I live in a constant state of political disappointment. That’s because I generally support fundamental (not revolutionary) change. I want my change to be legal and by the book, but not delayed forever. In other words, I like constitutional amendments.
But the amendments I want aren’t even proposed at the national or local levels, and they’re rarely passed on to voters at the state level. Instead, state legislators propose junk amendments.
For example, in 2024 New Mexico voters barely passed an amendment to change the method of choosing members of the Judicial Nominating Commission. Do you remember that? Probably not, even if you voted for it, because nobody knows or cares about that commission.
That amendment should have said: “The weird procedure for choosing members of the Judicial Nominating Commission is hereby removed from the constitution. Pass a law instead.” Our constitution is cluttered with trivia like this, but it fails to solve significant longtime problems.
One reason is that our legislators don’t get paid. Those willing and able to work for free are worth every penny we pay them — or less. They are either retired or independently wealthy and don’t require a salary. Unlike most of us, they want power, not money.
Everyone I’ve talked to is in favor of paying state legislators a reasonable salary, except for some legislators. I suspect the reason is that they fear they would lose their seats if they had to run against younger, more capable candidates.
Our previous senator, Siah Correa Hemphill, withdrew her candidacy for a second term because she said she couldn’t afford to be away so much for legislative sessions and committee meetings with no income. There may have been other private factors, but it is hard to be a legislator and a working mother at the same time.
Rep. Luis Terrazas answered questions about this during his campaign. He said his family funeral business enables him to serve, but he agreed that it might be a problem for people earlier in their careers. That didn’t stop Gabrielle Begay, a much younger elementary school teacher, from running against him, but her youth didn’t bring victory.
This year, Senate Joint Resolution 1 addresses legislative pay. It would set up a citizen commission to determine an appropriate salary, and start paying it. This is like similar proposals that have faded away during the last few sessions. Nobody opposes them, but somehow, they fail to get a vote at the end of the session.
If you were going to pay legislators, it would also be a good idea to reform our crazy system of alternating long and short sessions. That’s on the table again this year in the form of House Joint Resolution 1 (sponsored by Democrats) and House Joint Resolution 8 (sponsored by Republicans, including Terrazas). Both proposals are almost identical — and equally wrong.
Both replace the 60-day and 30day sessions every other year with 45-day sessions every year. In other words, the total session days would be the same. Right now, the short session is limited to budgets, but under the proposal any topic could be addressed in either session.
This might be all right for an unpaid amateur Legislature, but if we’re going to pay our lawmakers, we should pay them by the job, not by the day. Anyone who follows the Legislature knows that issues pile up at the end of the session, and the minority party tries to run out the clock on majority proposals.
How about working until you’re done? That’s what we business owners do. Legislators shouldn’t be time-limited; they should keep working until they have considered every bill that has support above a specified level. If they oppose something, they should vote it down on the record rather than delaying it forever. The incentive should be to finish, not to stall.
But this is the problem with asking the Legislature to reform itself. By definition, the Legislature is made up mostly of people who ran for and like the current process. Occasionally fundamental reform happens, but not very often.
What we need to reform the Legislature is the hand of God. A deep voice from the heavens would speak to legislators: “You need to pay yourselves a decent salary, hire enough staff to do a good job and keep working until the job is done.” The cowed legislators would meekly obey.
In many states, the voice of God comes in the form of initiatives. Voters sign petitions and vote to force legislators to do their jobs against their wills. The price of this voter override system is that sometimes the citizens are even less competent than the legislators.
Still, having previously lived in an initiative state, I would risk the incompetence of the people over the incompetence of the Legislature. But it’s Catch-22. Legislators would have to enable voter initiatives, and they won’t give up their power, even if they won’t use it themselves.
I hope I’m wrong. I hope voters get to vote on the amendment to pay legislators. The proposal for 45-day sessions every year is inadequate, but good enough to earn my tepid support. And I hope that, miraculously, other fundamental constitutional reforms (read my old columns for ideas) will be proposed and passed late in the session.
I’m not holding my breath.
