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The New Mexico State Capitol, located in Santa Fe, is informally known as the Roundhouse .
SANTA FE, New Mexico The Democratic speaker of the state House is restricting access by lawmakers to the House floor and closing off conference rooms after the disclosure that a Republican legislator tested positive for Covid-19, along with several positive tests among legislative staff.
Speaker Brian Egolf of Santa Fe said that as of Monday he will begin restricting in-person access to House floor sessions to himself and one additional person from each political party, along with a handful of crucial clerical and technology staff.
New Mexico lawmaker, Capitol staff members contract COVID-19
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Profile: House Appropriations & Finance Committee Chair; Legislative Finance Committee Vice Chair Patty Lundstrom - 6:11 am
Rep. Patty Lundstrom, D-Gallup, takes the oath of office on the House floor on the first day of the 2021 legislative session. Luis Sánchez Saturno/The New Mexican
By DANIEL J. CHACÓN
An overnight success? Hardly. Her first venture failed miserably.
“We were broke at the end of it,” the Gallup Democrat, now 60, recalled in a recent interview. “We had to close up shop two weeks early.”
But the experience operating a concession stand at the government-owned swimming pool in the village of Milan, where she grew up proved valuable for the ambitious self-starter. Looking back, she said it offered lessons that helped shape her.
Luis Sánchez Saturno/The New Mexican
Patricia A Lundstrum, D-Gallup, takes her oath of office on the house floor during the first day of the legislative session on Tuesday, January 19, 2021.
At 16, state Rep. Patty Lundstrom started her own business.
An overnight success? Hardly. Her first venture failed miserably.
“We were broke at the end of it,” the Gallup Democrat, now 60, recalled in a recent interview. “We had to close up shop two weeks early.”
But the experience operating a concession stand at the government-owned swimming pool in the village of Milan, where she grew up proved valuable for the ambitious self-starter. Looking back, she said it offered lessons that helped shape her.
Republican leaders in the New Mexico House are seizing on a new report by Los Alamos National Laboratory that says the risk of a COVID-19 outbreak during the 2021 legislative session would be low with a few precautionary measures and a much shorter time frame.
One leading House Democrat countered that the report notes there would be a âhigh risk of COVID 19 spreadâ at the Capitol if the 60-day session were conducted normally, with some 600 people milling around in the building at one time.
The Dec. 4 report, requested by the Legislative Council Service, has fueled arguments by House Minority Leader Jim Townsend and other GOP lawmakers who believe the Legislature should convene briefly in January to accomplish its major goals and then adjourn until spring, when risks posed by pandemic are expected to decline.
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