Legislators share thoughts

CLOVIS - During a pandemic which has left little certainty on anything, eastern New Mexico legislators provided two certainties to business leaders Thursday.

First, the rocky financial road the state is experiencing only looks rockier in the next few years. Second, local legislators aren't the ones driving.

Three of the area's legislators - Sen. Pat Woods and Reps. Randy Crowder and Martin Zamora - shared their thoughts on the five-day special session that concluded June 22. The discussion was held with about two dozen people meeting at K-Bob's Steakhouse for eggs, bacon and potatoes and a small number of people participating via Zoom meeting. Legislators spoke to the in-person crowd and an iPad, to which Woods gave a slow wave and a jovial, "Hello out there."

Crowder, Woods and Zamora are all Republican, as are the rest of eastern New Mexico's legislators.

The rest of the state, Crowder noted, has been largely Democratic for years. The party has held the trifecta of the governor's office and both houses of the Legislature for 60 of its 90 years, with Republicans last holding such status in 1930.

The current body has Democratic advantages of 46-24 in the House of Representatives and 26-16 in the Senate. If Democrats gain one representative and two senators in the general election, Crowder said, they'll have two-thirds majorities and wouldn't need a GOP vote to enact emergency clauses on legislation or tap into the state rainy-day fund.

"Two-thirds majority is unfettered access," Crowder said, "unfettered control."

Local legislators shared uneasiness after the regular session in February, noting the state budget was built on $52 per barrel oil prices that were quickly cratering in February as world markets took the early pandemic hits.

By the end of March, it was abundantly clear Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham would have to call a special session to deal with the myriad financial issues of the pandemic. The session was scheduled just past the midway point of June to provide the clearest financial picture possible and make budget fixes before the 2019-20 fiscal year closed out.

Legislators, Crowder said, had to look toward a pair of budget shortfalls - $374 million to close out 2019-20 and $1.97 billion for 2020-21. To accomplish that, carve-outs included $148 million in reserves, $597 million from various initiatives including road construction and planned pay raises for state employees, $623 million from the rainy-day fund and an application of $750 million in federal CARES Act funding.

Crowder noted projections of a budget deficit around $1.705 billion for 2021-22, and there won't be CARES Act money or a healthy reserve fund to tap.

"We took out the low-hanging fruit," Crowder said. "2022 is going to be an incredibly tough hole to patch."

One item that may become low-hanging fruit, Crowder said, is a $300 million trust fund for the just-established Early Childhood Education and Care Department.

Creation of the ECECD was part of what Lujan Grisham called a moonshot, and Zamora sees it as the state putting too much on the plate while being overly optimistic on unpredictable economic factors.

"Our problems started two years ago," Zamora said. "We heard the moonshot pitched. It's what the people wanted to hear. They got excited about it. Now we've got to pay for the moonshot.

"We didn't have to do the moonshot. We didn't have to do the things we did. Being it's an election year, we'll see what the people really want."

Zamora, the only local legislator facing a general election challenge, noted a vote on Senate Bill 4 drew 15 dissenting votes from Democrats. The floor leader also voted no for the procedural function of recalling the vote, and Zamora said after a closed-door caucus meeting 12 of those votes flipped over to yes.

"If I flip-flop on a vote," Zamora told the crowd, "you vote me out."

Woods, minutes into his comments, talked of devastating pandemic impacts to small businesses and the tourism industry and said he never stuck to his planned remarks.

"I wrote a speech two times," Woods said with a laugh, "and I haven't said a damn word from it."

Woods noted the Legislature can meet under three circumstances -the normal session that starts in late January, a special session as called by the governor and an extraordinary session called by three-fourths of legislators. The three-fourths is needed, Woods said, because it would be anticipated legislation that may require veto-proof votes. That possibility, Woods said, will be raised at an interim meeting he plans to attend Tuesday.

"I guarantee it will be discussed," Woods said, "because I'll bring it up."

Crowder said the session was unusual in some ways because three of the Democrats' most powerful legislators were in session for possibly their last time, having been part of the five sitting Democrats who lost primary challenges a few weeks before the session started.