By BEN NEARY
NMWF Conservation Director
Some top Democratic state lawmakers say they support reform of the New Mexico State Game Commission to insulate commissioners from political pressure from the governor’s office.
The Water and Natural Resources Committee of the New Mexico State Legislature heard testimony on Monday afternoon in Santa Fe from representatives of a coalition of conservation groups that has been working on reform legislation.
After hearing from the groups, Rep. Matt McQueen, D-Galisteo, and Sen. Joseph Cervantes, D-Doña Ana, both said they see the need for legislative action to address problems with the state’s wildlife management. McQueen is chair of the House Energy Environment and Natural Resources Committee. Cervantes is chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
“We have a dysfunctional part of our state government that’s being presented to us here today,” Cervantes said. He said legislators have to accept responsibility for addressing problems with the game commission even if it means overriding a veto from a governor of their own political party.
Jesse Deubel, executive director of the New Mexico Wildlife Federation; Judy Calman, state policy director of the Audubon New Mexico; and Max Trujillo, a San Miguel County commissioner and representative of Hispanics Enjoying Camping, Hunting and the Outdoors (HECHO), addressed the committee.
The panel said they have been working together with other groups on legislation to reform the game commission while also increasing funding for the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish.
The game commission is authorized to have seven members, but has limped along with high turnover and persistent vacancies under the administration of Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham. The commission currently has only five members and hasn’t had a member elected as chair in about a year.
Former Commission Chair Joanna Prukop and former Vice Chair Jeremy Vesbach both went public during Lujan Grisham’s first term saying the governor forced them off the commission when they insisted on acting on the stream access issue.
The game commission under former Gov. Susana Martinez, Lujan Grisham’s predecessor, enacted a regulation purporting to allow private landowners to secure certificates from the commission stating that rivers and streams that crossed their private lands were not public water. In response to a legal challenge from the NMWF and other groups, the New Mexico Supreme Court last year tossed out the regulation as unconstitutional, voiding several landowner certificates the commission had issued.
The Legislature early this year passed a bill that would have protected game commissioners from being fired at will by the governor. However, the bill died when Lujan Grisham refused to sign it after the session.
Calman told lawmakers on Monday that the coalition the bill the groups has been working on recently addresses three main issues. Like the bill that Lujan Grisham vetoed, it would protect commissioners from being removed by the governor.
Calman said the bill also would increase funding for the game department. The department is funded largely through the sale of fishing and hunting licenses as well as by federal funds. The state last approved an increase in the cost of license fees in 2005.
Calman said the department doesn’t have enough money to address all the issues and needs facing wildlife in the state and said its reliance on hunting and fishing for revenue doesn’t allow it to have a broad enough view of wildlife.
The bill also would broaden the game department’s mission to reflect modern understandings of science and ecology, Calman said. “New Mexico statutes currently create a patchwork for some, but not all, species,” she said.
Deubel told lawmakers that New Mexico sportsmen have lost confidence in the game commission and no longer see any reason to attend meetings. “Anytime we bring an issue to the commission, if the commissioners act on that issue without getting prior approval, it appears that those commissioners are no longer serving on the commission,” he said.
Trujillo testified that he’s been hunting and fishing for more than 50 years and understands how important the game department is to the state’s sporting community.
“Last commission meeting, there was only two out of the five that are in a seat on the commission that showed up in person,” Trujillo said. “That’s a little disturbing for the hunting and fishing community – that we’re not being represented by anyone who knows us, or knows the land and knows wildlife.”
Mike Sloane, director of the game department, testified that he believes that funding is the major issue facing his department. He said people across the state are passionate about wildlife management issues. But he said he doesn’t believe changes can be accomplished in the Legislature’s 30-day budget session early next year.
“I believe our current statutes allow us to do the work that all of these people and all of us want to do,” Sloane said. “It’s really a matter of funding, and having a consistent, long-term funding source.”
Rep. Matt McQueen, D-Galisteo, was one of the sponsors of the game commission reform bill that Lujan Grisham refused to sign this year. He said at Monday’s hearing that the governor’s staff never responded when he and other lawmakers asked them to discuss drafting legislation to reform the game commission this summer.
“Not ‘yes,’ obviously,” McQueen said of the governor’s staff. “Not ‘no.’ Just no response, and it’s frustrating.”
McQueen told Sloane that he disagreed the problems facing the game commission and game department come down exclusively to issues of funding.
Speaking of the legislative session that starts early next year, McQueen told Sloane that increased funding for the game department is contingent upon modernizing the game department’s mission and addressing the structure of the game commission.
“The funding piece will not pass without the other reforms,” McQueen said. He said increased funding for the game department is contingent upon modernizing the game department’s mission and addressing the structure of the game commission.
“A bill passed with bipartisan support and was vetoed,” McQueen said, referring to his legislation earlier this year. “I kept waiting for someone in the administration to come to me and say, ‘well, we’re not happy about this, can you change this? Or could you change that?’ And there was never any of that conversation.”