A. There is created a continuing joint interim committee of the legislature to be designated the "legislative finance committee". The committee shall be composed of sixteen members, eight members from the house of representatives and eight members from the senate. The chairmen of the house appropriations and finance and house taxation and revenue committees and the senate finance committee or members of their respective committees designated by each of them from time to time shall be members. The minority party shall be represented on the committee by at least one member from each house. Six of the remaining members shall be appointed from the house of representatives by the speaker, and the seven remaining members shall be appointed from the senate by the committees' committee or, if the appointments are made in the interim, by the president pro tempore after consultation with and agreement of a majority of the members of the committees' committee. An appointed member may designate a member of his party to serve in his place at a committee meeting at which the regular member is going to be absent if the member notifies the chairman of the legislative finance committee of his anticipated absence and his designee at least twenty-four hours before the committee meeting. The appointed members of the committee shall be appointed from each house so as to give the two political parties having the most members in each house the same total proportionate representation on the committee as prevails in that house; provided that in the computation, major fractions shall be counted as whole numbers. Minority members from the house shall be appointed by the speaker only from recommendations made by the minority floor leader, although the speaker shall retain the right to reject any such recommendations.

B. Members shall be appointed for terms of two years and shall serve from the time of their appointment until the end of the next session of the legislature. The term of any member shall terminate when the member ceases to be a member of the legislature.

C. Vacancies in the committee may be filled for the unexpired term by appointment from the house or senate respectively by the respective appointing authority that makes the original appointments and subject to the same recommendations; provided the new members shall be from the same house of the legislature and the same party from which their predecessors were appointed. The committee shall elect from its membership such other officers as may be deemed necessary. The officers shall be appointed for terms coterminous with their membership on the committee. Each office shall be alternated between the respective houses each two years. For the terms beginning in 1979, the chairman shall be a senate member and the vice chairman, if any, shall be a house member. The appointing authority of each house shall exercise its appointing authority by naming the chairman or vice chairman, respectively, on this alternating basis.

D. No action shall be taken by the committee if a majority of the total membership from either house on the committee rejects the action.

History: 1953 Comp., § 2-5-1, enacted by Laws 1957, ch. 3, § 1; 1978, ch. 21, § 12; 1991, ch. 73, § 1.

Cross references. — For committee hearing prior to the termination of any state agency, see 12-9-19 NMSA 1978.

The 1991 amendment, effective April 1, 1991, designated the formerly undesignated provisions as Subsections A to D; in Subsection A, rewrote the second sentence which read "The committee shall be composed of eight members, four members from the house of representatives and four members from the senate", substituted "Six of the remaining members" for "Two of the remaining members" and "seven remaining members" for "three remaining members" in the fifth sentence, and added the sixth sentence, and made minor stylistic changes throughout the section.

Advisory members. — The appointing authorities for the legislative finance committee do not have the authority to enlarge the membership of that committee to include advisory members and confer upon those advisory members the right to vote. 1987 Op. Att'y Gen. No. 87-19.

Legislature intended 2-1-9 NMSA 1978 to govern certain reimbursements to members of the legislative education study committee, the legislative council and the legislative finance committee. 1979 Op. Att'y Gen. No. 79-40.

Who may be compensated for expenses. — Excluding the chairmen of three specified standing committees, or their designees, the five other members of the legislative finance committee may be reimbursed for expenses incurred for actually serving on the committee, but this section precludes substitution for these five members. 1979 Op. Att'y Gen. No. 79-40.

Am. Jur. 2d, A.L.R. and C.J.S. references. — Formalities and requisites of the creation of legislative committees, 28 A.L.R. 1154.

81A C.J.S. States §§ 55, 133.