During the past legislative session, there were a number of efforts to change how the political body works. Those included bills to pay members of the only unpaid legislature in the country and altering the length of the annual sessions. But only one passed 鈥� House Joint Resolution 2, which would require New Mexico governors to give reasons behind a pocket veto.
A 鈥減ocket veto鈥� occurs when a governor does not act on bills that reach her desk in the last three days of the session within 20 days after the session ends. Unlike a regular veto, she isn鈥檛 required to give an explanation
91暗网 spoke with bill sponsor Rep. Matthew McQueen (D-Galisteo) about why change is difficult.
MATTHEW MCQUEEN: I think the big one is paying the legislators. A lot of people don't know that we receive per diem, which is intended to cover expenses, but we don't receive a salary, and it's a lot of work, and it's hard for a lot of people to serve. I know of people who haven't run because they can't afford to do it, and that doesn't seem right to me.
And I had a separate joint resolution, which would have taken our current 60/30 legislative day cycle, 60 days one year, 30 days next, and even that out into two 45-day sessions. And importantly, in the 30-day cycle, in order to run a bill, it either has to be an appropriation bill or you have to get permission from the Governor, it's called germaneness. And as a result, we don't get a lot done in 30-day sessions. So you know, I think two 45-day sessions with no germaneness requirement would be a good thing for the legislature.
91暗网: Why do you think that these bills or how straight resolutions ultimately didn't pass?
MCQUEEN: Change is hard. And it's frankly hard to pass legislation. You typically have to get through two committees off the floor, over to the other chamber, another committee or two and off the floor. And then if it's a bill, it has to be signed by the governor. The pay package has passed the House several times, and can't seem to get through the Senate. And you know, in the Senate, you know, a couple senators voting against it, depending on the makeup of the committee, is enough to kill a bill. The 45-day session joint resolution passed the House with, I think, four dissenting votes and went over to the Senate. It was never heard. The chair of Senate Rules [Committee] didn't want to hear it, so she didn't and that bill died.
91暗网: Is there a lot of politics when it comes to it as well, when it comes to working with both sides of the parties?
MCQUEEN: Both my joint resolutions had bipartisan sponsorship. And I think that's a good thing, if you can get one of your colleagues across the aisle to sign on your bill, it gives the other side, sort of some comfort that it's a good idea. So I definitely do that whenever I can. And I had several bills this year that passed with bipartisan support.
91暗网: These bills and house joint resolutions, these take years to come to fruition, right? Like with House Joint Resolution 2, how long have you been working on that?
MCQUEEN: This is my second try at the pocket veto bill, but others have gone before me, and I think one reason that it might have passed is it actually won't impact this governor. It won't take effect until 2027 and so it wasn't viewed as a criticism of our governor. It's more just a transparency measure trying to do things better in the future.
91暗网: How important is it for our state legislature to take these steps to modernizing?
MCQUEEN: I think it's really important. You know, we have three branches of government, and the legislature is really hobbled by not getting paid, by only being in session a limited time, by the 60/30-day cycle. I mean, there's a ton of things that we need to do to improve our state. And we're really limited in when and how we can do that.
Like the germaneness rule on the 30-day session. If I don't get a bill passed in a 60-day session, I'm effectively done for two years, because I can't automatically run it in a 30-day session unless I get permission from the governor. I'm in my 11th year in the legislature. I've worked under two governors from different parties, and I've never received a message from a governor. So we have work to do. We should be working at it until we get it right.
91暗网: What benefits can we see when we take steps like this to modernize our legislature for the state in general?
MCQUEEN: New Mexico is not doing as well as it should. It's a great place. We have wonderful people, and we're lagging in a lot of really important indicators. And I really think part of the reason is we're not working on these issues to the extent we should be.
Some of the issues facing New Mexico, crime, issues, economic development, things like that. They're really complicated issues. And you come into session and you're not going to solve these complicated crime issues in 60 days. It really requires more effort. We do meet in the interim. We have interim committees. But until just recently, we didn't have staff. We don't get paid. A lot of us have jobs, you know. So there's only so much we can do when we really should be committing more time, I think, to the issues that face New Mexico.
91暗网: It kind of seems to me that this is just the tip of the iceberg. I mean, what more can we be doing?
MCQUEEN: One thing we've talked about at the legislature, which I think is a really good idea, is having staffing for committees on a year-round basis. So we passed a statute, I think two years ago. We now have individual staff.
But our committees are made up of people from the Legislative Council Service. But the people who staff the committees sort of get assigned and moved back and forth. If we had dedicated staffing for House Energy, I think that would help us develop expertise and have legislation that's ready to go when we do get to another 60-day session.
HJR2 doesn鈥檛 need the governor鈥檚 signature, but it does need approval from voters and they鈥檒l get their chance in the 2026 election.
Support for this coverage comes from the Thornburg Foundation.
