By BEN NEARY
NMWF Conservation Director
New Mexico lawmakers have another chance in the current legislative session to pass a bill to reduce the governor’s control of the state game commission.
Last year, the New Mexico Legislature passed a bill that would have stripped the governor of authority to remove game commissioners at will. However, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham declined to act on the bill, killing it through a so-called “pocket veto” without stating any reason for her opposition.
Rep. Matthew McQueen, D-Galisteo, a main sponsor of last year’s bill, reintroduced it in the legislative budget session that started Jan. 16. The bill is House Bill 178 in the current session.
Although budget sessions generally are limited to financial matters, the rules allow bills killed by pocket veto in the previous session to be heard even if they don’t address budget issues.
Nothing from Lujan Grisham indicates that she would support the bill this year. And McQueen said he doesn’t expect to see the Legislature override any gubernatorial vetoes.
“I think there is growing frustration in the Legislature, but I’m not teeing this up to try to override a veto,” McQueen said of his game commission reform bill. “I continue to want to work with the administration. And I reintroduced the bill to continue the discussion even if they’re not at the table. And I’m contemplating a variety of amendments to the bill to address other needs for updating the department.”
McQueen, chairman of the House Energy, Environment and Natural Resources Committee, is one of several lawmakers who has expressed concern over dysfunction at the game commission in recent years.
Although authorized to have seven members, the commission hasn’t been fully staffed for years and currently has only five members. Several meetings have been canceled in recent months, including one that had been scheduled to be held in Santa Fe on Jan. 12.
Two former commissioners, Chair Joanna Prukop and Vicechair Jeremy Vesbach, have said in recent years that Lujan Grisham removed them from the commission because they crossed her on policy issues. Several other commissioners have left without giving detailed explanations for their departures.
The New Mexico Wildlife Federation was instrumental in creating the game commission more than 100 years ago with the aim of insulating wildlife management decisions in the state from politics. Recent court rulings, however, had concluded that governors have the power to remove members from state commissions at will, leaving the game commission and other bodies often a mere rubber stamp for the governor’s office.
McQueen’s pending bill would require the Legislative Council to appoint four of the seven game commissioners. The governor would appoint three. Under current law, the governor appoints all seven and can remove them at will.
McQueen’s bill calls for the governor’s appointments to serve at-large, with no more than one commissioner coming from a single county and no more than two from any political party.
The Legislative Council appointments would be reserved for people with particular qualifications. One seat would be reserved for a rancher-farmer, one for a conservationist, one for a hunter or angler and one for a scientist. No more than one could come from any county and no more than two from the same political party.
All the commission appointments would be subject to Senate confirmation, under McQueen’s bill. The commissioners would serve staggered, six-year terms, up from the current four-year terms. The bill would also specify that commissioners could only be removed in the New Mexico Supreme Court for cause.
McQueen noted in an interview that the commission-reform last year enjoyed support from both Democrats and Republicans. Sen. Crystal Diamond Brantley, R-Elephant Butte, was a cosponsor.
McQueen said it’s been clear from lawmakers’ discussions in interim committees over the past year that no one is happy with the current condition of the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish. The game commission hires the department director and sets wildlife management policies in the state.
“You hear criticism of the department from both sides of the aisle,” McQueen said. “Not necessarily consensus on how to fix the shortcomings of the department, but definitely an interest in working on it and a belief that it’s not as good as it should be right now.”
McQueen said he hasn’t received cooperation or communication from the Lujan Grisham Administration or the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish during the interim to try to craft legislation to address ongoing problems.
McQueen said he’s considered a model in which the game and fish department would be folded into the New Mexico Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources Department, together with state parks and forestry.
“That model appeals to me, but if the commission is going to be directing the activities of the agency, then I think they need the security to do what they think is right,” McQueen said. “Otherwise we have a situation where the governor, whoever the governor is, will micromanage the affairs of the agency which I don’t think is the design of the commission but I think we’ve seen that happen for at least the past two governors.”
The New Mexico Department of Game and Fish is largely funded by license fees paid by hunters and anglers – about $50 million a year. Inflation has eroded the value of each license dollar by roughly half since the last meaningful license fee adjustment took effect in 2006.
A bill to hike hunting and angling fees died in last year’s legislative session and state lawmakers put up about $7 million from the state’s General Fund to shore up game department operations.
McQueen said he believes lawmakers should couple any new legislation to increase hunting and angling license fees together with legislation to reform the game commission and modernize the game department.
McQueen and other lawmakers are pushing a joint resolution in the current legislative session that would allow the general public to vote on a proposal to eliminate pocket vetoes and require governor’s to issue an explanation when they veto legislation.
“Getting rid of the pocket veto to me is just a good-government initiative,” McQueen said. “If a governor wants to veto a bill, of course that’s her prerogative, but she should tell us why.”
Aside from the politics, McQueen said he believes New Mexico could be managing its wildlife better.
“To me, wildlife, hunting and fishing is a huge industry in New Mexico and it will continue to be so,” McQueen said. “But wildlife has a benefit for the state well beyond hunting and fishing. There’s other types of wildlife tourism, and I don’t think we’re making the most of that.”
While New Mexico currently is receiving huge amounts of money from oil and gas production, McQueen said the state should be diversifying into other industries. “I’ve always believed that we should play to our strengths and that includes outdoor recreation,” he said. “It includes hunting and fishing, but it includes hiking, it includes birding. It includes other things like film.”
Lujan Grisham’s proposed budget calls for transferring $250 million from the state’s general fund to the Land of Enchantment Conservation Fund, which feeds into the Land of Enchantment Legacy Fund. The legacy fund earmarks money for long term funding for a number of different programs, including game and fish.
Prukop, the former chair of the game commission, said she supports reforming the game commission but has concerns with McQueen’s bill. Prukop served a career in the Department of Game and Fish before serving as an administrator in other roles in state and federal government.
New Mexico’s existing law spells out requirements for each game commissioner in terms of representing certain areas or constituencies. Prukop questioned why McQueen’s proposal would set requirements for the commissioners appointed by the Legislature, but not those appointed by the governor beyond saying they can’t be from the same county that only two could be of the same political party.
Prukop said McQueen’s bill should be more specific in requiring commissioners nominated by the governor to be confirmed by the state senate quickly.
“I’d much rather see a memorial where a task force is created by the Legislature to study how to reform the game commission, rather than just have Matthew McQueen put a bill forward,” Prukop said.
In any case, Prukop said it’s clear to her that New Mexico badly needs to reform the current game commission structure.
“If not one of the worst, she is the worst governor ever to have managed a state game commission,” Prukop said of Lujan Grisham. “In my career, I have never seen a state game commission as dysfunctional as this one.”
Jesse Deubel, executive director of the New Mexico Wildlife Federation, also said game commission reform is long overdue. He said the NMWF appreciates McQueen’s efforts to address the issue.
“We are continuing research on commission structures in states across the country,” Deubel said. We strongly believe that HB 178 addresses some of the shortfalls of our current statutes, but we see room for improvement.”