Mexico for some 35 years. Duran and other registered lobbyists said this year’s legislative session, which began last week with masked lawmakers separated by Plexiglas partitions between their desks, is a big adjustment for people in an industry whose bread and butter is face-to-face interaction. No more handshakes.