Amid fears of the spread of COVID-19 and thousands of new cases being reported daily, the New Mexico House of Representatives will hold virtual committee meetings during the 30-day legislative session that begins Tuesday, House Speaker Brian Eggulf said Thursday.
He said the home floor sessions will be in person, although members who contract COVID-19 or are at high risk will have the option to participate remotely.
“The public will have access to the building,” said Egulf, a Democrat from Santa Fe, pointing to the Capitol.
During the 60-day session last year, the building was closed to the usual crowds of residents, lobbyists and special interest groups – due to public health concerns about the ongoing pandemic and as a precaution against any potential violence after January 11. 6 US Capitol Uprising. The shutdown, which included a chain-fence around the Capitol, sparked fierce opposition and complaints from Republicans.
Egulf said audience members will be able to testify at virtual committee meetings from within the Roundhouse.
“I don’t know if we will be able to implement this on Tuesday, but the goal is to have some kind of AV system so that if someone is in the building and they want to testify in front of a panel … it will be a camera and a microphone.”
Senate rules have yet to be set.
Chris Nordstrom, a spokesman for the Senate Democratic Caucus, said the Senate Rules Committee is scheduled to discuss the Chamber’s policies on COVID-19 on Friday.
“We don’t know yet how things will go in the Senate,” he said. “The Senate Rules Committee will discuss Senate rule changes as they relate to COVID and then those rules will have to be voted on and approved by the entire Senate once we are in session.”
Nordstrom said the purpose of Friday’s meeting was to solicit input and ideas from lawmakers.
“The main thing that I think they will look at is to make sure that lawmakers can participate in the process in a way that keeps them and others,” he said. “That could mean zooming in from their office. That’s one of the things we did last year. They should have been in the building, but they can zoom in from their office.”
Nordstrom said the committee will also discuss how to deal with a senator who has the virus.
“I think they will look at options for more remote participation, but the details of that still have to be worked out,” he said.
It remains unclear whether Governor Michelle Logan Grisham will deliver her annual state of the state address in person to members of the House and Senate and a crowd of onlookers, as has been tradition, or whether she will deliver a virtual address when the hearing opens next week. Her office has yet to announce Lujan Grisham’s plans for the title.
Additional information will be released soon, the governor’s press secretary, Nora Myers Sackett, said earlier this week, “but we will be adjusting the system to account for public health.”
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