With GOP House Leadership Silent This Week, Lujan Survives as Speaker........For Now

House GOP Minority Leader Tom Taylor and House Whip Keith Gardner had the basketball equivalent of a layup. Instead of banking it in for the game winning points they intentionally turned the ball over and then sat back and waited to see what would transpire. With the opportunity to aggregate thirty-three GOP House member votes and cast them for meaningful change they could have struck a deal that would have ended the long and torturous dictatorship of House Speaker Ben Lujan. For reasons known only to the old guard in charge of the House GOP caucus, these men chose to dither.

And when House Democrats emerged from their caucus this afternoon in the Roundhouse in Santa Fe, the outcome News New Mexico had projected as a foregone conclusion became official. For now, Ben Lujan will remain Speaker of the House of Representatives in New Mexico and House GOP members can look forward to more of the same.......being rudely ignored and shut out of all input at the policy-making table. It would seem that with eight additional seats to work with in New Mexico, the GOP leadership could not figure out what the rest of the nation has been screaming so loud and clear. The voters want change! What they got today in Santa Fe, this time from the GOP, at least in terms of the inner workings of the House of Representatives, was more of the same. Will GOP members and leadership change their passive mindset between now and the beginning of the legislative session in Santa Fe early next year? Only time will tell.

With GOP House Leadership Silent This Week, Lujan Survives as Speaker........For Now