Co-op mail-in voting bill on track
An amendment to the Rural Electric Cooperative Act that would allow mail-in voting during co-op elections is expected to get House approval before the end of the week and be sent to the Senate.
Rep. Don Tripp, R-Socorro, introduced House Bill 42 during the current legislative session after a resolution to allow voting by mail and proxy was passed by member-owners of Socorro Electric Cooperative last April.
The REC Act currently allows voting by mail for co-op-wide elections, but is vague on the terms for district elections. What the amendment would do is enable co-ops to allow mail-in voting at district elections, but it would not require them to do so. It would take a bylaw, like the one passed in Socorro last year, for mail-in voting to be permitted.
Tripp said in a phone interview Monday that the amendment encountered some opposition when it first went to the House floor.
“There were concerns raised about the language and the voting by proxy,” he said. “There was some feeling that it might be abused and the possibility of fraud existed, so we were asked to take it back to the Judiciary Committee.”
The Judiciary Committee signed off on a revised version Monday afternoon.
Kit Carson Electric Cooperative in Taos initially opposed the amendment, but is now on board after Tripp agreed to change language to remove voting by proxy.
“I don’t mind taking that out,” Tripp said. “We’ll take out the proxy and send it back to the floor. I think it’ll go back to the floor and will be fine.”
Tripp said the bill should be back on the floor by today (Wednesday) or Thursday and that he expected it to pass.
The bill has already received “do pass” recommendations from the Consumer and Public Affairs Committee and the Voters and Elections Committee.
Socorro Electric District 5 Trustee Charlie Wagner spoke in favor of the bill before the Voters and Elections Committee on Feb. 8. His wife, Charlene Wagner, also endorsed the bill before the committee on behalf of the Socorro Electric Cooperative Reform Group, which backed the resolution when it was passed at last April’s annual meeting.
A fiscal impact report required by the Legislative Finance Committee did not provide any roadblocks. The report states the bill makes no appropriations, so does not affect the state’s operating budget.
A response from the Renewable Energy Transmission Authority indicated the bill “may increase voter participation in key votes and strengthens the outcomes of the Cooperatives.”
The fiscal impact report states that not passing the bill would likely limit voter participation.
Tripp said it may take some time for the Senate to get around to addressing the bill, but he was optimistic it would be passed and go to the governor for her signature.
Other Items
Another bill introduced by Tripp is already in the hands of the Senate. HB 90 changes the law to allow protective vests for police dogs to be purchased through the law enforcement protection fund.
The same bill died during last year’s legislative session when time ran out on the session. Socorro resident Susie Jean, who has helped police departments across the country obtain protective vests for police dogs, was the catalyst for the bill, which passed the House without a dissenting vote last Thursday.
Tripp said another bill he introduced, HB 72, which provides for appropriation of $20 million from the tobacco settlement permanent fund to the program fund for fiscal years 2012 and 2013, should pass this week.
“It will go through. We’re building budget and that’s one of things we need,” he said.
A member of the Legislative Finance Committee, which is charged with constructing the budget, Tripp said the budget should go to the Senate by midweek.
“We’re trying to work through the budget,” Tripp said. “We’re very close to what the LFC recommended.”
Preliminary budgets submitted by both the LFC and Gov. Susana Martinez before the Legislature convened both came out at about $5.4 billion.
Tripp said money to support literacy and home visitation programs for health providers — something he said would benefit the Healthy Family Initiative program in Socorro — would be put back in the budget.
This year’s legislative session got off to an extremely slow start, Tripp said, but now halfway through the 60-day session things are beginning to pick up.
“Many of the committees were hearing just two or three bills a day, which is unusual,” he said. “There are not a lot of hot issues right now. It’s been a quiet session. It’s all about the budget.”
The final budget will almost certainly reduce the size of state government, which grew the last eight years under Gov. Bill Richardson’s administration.
“We’re seeing a lot of bills trying to move programs around to reconstruct state government,” he said.
Contact T.S. Last