Legislative Session Begins in Santa Fe

The legislature is poised to spend record $8.4 Billion of our taxpayer money 30 days from now, and the biggest pot of money to pay for it are revenues raised in the oil patch, insulted a few weeks ago in special session with a redistricting bill, passed, that splits up the area into three Congressional seats, a move that is almost certain to be challenged in court. 

The redistricting actions of last month might better be called Operation Just Because We Can--something that seems to characterize many state legislatures moving away from democratic norms toward rigging outcomes beforehand, relying on statistical probabilities instead of persuasion of voters through concrete proposals for governing.  In the future Nate Silver will call all elections a year early with proprietary algorithms and our political institutions will move to accommodate his predictions, after legislators adjust their individual actions based on these predictions.

The quickest way to get civility back into legislatures is to make each district as competitive as possible, forcing legislators to go with the majority of voters (something desirable in a democracy) but the state and national trend is in the opposite direction, guaranteeing future conflict:  divided we fall.  Why are we moving in this direction?  This is a question worth asking.  Is it just a mistake or is something else going on?

 From the looks of it, the emotional fallout from redistricting is setting the tone for the beginning of the session.  Democrats in the senate, especially, seem uncertain about their internal pecking order, with Senator Linda Lopez signalling a move against President Pro Tem Mimi Stewart, which failed, and the senate revisiting the complaints that surfaced last month from now-independent Senator Jacob Candelaria, by signalling a move to strip him from his position on the Senate Finance Committee.

Perhaps hoping to shift toward a less-contentious atmosphere, the Governor asked legislators to "think big" this session, without spelling out what that might mean.  For some that might sound scary; for others it simply means a shot at spending more taxpayer money in an election year in one's own district in the notoriously wasteful capital outlay process; and for others, it means throwing money at favorite causes, like childhood education, without setting goals for achievement or chains of accountability.  Education will get more money, but no one believes anymore that the dismal achievement scores of students, the lack of adquate college preparation, and the failure of imagination among education leaders at all levels--will improve our standing as 50th in the nation.