Republican driver's license coup fails

SANTA FE (KRQE) - A dramatic bid to move forward a bill that would stop New Mexico from issuing driver's licenses to illegal immigrants failed on the House floor by just one vote Wednesday after a strange series of events.

The debate centered around House Bill 606, a bill that would make the state issue two different licenses . One would be for U.S. citizens and foreign nationals in the country legally.

The other would be for so-called DREAMers, immigrants who were brought into the country illegally but as children. No other illegal immigrants would be able to get licenses.

The bill was tabled in committee earlier this session. House Minority Whip Rep. Nate Gentry, R-Albuquerque, attempted a maneuver known as "blasting a bill out of committee," that is taking it away from the committees where it's pending directly to the House floor for an up-or-down vote.

That required four separate votes, three to move HB 606 out of three committees and another to get a floor vote.

The first vote to remove the bill from House Labor & Human Resources Committee succeeded 36-34. All 32 Republicans were joined by four Democrats:  Rep. Mary Helen Garcia, D-Las Cruces, Rep. Dona Irwin, D-Deming, Rep. Sandra Jeff, D-Crownpoint and Rep. Stephanie Garcia Richard, D-Los Alamos.

That set up a lengthy debate before the second vote. Garcia Richard, who during the campaign she would support a driver's license repeal, switched her vote. But Rep. Christine Trujillo, D-Albuquerque, accidentally voted with Republicans, and that vote also was 36-34.

The third vote to remove the bill from House Appropriation & Finance deadlocked 35-35 leaving the bill stuck in that committee after it was blasted out of the first two.

It was a half-victory, half-defeat for Republicans who were trying to get one of Gov. Susana Martinez's key proposals moving with time running out in the 2013 session.

"We're much better off than we were," Gentry said.

Garcia Richard denied she flip-flopped.

"My stance on driver's licenses has not changed," Garcia Richard said. "What I voted on today was to get more public input, to have a committee look at it, to fix it so that the proposition on the floor of the House is a good one."

Similar driver's license proposals in the Senate have stalled in committee so far.