A longer academic year: A bill that would extend the academic year and require all public elementary schools to provide K-5 Plus or extended learning programs cleared the Senate Education Committee on a 7-1 vote.

The K-5 Plus initiative would add 25 days to the regular school calendar, and the Extended Learning Time program would add 10 more school days and also require schools to provide after-school programming and 80 hours of teacher professional development.

Sen. Craig Brandt, R-Rio Rancho, cast the lone dissenting vote on Senate Bill 40, raising concerns about another mandate from lawmakers in Santa Fe and an extended school year.

“We already have a huge shortage of teachers in our state,” he said. “By forcing them to teach even longer and a longer school year, especially around the border areas, they’re just going to leave to go to another state. … That’s just going to make that problem even worse.”

Representatives from the state’s School Superintendents Association and School Boards Association also opposed the bill. “We love Sen. [Mimi] Stewart, but we will aggressively oppose this bill because of the mandate,” Dennis Roch, president of the superintendents association, said, referring to the Albuquerque Democrat, who is sponsoring the bill. Stewart said her biggest concern is the “learning loss” stemming from the coronavirus pandemic. “We have the money now,” she said. “I don’t believe we’ll have it in the future.” 

Show me the money: A proposal designed to protect school districts and charter schools from unfunded government mandates passed the Senate Rules Committee on a 6-3 vote. Senate Joint Resolution 5 proposes a constitutional amendment to add “school district or charter school” to a requirement for the state to provide sufficient funding whenever a state rule or regulation mandates a new service or a higher level of existing service.

Keeping secrets: Legislation that would keep secret the names of people who apply for high-level government jobs, such as police chiefs, city managers and school superintendents, cleared the Senate Health and Public Affairs Committee on a 5-2 vote. Supporters of Senate Bill 39, sponsored by Sen. Bill Tallman, D-Albuquerque, said the bill would attract good candidates who are already doing the job successfully elsewhere. “Many states have adopted the approach that I’m proposing because they discovered that individuals who are currently doing the same job elsewhere are inclined not to apply for a new position that there is no confidentiality,” Tallman said. “In other words, they don’t want to burn their bridges.” But open government advocates called the legislation a “bill for secret government.”

“A bedrock principle of democracy is that citizens have the right to know how their government is being run,” said Melanie Majors, executive director of the New Mexico Foundation for Open Government.

Driver’s license bill hits roadblock: The Senate Judiciary Committee rolled over a bill that would end the current practice of suspending drivers licenses in New Mexico over a missed court hearing or overdue fines and fees. “How big a problem is this?” said Senate Majority Leader Peter Wirth, D-Santa Fe, who is the sponsor of Senate Bill 7. “Well over a 3-year period here in New Mexico, 216,000 drivers’ licenses were suspended because the person could not afford to pay the debt that they owed or missed a court hearing, and it creates a vicious cycle. The bill wouldn’t eliminate suspensions and revocations based on dangerous or drunken driving or overdue child support. It also wouldn’t limit a court’s discretion to impose sanctions in criminal traffic cases.

Some bills have all the luck: The House Education Committee unanimously voted 14-0 to give the interim Legislative Education Study Committee the power to analyze and issue reports on the state’s higher education system. That interim committee generally covers K-12 public education issues, but Rep. Andrés Romero, D-Albuquerque, who introduced the bill, said it makes sense for it to also cover higher education issues. The Legislative Finance Committee currently oversees reports on higher education issues. Similar bills to make this change in previous legislative sessions have failed.

Good news for kiddos: House Joint Resolution 1 made it over its first hurdle when the House Commerce and Economic Development Committee gave it a 6-3 approval vote. The legislation, which does not need a governor’s approval, leaves it up to voters to decide if they want to pull an additional 1 percent draw from the state’s Land Grant Permanent Fund to go toward early childhood education programming. That fund has close to $22 billion as of this month. HJR 1 next goes to the House Education Committee.

Abortion repeal goes forward: After hours of emotional testimony from both pro-life and pro-choice advocates, members of the House Health and Human Services Committee voted 8-3 to support House Bill 7, which would repeal a 51-year-old law making it a crime to perform an abortion. A similar bill — Senate Bill 10 — moved forward on the Senate side earlier this week.

Rep. Joanne Ferrary, D-Las Cruces and one the bill’s sponsors, said it’s time to do away with an “an antiquated law” and give women the freedom to decide what to do with their bodies when it comes to reproductive rights. Dozens of people called in to testify for or against the bill, telling personal stories of how faith, religion, politics or their own moral standing affected their stand on the issue. 

Pocket veto: A proposed constitutional amendment that would eliminate a governor’s pocket veto power received the blessing of the Senate Rules Committee on an 8-1 vote. Currently, the governor must approve bills presented during the last three days of a session within 20 days after the Legislature adjourns. If the governor doesn’t approve a bill within that time frame, the bill doesn’t become a law, and the governor doesn’t have to explain why. “This is an unnecessary, anti-transparency, anti-good government provision in our constitution that I think its time has come to be removed,” said the sponsor, Sen. Jacob Candelaria, D-Albuquerque.

Bernie meme mania: State Rep. Rebecca Dow, R-Truth or Consequences, is officially part of the Bernie Sanders meme bandwagon. Dow, who is considering a run for governor, tweeted a meme of the senator from Vermont sitting cross legged and wearing mittens and a jacket outside a snow-covered patio while a waitress takes his order. “Patiently waiting for indoor dining in NM,” the meme reads. 

Quote of the day: “I can just tell him how to vote. He can just vote for me.” —Rep. Rebecca Dow,  during Wednesday’s House Education Committee. She was referring to the fact that both she and Rep. Jack Chatfield, R-Logan, were listed as Rebecca Dow in the Hollywood Squares-type virtual Zoom screen. 

That committee wasn’t the only one facing technical problems. The House Health and Human Services Committee started about a half hour late as it waited for some members, who were having trouble accessing the legislative website.

Quote of the day: “Santa Fe is not the all-knowing god of this state. We can’t mandate everything.” —Sen. Craig Brandt, R-Rio Rancho, during the Senate Education Committee debate on a bill requiring a nurse in every school district in New Mexico. The Senate Education Committee will reconsider Senate Bill 31 Friday.