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To read the full text of the governor's State of the State address.
SANTA FE - Gov. Susana Martinez told legislators Tuesday that she would veto any tax increase, cut wasteful school bureaucracies and work to reinstate the death penalty.
Martinez, in her State of the State speech, also said New Mexico is in financial crisis that she intends to remedy by spending less money and doing more work with fewer people.
She said she hoped to close a $450 million gap in the state budget with frugality. But, she said, she would not cut funding for K-through-12 classrooms or prisons.
Democratic legislators said afterward that Martinez seemed combative on the session's first day, and that she had misrepresented the Legislature's effectiveness in tackling economic and education problems.
Aggressive and successful cost-cutting measures were initiated two years ago by legislators and then-Gov. Bill Richardson, said Rep. Gail Chasey, D-Albuquerque.
Martinez offered a four-point plan to improve public schools and a series of crime-fighting measures that included maintaining funding levels for the corrections system. To reduce the budget for prisons, as the Legislative Finance Committee has proposed, would let criminals go free early, said Martinez, formerly the district attorney of Dona Ana County.
Much of her
"Wasting money on lawyers in the Public Education Department in Santa Fe does nothing to help a child read in a Farmington classroom," Martinez said.
She proposed to improve schools by mandating a 1.5 percent administrative cut in all 89 school districts.
Various interest groups say those reductions are not possible, Martinez said. "I don't buy that and neither do the people of New Mexico," she said.
As for classroom performance, she said, a culture of "low expectations" haunts the state's public schools.
A recent story in Education Week magazine gave New Mexico's schools an "F," and Martinez cited it as a reason to shift funding. One part of her plan is to cut school "bureaucracies" and pour the savings into classrooms, specifically for teachers and their aides.
Her other changes to the education system would be to grade schools on an A-through-F system and publish the ratings, stop promoting students who have not mastered the basics, and reward the state's finest teachers.
She did not limit her ideas on reform to schools.
Martinez said she wants a law to stop legislators and members of her administration from lobbying for two years after they leave state government. She already has signed an executive order prohibiting state agencies from hiring lobbyists.
Though she talked mostly of cutting government, she said she wanted to add one crime-fighting program. Martinez said a unit that would investigate public corruption should be added to the Department of Public Safety.
Her most strident remarks on crime centered on capital punishment. Martinez told the Legislature she wants to reverse its 2009 decision to outlaw death sentences. Juries should have the option of handing down death sentences for the worst crimes, such as the murders of children or police officers, she said.
House Speaker Ben Lujan, D-Santa Fe, said he disagreed with her on capital punishment.
"To me, spending every day of your life in prison is as harsh a punishment as there is," he said in an interview.
Chasey said Martinez's speech carried two tones.
"She seemed to be reaching out to us at the beginning, then it didn't seem quite the same. I hope she will be more conciliatory," Chasey said.
Chasey said she wants to work with Martinez, especially on evaluating the worth of state tax credits and similar programs.
Democrats, the majority party in both houses of the Legislature, made a written response to Martinez's speech through Sen. Linda Lopez of Albuquerque and Rep. Rhonda King of Stanley.
One part suggested that they thought Martinez had unfairly painted legislators, especially Democrats, as people who had accomplished nothing during a recession.
"We agree with Governor Martinez's call for action on government efficiency, transparency and creating jobs," the legislators said. ". . . And we hope the governor acknowledges all of the hard work we have done in the past few years. We have provided a solid foundation with significant improvements to the educational system and with legislation that fosters economic growth."
Santa Fe Bureau Chief Milan Simonich can be reached at msimonich@ tnmnp.com or (505) 820-6898.
