HOUSE BILL 760
48th legislature - STATE OF NEW MEXICO - first session, 2007
INTRODUCED BY
Luciano "Lucky" Varela
AN ACT
RELATING TO THE LEGISLATURE; INCREASING THE MEMBERSHIP OF THE LEGISLATIVE FINANCE COMMITTEE; DECLARING AN EMERGENCY.
BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF NEW MEXICO:
Section 1. Section 2-5-1 NMSA 1978 (being Laws 1957, Chapter 3, Section 1, as amended) is amended to read:
"2-5-1. LEGISLATIVE FINANCE COMMITTEE CREATED--TERMS--
VACANCIES.--
A. There is created a continuing joint interim committee of the legislature to be designated the "legislative finance committee". The committee shall be composed of [sixteen] twenty members, [eight] ten members from the house of representatives and [eight] ten members from the senate. The [chairmen] chairs of the house appropriations and finance and house taxation and revenue committees and the senate finance committee or members of their respective committees designated by each of them from time to time shall be members. The minority party shall be represented on the committee by at least one member from each house. [Six] Eight of the remaining members shall be appointed from the house of representatives by the speaker, and the [seven] nine remaining members shall be appointed from the senate by the committees' committee or, if the appointments are made in the interim, by the president pro tempore after consultation with and agreement of a majority of the members of the committees' committee. An appointed member may designate a member of [his] the appointed member's party to serve in [his] the appointed member's place at a committee meeting at which the [regular] appointed member is going to be absent if the member notifies the [chairman] chair of the legislative finance committee of [his] the anticipated absence and [his] the member's designee at least twenty-four hours before the committee meeting. The appointed members of the committee shall be appointed from each house so as to give the two political parties having the most members in each house the same total proportionate representation on the committee as prevails in that house; provided that, in the computation, major fractions shall be counted as whole numbers. Minority members from the house shall be appointed by the speaker only from recommendations made by the minority floor leader, although the speaker shall retain the right to reject any such recommendations.
B. Members shall be appointed for terms of two years and shall serve from the time of their appointment until the end of the next sixty-day session of the legislature. The term of any member shall terminate when the member ceases to be a member of the legislature.
C. Vacancies in the committee may be filled for the unexpired term by appointment from the house or senate respectively by the respective appointing authority that makes the original appointments and subject to the same recommendations; provided the new members shall be from the same house of the legislature and the same party from which their predecessors were appointed. The committee shall elect from its membership such other officers as may be deemed necessary. The officers shall be appointed for terms coterminous with their membership on the committee. Each office shall be alternated between the respective houses each two years. For the terms beginning in 1979, the [chairman] chair shall be a senate member and the vice [chairman] chair, if any, shall be a house member. The appointing authority of each house shall exercise its appointing authority by naming the [chairman] chair or vice [chairman] chair, respectively, on this alternating basis.
D. No action shall be taken by the committee if a majority of the total membership from either house on the committee rejects the action."
Section 2. EMERGENCY.-It is necessary for the public peace, health and safety that this act take effect immediately.
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