In her annual State of the State address on Tuesday, Gov. Susana Martinez outlined her wish list for the 2015 legislative session, including higher pay for new teachers, a large highway spending package, more money to help lure businesses to the state and more funds for job-training programs.
MORE: Text, highlights and video of every governor's annual address.
As she did in her inauguration speech Jan. 1, Martinez called for lawmakers to work in a nonpartisan fashion. However, her biggest applause lines from the newly assembled legislators came when she spoke about "red meat" Republican issues, such as efforts to adopt legislation that would ban compulsory union dues.
The 50-minute speech swung between sounding like a campaign speech (boasting of past accomplishments) to almost poetic language ("Because education is what plants the seeds of wonder, of curiosity, of excitement in a child; points them to opportunities and goals, inspires dreams about careers, and about better days; gives them hope").
She urged lawmakers to choose "progress over politics" and "courage over comfort, change over stagnation, reform over the status quo."
The speech hit on some perennial issues for Martinez, such as repealing the law that allows issuance of driver's licenses to undocumented immigrants. "It is time to repeal the dangerous law that gives driver's licenses to illegal immigrants who come here from around the world," she said, prompting loud applause from Republicans in the chamber.
She also once again urged legislators to end "social promotion" of third-grade students who can't pass reading tests. "When children cannot read, and yet they are passed along anyway, we do them no favors," she said. "We discourage them. We frustrate them. We hurt their chances for success in life. We hamper their ability to get a good job. My friends, that does not build self-esteem in a child!"
At one point, Martinez took a swipe at her Democratic predecessor, Gov. Bill Richardson, saying, "We have recovered over $29 million in taxpayer money that was squandered in the Richardson-era pay-to-play scandals." Those funds are from settlements from some plaintiffs in a 2011 lawsuit filed by the State Investment Council against companies and individuals, some accused of politically motivated investments.
But there also were new proposals, some of them specific, including:
--Raise starting salaries for teachers by $2,000 a year.
--Allocate at least $180 million for road projects over the next three years.
--Create a $50 million "closing fund" for attracting businesses to the state.
--Spend more on programs under which the state pays a portion of salaries for new employees during their training periods.
--Offer a personal income tax break for small-business owners during the early stages after they start a business.
--Give public school teachers pre-loaded $100 debit cards to help defray the costs of school supplies.
--End the current system of choosing judges through partisan elections. The governor has rarely, if ever, spoken in public about this, though Appeals Court Judge Miles Hanisee, a Republican Martinez appointee, spoke in favor of the idea during his campaign for election.
The governor enthusiastically endorsed adoption of what supporters call a right-to-work bill, under which the state would prohibit union membership as a condition of employment. "I firmly believe that every person should be allowed to choose for themselves whether they want to join a union or contribute to one," she said to thunderous applause from Republican lawmakers.
"This isn't a complicated concept, and most people agree," the governor continued. "If a worker wants to join a union, then they will. But it is fundamentally wrong to require membership or take money from the paychecks of our workers in order to get a job. For these workers, this is gas money, rent or a car payment."
Opponents argue that right-to-work laws result in lower wages and lost insurance benefits for workers.
Martinez, in her speech, declared that "studies have shown that states where workers are allowed to make this choice for themselves have higher employment levels, and companies locate there more often."
The Rio Grande Foundation, a New Mexico free-market research institution that is pushing for right-to-work legislation, has referred to studies that indicate the average right-to-work state has higher employment rates than states that do not have such a law.
However, adopting a right to work law doesn't guarantee that unemployment will go down. U.S. Labor Department statistics from November show eight states with such laws -- Mississippi, Georgia, Nevada, Tennessee, South Carolina, Arizona, Michigan and Louisiana -- had higher unemployment rates than New Mexico.
As for the impact on efforts to lure out-of-state companies, Albuquerque Business First last month interviewed three site selectors in North Carolina, New Jersey and California who said right-to-work laws are not as important as they used to be for companies seeking new locations. Don Schjeldahl, a North Carolina site selection consultant, told the publication, "Since 1984, right-to-work has steadily become less and less important as a location factor for most companies to the point now that it hasn't come up on my projects in probably 10 years."
The most emotional part of the speech came when Martinez introduced two Roswell students -- Nathaniel Tavarez and Kendal Sanders -- who were wounded last year in a school shooting incident. In one of few truly bipartisan moments of the address, the two received a standing ovation from members of both parties.
"The last time we were gathered in this chamber together, in fact, they were both in the hospital receiving treatment for their injuries," Martinez said. "You've thankfully seen their beautiful smiles on the news a few times since. ... We are pulling for you."
(c)2015 The Santa Fe New Mexican (Santa Fe, N.M.)
