The Santa Fe Disconnect: While State Fades Gov. Frolicks On Ski Slopes And Falls; Legislature Amuses Itself With Chile Burgers And Dancing
Let's dance!
There was Gov. Martinez, not even at the session but instead frolicking in the snows of Utah with fellow GOP governors, injuring her knee on a ski slope. Then there was the House and Senate chuckling away as they
"debated" proposals to proclaim an official state dance, to make the green chile cheeseburger the state's "official burger" and to beat Colorado in having the first chile license plates. And to add to this dysfunction, the cabinet secretaries for education didn't show up at a hearing of the Senate Finance Committee to talk about the budget crisis.
Even as this nonsense played out chatter continued about cutting the public schools budgets even more, oil prices remained flat providing no relief from the ongoing budget crisis and the state set a new record for the low percentage of its workforce actually in the workforce.
Gov. Martinez emerged from her ski trip to threaten a special legislative session to craft a budget because of the frittering away of time by the "meaningless"' measures that the legislature was entertaining. But to show you how screwed up things are in Santa Fe, that threat from Martinez came before the news came out about her own AWOL behavior in Utah. The high ground she sought immediately collapsed into a sinkhole.
And so it goes at the fabled Roundhouse. The new realities of this century are meeting the old ways of governing and colliding. The state has long ceased being a harmonious backwater where things were never great but not all that bad and where green chile, bizcochitos and blue skies were more than enough to see the citizenry over the rough patches. But the legislature, despite a number of hardworking guys and gals, doesn't get it and that applies doubly to the leadership and the Governor. And that's why educated citizens are fleeing rather than fighting.
