Albuquerque, NM - Last night, the New Mexico House of Representatives unanimously passed HJR 8, sponsored by Republican Rep. Jim Dines, which would send a constitutional amendment creating a State Ethics Commission before the voters in 2018.

No legislator has been as focused on ethics and good government legislation as Rep. Dines has been during his time in the House, and with the passage of his ethics bill last night, advocates are finally optimistic that the legislation will become law this year. Unfortunately, the bill still faces a big hurdle in the Democrat-controlled Senate, which has often been called a graveyard for ethics legislation.

"Rep. Dines has worked so hard on this issue over the years, and we hope that the unanimous endorsement his legislation received last night in the House shows the Senate just how popular this bill is with their constituents," said Republican Party of New Mexico Spokesman Tucker Keene. "Senate Democrats still have time to live up to their reputation as hostile toward ethics legislation, but we remain optimistic that like Democrats in the House did last night, they will put aside their partisanship and self-interest and give the voters the ethics oversight they deserve."

Last year, Rep. Dines was forced to withdraw his ethics commission bill after it reached the Senate. While that bill had also passed the House on a wide bipartisan vote, 50-10, it proved too strong for Senate Democrats. After Sen. Daniel Ivey-Soto and his Democrat colleagues amended it to exclude elected and appointed officials from its oversight, Rep. Dines declared the bill no longer worth passing, and pulled his support for the legislation.