Gene: Thanks, Kevin.

Appreciate it.

Hey, folks.

Welcome to Friday, not our usual Wednesday,   for a facebook live, but the session just ended  yesterday at noon as you know.

We're glad to have   Dr. Paul Krebs, political science professor at  the University of New Mexico Poli-Sci department.

We're going to get into some of the interesting  things that happened in this 30-day session.

But, let me start, Dr. Krebs, just your top  line reaction, as they say, on the big shows,   to what just transpired.

Meaning, we had an awful  lot of things and we'll start to get into detail   about this awful lot of things that are huge  issues, tried to get done in a 30-day session.

I'm so curious, just from your point of view, as  a clinical science professor here in New Mexico,   is our session lengths just not  viable anymore in a fast-moving world?

Timothy: You know, I really think they,  they aren't viable anymore.

I mean,   you know, you've got, in a 30-day session,  it's supposed to be about the budget.

The Governor, though, can put things on on on her  call, legislative items that are non-budgetary in   nature.

And even, you know, just that one  person having that ability to do that,   that agenda can get packed pretty, pretty quickly.

And, in our modern world things are really,   can be really complicated.

Just talking about  crime, talking about environmental protection,   you know, the budgetary implications and  economic implications of different tax laws   and tax changes and so forth.

All of these things  require a lot of thought, a lot of discussion,   a lot of effort, yeah, to get to some kind of  agreement.

And, you know, in a 30-day session,   it's really hard and you're talking about,  you know, having citizen legislators who are   taking time away from, you know, their families  and their livelihoods and so forth, to serve   in these roles and it's a, it's a very  tall order, so yeah, I think, you know,   having a discussion about increasing the  length of our legislative sessions and perhaps,   you know, increasing the staff capacity would  make our legislature function more effectively   in the modern world.

And, you know, allow them  to do the things that, you know, it's clear   that voters want, that our  residents want.

That our state needs   to, to accomplish.

And we have this kind of  frustration.

We have this kind of frustration   after every legislative session,  like, we ran out of time, right?

GENE: It's a common story, absolutely.

And I  want to apologize.

I did the very thing I'm   sure I would not do and call you Paul Krebs.

I went ahead and did it.

I'm so sorry.

I'm   sure you've heard it before.

I'm sorry... TIMOTHY: I haven't...

I have heard of,   I've, I have heard it once or twice in  town, yes, if I'm related.

I am not.

GENE: There you go.

My fault.

And that allows  us to clear that up by getting it wrong,   so I appreciate that, just in case anyone was  wondering.

Yeah, interesting, Dr. Krebs, I got,   I've got to go right to something that's just  so interesting to me, is the use of dummy bills.

Something this session, just was, sort of, like  beyond the, beyond for dummy bills.

I mean,   we've seen them before.

There may be even  an argument in some capacities for them,   but could you explain to the folks what  they are necessarily and what happened here   with the unbelievable use of them this session?

TIMOTHY: Well, I can't really, you know, it's,   I can't really speak to, you  know, why they were used, or,   you know, if they were used more  this time around than in previous   previous sessions, because it's hard to compare  this session with other ones, just simply because   we're still in COVID.

It's not normal functioning,  so, you know, dummy bills are just really what   they are, is they're just sort of legislative  vehicles that are used to, sort of, to introduce   legislation or to move legislation after the  deadline for filing bills has passed.

And so,   you know, it's a legislative maneuver.

It's a tool that leadership can use to,   you know, keep a legislative idea viable after  the point at which, you know, that that sort   of initial deadline for filing bills has passed.

And so, it's a, you know, it's a bit unorthodox,   in terms of process.

You know, there's,  there's a sort of generic title given to   to a dummy bill.

There's no, there's no author,  you know, listed, you know.

There's no sort of   bill, you know, when bills are introduced.

They're  assigning committees.

There's none of that stuff.

So, you know, it all happens in an  unorthodox way.

The legislatures can   determine how they function, so long as, so  long as it's consistent with the Constitution.

The legislations, they decide on  their rules and how they function and   so it's, from that standpoint it's okay.

GENE: Interesting.

I want to hitch this   thought we're on here about the mobile, to the  Hydrogen Act.

That did not happen.

It was almost   like a way to bring something from the dead.

It's  a very interesting way to use these dummy bills,   but I'm curious where you feel the voter is left  in this process, because it's awfully hard, even   given the challenges of COVID and Zoom and all  that kind of thing.

It's very hard for the citizen   to track their citizen legislature's moves when  you have amendments, you know 160 pages on top of   a four-page original bill, and no one has time to  read these things.

So, I'm curious, where does it,   where does the voter get left off in this?

TIMOTHY: Well, I, you know, clearly, I,   you know, there is a certain, there's  a there is a kind of a lack of,   a lack of transparency with these sorts of  things.

You know, large, complicated bills,   we see this in the U.S. Congress all the time,  where members of Congress don't have, they don't   read the stuff they're, they're voting on, simply  because they don't have enough time.

You know,   bills become longer and more complicated.

Some,  you know, often on purpose, so that you can have   enough stuff in there to build the coalitions  you need to build in order to pass legislation.

So, you kind of, you know, you build it bigger  so that you can give more stuff to more people   to get them to say, "Yeah, I can't not vote for  this," you know.

So, that's part of it, you know,   the sort of bigger issue of transparency, I think  it matters more.

I think it matters a bit more to   folks in the media reform groups.

I think, for  the average person out there, what they want,   they don't care so much about the inside politics  stuff that's going on here.

What they want to see   is, they want to see results.

They want to  see a legislature that functions to serve   their interests, to address the challenges  they face.

To address community conditions   and statewide conditions.

To move the state  forward and so, you know, on some level I think,   you know, for the average voter, you know,  these... this kind of stuff is just like, yeah,   I mean, it's not that, it's not particularly  important what's important is what's done at   the end and whether it improves people's lives.

GENE: Fair enough.

Process is a difficulty.

I   mean, there's professional citizens that follow  these things and there are people that live their   lives.

They don't follow these things.

So,  I appreciate that.

You know, one of the art,   one of the things I always dig about Poli-Sci  Departments and people that are working in this,   is the understanding of of how, you just  mentioned a second ago, how to break down ideas   and this is, I'm going to talk about  the Hydrogen Development Act here.

I really can't, when I think back, I can't think  of many opportunities that were generational.

As   the Governor, sort of, positioned this, that  were approached with such a thin, you know,   run-up to such an enormous idea.

And sometimes  politics is the idea of holding, you know,   something under someone's nose and convincing  them it smells like an orange, do you know what   I mean?

It just really was very little effort.

I'm so curious, from your point of view, how the   the art of the deal for the Hydrogen Act went  to you, because to me that's a year and a half   long discussion, frankly, statewide, with a lot of  stakeholders.

Lots of landowners.

I'm curious when   you saw the Hydrogen thing either rise or fail?

TIMOTHY: I mean, it sort of surprised me in   general that it was sort of coming up, yeah.

Because it's not the kind of thing that   we've talked much about in the past and it seems  to be linked to legislation at the federal level   and money that's available at the federal level,  to encourage these kinds of developments and   transition to this kind of energy source.

You  know, this is one of those things that citizen   legislatures have a very hard time dealing  with, because it's extraordinarily complex.

And, when you have a situation  like this, we, even on things that,   you know, we say payday.

Here's an example,  sort of, the payday the payday lending act.

We've talked about that for years and in  terms of the complexity of that relative to   a transition of sort of energy to this this  new Hydrogen Hub concept, the complexity of   the payday lender bill, that's not that complex,  compared to what we're talking about here.

And,   we talked about that, or we talked about that for  a long time.

And so, you know, this is just going   to need, it's going to need more time.

It's going  to be, going to need more thought.

There's gonna,   there's a lot of stuff that just happens,  has to happen outside of the legislative,   legislative session, given the nature of our  sessions.

And that, if that doesn't happen,   that's really, it's really difficult to produce  success on things in a 30-day or a 60-day session.

How do you even have that kind of a conversation  about generational energy change without a   full-time legislature.

I really don't know  how you can even possibly have it, because   you can't, you can't you can't fill  in the gaps with interim committees,   you know in road shows and zoom meetings.

I mean,  we're talking about a commitment to a form of   energy here.

It's amazing, right?

And so, and  what you've got in, you know, certainly the   rural parts of this state with regards to  these, you know, Hydrogen Hubs and, sort of,   the jobs and economic development that's going  to happen, you've got an immediate concern,   right?

And so there's a lot of support for  it in those places, because it's immediate.

It's something that we think is going to help  with jobs.

It's going to help with, you know,   that it's immediately going to help the transition  from coal-fired plants and so forth, that are   being shut down or powered down in some sense to,  excuse the pun, but that's immediate.

But then,   there's these longer-term things that have to  do with with climate change itself and we say,   "Well, climate change is," and even there it's,  like, is it a longer term thing?

It's not,   right, because we're in a climate crisis.

And  so, you've got people saying, right, this is a   crisis and we want to do this about it.

You've got  other people saying well our immediate needs are   this and they don't, they don't always drive.

GENE: So, it is hard and you know you mentioned   you mentioned earlier, coalition building.

And I  have to wonder if this Hydrogen Hub deal exposed   a rift in the Democratic Party, that we might  not have given enough credence to then the rift   naturally exists as we know it, environmentalists,  you know, versus the very center of the Democratic   Party that might lean a little towards business.

That's always been there, however something seemed   a little more vigorous from the environmental side  and it was almost as if the the folks that wanted   this Hydrogen deal had even never even talked to  them, for God's sake.

It was an amazing thing.

I'm curious your sense of the opposition  and how it shaped up within that party,   the politics there.

How do you see that?

TIMOTHY: Again, I think it's, I think there's,   you know, there's just a real difference between,  sort of, you know rural Democrats and kind of   the needs that are connected to sort of economic  development.

And these, you know, the day-to-day   sort of existence versus more progressive  Democrats that may be representing urban   areas that have a different kind of, you know,  just are going to have a different take on this.

And so, yeah, I think it does expose that rift.

It's not like that, as you said, Gene...

It's not   like we don't know that that's there.

It  is, but these kinds of issues, especially,   you know, when you got things that you  know again are sort of immediate, you know,   bread and butter kinds of issues in one part of  the Democratic coalition and people that you know,   the Democrats that are representing those folks,  versus another, yeah, you're gonna see it.

And so,   it's gonna take some effort and time to negotiate  those differences, to come up with something   that's gonna be palatable for both sides.

GENE: Let's talk about crime.

Obviously,   that was the big issue going into the session and  by the Governor's own word and deed, of course,   but again something seemed to go a little  hinky in the process.

And, we had a lot   of movement.

We had, boy, there was the use  of moving, you know, content between bills,   which happened with the Voting Rights Act and the  Crime Bill, but for the crime bill specifically,   I'm curious, from your point of view where you  think the public might be sitting, currently,   watching what didn't come out of Santa Fe,  with so much noise of going into Santa Fe, for   this session about crime.

Even knowing, you know,  legislators have a difficult task on this.

What's   your sense of how the crime thing shaped out?

TIMOTHY: I think they've done a lot of good.

I   mean, I think they've done a lot of really  good things: recruitment and retention pay   is a good thing.

I think the issue around, you  know, ankle ankle monitors, I think that's a   very good thing, but the most visceral thing,  with regards to the to the crime challenge,   is when, you know, people get released.

People  who are, you know, where the allegation is that   they've committed a violent, a violent crime.

And, they get released.

They get pre-trial release   and they do something else.

I mean, that's the  visceral kind of thing that really gets people   angry and looking at the system and saying, "How  do we ever move forward?

How do we ever address   the violent crime problem in big metros  like Albuquerque?

How do we ever do that,   if we can't hold people?"

And so, you know, as a  public policy, as well as a, so there's a policy   debate on this that says well, you know, that's  really not the problem, right?

That's really not   the problem.

The problem is we need to be able to  arrest people and we need, we need punishment to   be swift.

We need that, you know, we need to be  able to do that.

We need to more effectively, you   know.... we've got to be able to arrest people.

And then, have a speedy trial and all that,   you know?

That's sort of, that's the...  there's, so there's this policy issue, but   in terms of the politics of it, the  visceral thing is is going to be more,   it's going to be more important, right?

Because  there's, right, sort of, heady kind of policy   debate that's probably correct on the merits, but  again, there's this, there's a visceral, kind of,   political issue around, you know, releasing people  who are, you know, where the allegation is that   they've committed a violent crime, right?

GENE: I have to agree, it is visceral.

You   can almost picture it, if you're a regular  citizen.

Are there political implications   this election season for Democrats  on crime, in your view, Dr. Krebs?

TIMOTHY: Well, I think, you know, the history  of political parties in the United States and, I   think, voters perceptions of the political parties  on the issue of crime is that the Republicans,   sort of, own the issue of crime and law and  order.

And, Democrats do not.

So, you know,   one of the things I think is, I mean, I don't,  of course know this for a fact, but certainly   in the politics of an election year, like this,  Democrats are trying to get out in front of   that particular political dynamic, where,  you know, the Republicans may be saying,   "Look, you know.

Don't elect Democrats,  because look what happens when you do that."

In places like Albuquerque and other big areas  where, you know, Democrats are in charge,   we've got a Democratic Governor.

We've got a  Democratic legislature and the crime problem's   out of control.

So, yeah, they may be on the  defensive on this question come the fall.

They have the, they have their, there are things  that they can point to of a bipartisan nature   that came out of this session, but again I  think that one big one, right... the most   visceral one, that's still out there.

GENE: Yeah, very much so.

I agree with   that.

Would it be your sense that  there's a possibility of a special   session regarding crime?

Would that be  politically a good move for Democrats,   based on what came out of the session?

TIMOTHY: I would say probably, no.

I   don't know if, you know, I don't know if there's  any, I didn't, I don't have a sense that there's   there's any room for moving forward on that core  issue.

If they were able to figure something out   fairly soon, then yeah, you know, that might be  something that would be advantageous, certainly,   for Democrats this cycle, especially the Governor.

If they could work on something and get it passed,   some kind of compromise that would allow,  you know, the folks who are concerned about   some of the civil liberties issues  involved here, and, of course, the issue   of stopping violent criminals, you know.

If  there's a compromise on that, then I think it   would it be to the benefit of Democrats for sure, GENE: Well, there is some risk, certainly.

I   can hear it sort of in the background of what  you're saying that if they do go to a special   on crime and at the back end of it, come up with  something that's really not that satisfactory,   there's political implications there  for an election season as well.

I would imagine absolutely.

TIMOTHY: Absolutely   and especially good, sorry, that's good to say.

Politicians are sort of naturally risk averse.

Well, it would be the lone spotlight.

You wouldn't  have any other legislation to hide behind.

Literally the whole focus would be from the  entire state on crime and you got to deliver.

So,   it would be a make or break moment, for sure.

GENE: I'd have to agree with that,   absolutely.

I think, hence I think you're right.

I don't think you're going to see a call for,   all right, for a special.

That's for sure.

Hey, we had an interesting turn of events,   certainly with Speaker Egolf announcing  his resignation.

The timing was certainly   interesting.

None of us really know why.

I'm sure  he'll let us know at some point what the actual,   if there was actual reasoning behind it, but on  the politics-side of it, going into an election   year... And, we're not gonna do predictions here,  because it's just too far away, but I'm curious,   in the climate that we're in, if there's a  certain type of a personality, politically,   that might work right now, you know?

What  I mean, because you mentioned earlier,   in sort of a law and order phase of  life, I mean, all that kind of thing...   Any sense of that, what type of person  in leadership would work at this point?

TIMOTHY: Yeah, I mean, it's really hard, you know.

The, sort of number, it's really hard to sort of   to think about this.

You know, sort of down the  road, I mean, the climate, I mean look what we   did this session, you know?

We're spending  14 percent more, but we're cutting taxes,   you know.

We didn't get, we didn't get voting  reform.

We didn't get the environmental stuff.

They got some stuff on crime, you know.

That's  an indication that, you know, that either,   you know, that sort of more conservative  forces in the legislature may be, you know,   moving ahead.

That they're achieving some success,  as far as the leadership.

A leadership decision,   on the House side, you know, the number one, the  number one goal of leadership is really to sort of   keep peace in the family, so to speak.

So, having  somebody in that role that can bring together,   you know, the different sides, different  facets of the Democratic party in the House,   the Progressives and the more conservative  interested having somebody that's important,   that will be important going forward.

But, then, there's, you know,   the numbers and so you've got more, sort of,  progressive Democrats representing the rule,   the urban areas.

These would be the Democrats in  the rural areas.

So numbers-wise, I think that,   you know, would suggest that there's going to be  somebody who's, you know, kind of along the lines   of Brian Egolf or a little bit to the left.

GENE: Interesting point there.

You know,   I gotta wonder if there's gonna be pressure at  some point to have a more rural based legislator   in that Speaker position.

If there's any advantage  for the party, given the times...

I don't know,   personally, one way or the other, but do you  have a sense of that?

If a rural legislator   to be in that Speaker role, would make an  appreciable difference in the body right now?

TIMOTHY: Well not, right, I mean, I don't... not  right now, I mean, because we've just concluded   this session and then we'll have elections in  the fall.

So, I mean, it would, it'll depend   upon what sort of the, you know, what the policy  mood is heading, coming out of the election and,   sort of, where we think we want to go.

That'll  be a really important thing that will, I think,   influence the selection of the next Speaker.

The  other thing I noticed that, you know, you could   you could elect a Progressive Democrat in the role  of Speaker and, you know, just being in that role,   it doesn't, that doesn't mean that everything  that's coming out of the leadership's office,   the leader leader's office is going to be on the  progressive end of the spectrum, because they   change in the role.

I mean, they, once you're in  the role, then you're confronted with, "Oh yeah,   I've got to lead this caucus."

Not just caucus  and you know that that can change how people   behave otherwise.

And so, that's,  I think that's an important thing   to to consider as we move forward.

Leadership  is, being in a leadership role is a different   thing than being in a normal legislative role.

GENE: That's right.

Another little point there   too, I appreciate your sliding up the timeline  there.

I sort of misspoke there, but you're right,   it'll depend on who the Governor is, of  course, as well and that'll set a tone as well.

TIMOTHY: If the Governor holds, that's one  thing.

If she doesn't hold, that's a whole   other decision point for a leader role, because  now you can get anything done.

You're gonna have   to have somebody who can, who can negotiate with  somebody from the other party.

And, that's right.

And in this climate that's a difficult thing.

We're not as polarized as the nation as a whole at   the state level but you know it's moving in that  direction.

So, it'd be really, really difficult if   somebody from the other party gets gets control.

GENE: Yeah, I think it's pretty clear, right?

There is a lot of shifting sand right now, but  speaking of the Governor, she dropped a bit of   a bombshell in that post, the press conference  following the legislative session, regarding   masks, in dropping the use of masks.

And, I found  it interesting that she chose to say it was not a   political decision, or politics didn't really make  a data point in her decision.

I don't know about   that.

Something, it's a part of me, you know,  is there any downside, politically, you know,   to ending the mask, to mask, you know, mandate,  at this point?

What's the politics behind it?

I'm curious in your, about your thoughts there.. TIMOTHY: Well, you know, I noticed that too, in   the press conference about, it's not, there's not  a political decision.

And, you know, anything a   politician does is political.

I mean, it's right.

They behave politically, right?

And that's okay.

The thing is that that's okay.

That's what they  do.

That's their job and so, you know, every,   people always about... is that politically  motivated?

Of course it is.

I mean, because   there are politicians and that's okay, you know.

There's information, though, that she has at her   disposal and information is suggesting that, you  know, doing this is a reasonable course of action.

And she's, now got some precedent with other  Democrats in other parts of the country,   other Democratic governors and other other states  that are lifting the mask mandate.

It was set   to expire in early March anyway, so we just  moved it up a few weeks.

You know, the downside   for the Governor would be if there's a, you know,  an additional spike and we moved too quickly to   remove the mask mandate.

I mean, that's... and  that is like, "Oh, the Governor can't get a   handle on this issue."

And it's a disaster  and we've got crime out of control," and   so it's, you know, so it's risky.

It's risky some,   but um on the other hand it will make people  who haven't been her biggest fans happier,   you know.

So, in that sense.. GENE: That's right.

Let's finish   what we started and I appreciate your time  today.

That's for sure we're talking with Dr.   Timothy Krebs from the UNM Poli Sci department,  where he is a professor there.

And, I want to   just finish with the length again, the length  of time that we dedicate ourselves to this,   with our legislative session.

In your mind,  Doctor, is it a full-time legislature or bust,   or would six months work, would 90 days work?

Your, in your scenario, can we sneak up on this   somehow?

What would be optimal for you?

TIMOTHY: Yes, we certainly can sneak up   on this.

It doesn't have to be there, I cannot  imagine a scenario in which we decide as a state   to change our system to look like California,  which is essentially, the California legislature   is essentially like the United States Congress,  in terms of its level of professionalization.

So,   no, I don't see a scenario as we ever go to that  model.

We, you know, we don't have a population,   we don't have, we don't have the,  we don't have the need for that.

So,   yeah, I could see something that moves us in the  direction of kind of a hybrid model between a   citizen legislature and a more professionalized  one.

And, you know, increasing the length of the   session is something I think that would be  beneficial, but the other thing that would   be probably even more beneficial is to increase  the number of staff that work in the legislature,   because what the legislature lacks most of  all, in my judgment, is, it lacks that capacity   to handle big complex issues.

And this is not, I'm  not, this is not a knock on our state legislature   legislators at all.

I mean, they're very  bright, hard-working public servants,   you know.

And, hats off to them, but it's just a  kind of impossible task really to do the kind of   work we expect of them in these short sessions,  without that sort of staff capacity to help them   sift through the complexity of these things.

And  all the nuances and potential consequences of   legislative action, I mean, so that's why... GENE: I couldn't agree more.

As a former   congressional staffer, it really does come down  to staff.

They do everything.

Not everything,   everything, but you know what I'm saying.

You  cannot expect people who are running businesses,   running farms, running you know, to sit down  and dedicating themselves to hacking through   every day, you know, these incredibly  complex things, like you're saying.

Yeah, I gotta think that has a possibility of a  chance.

Dr. Krebs, we have the money now literally   to start paying for professional staff don't we?

TIMOTHY: Well we do.

I mean, you know the budget,   the budget's really grown tremendously.

I mean,  I can remember a time when it was like, you know,   five point eight billion dollars and then it was  like 6.2 billion dollars, you know.

It sort of   stayed that way forever.

Now we're up over eight,  so it's kind of like eye-popping in some ways.

Yeah, I think it's there and, you know, I  think it would be very good and we're not   talking about... there is staff, right?

There's  the Legislative Finance Committee staff.

They do,   they're brilliant.

They're doing a tremendous  job.

Let's, you know, Education Study Committee,   Legislative Services, they do tremendous work,  but what we don't have is that sort of personal,   individual staff for individual legislators.

Help  legislation to formulate it, run interference,   you know, talk to people, develop coalitions,  compromises, information gathering.

GENE: So that's, comparisons to other states data,  we need a lot of data going into any big decision.

All that stuff just stuff that they do and I  couldn't agree with you more about the California   system.

I grew up in a state that had a full-time  legislature and, honestly, at times it just acted   like a Triple-A farm, you know, team to the U.S.  Congress, right?

Honestly, that's what people were   there for, was that the showboat their way into  the Congress and we're not looking for that here.

We need, we need problems solved.

TIMOTHY:   Like you, I was a, I'm a former staffer, too, in  the California Legislature.

I decided to do this,   so I, you know, I saw that up close, you know,  just the the work that was done and and just   the complexity of stuff.

So, yeah, I mean that's  right it's amazing you have four people behind the   scenes working 80 hours a week and we think we  can have this part-time legislator do the same   thing on their time.

It's not going to work.

GENE: Dr. Timothy Krebs from the UNM Poli-Sci   Department, where you're a professor.

Thank you so much for your time on this.

I realize it's very difficult to  follow up a session almost immediately   and have some opinions formed on it, so we really  appreciate you taking a walk with us here and   in doing, doing the thing here on New Mexico PBS.

TIMOTHY: Thank you very much.

GENE: We'll check in with you again on that  and folks, tonight at seven o'clock, we're   gonna have some coverage with some reporters from  all over the state to talk about what happened on   the session as well.

So, we'll see you tonight at  seven o'clock.

Dr. Krebs, thank you so much.

We'll   see you next time.

Have a great weekend.

TIMOTHY: Thanks for having me.