Senators open as 14-point favorite

House team weak, old, slow after election defeats and defections

Only a fast-breaking idea can salvage the pride of the New Mexico House of Representatives.

Here it is: House members should ignore that the filing deadline for bills has expired and approve an emergency law creating a mercy rule in basketball games between state politicians.

Special legislation is the only way this sorry House club can avoid a blowout loss at the hands of the revitalized Senate team on March 1.

The House lost its top player, Bill O'Neill, to the senators. O'Neill, who played a little Ivy League football at Cornell in the 1970s, gave up his House seat to run for the Senate.

With O'Neill and Sen. Howie Morales, the Senate club now has the two best players in the Legislature.

The Senate also added Mark Moores, a freshman senator who played football at UNM, which might be able to defeat Cornell in a good year on the gridiron.

Moores, right, lacks speed and quickness, but we are betting he can create madness under the glass.

Also gone from the House club is the loquacious one, former Rep. Thomas Garcia of Ocate. Garcia lost in the primary election last year. He was running for the Senate anyway, so had he won the lopsided nature of the legislative game would only have escalated.

The House kept a hooper of moderate skill in Rep. Terry McMillan, who won re-election by a scant eight votes in November. Landslide McMillan will not be able to keep this game close, the way he did in his race for a second term.

Other House players of some repute are Reps. Nate Gentry, Antonio Maestas and James Strickler.

Gentry is 20 pounds lighter than last season and nearly 20 years younger than O'Neill. No matter. The House club is doomed.

Our early line establishes the Senate as a 14-point favorite. Morales may single-handedly outscore the entire House squad, which is to say he could have a 15-point night.

We tell it like it is, and this ball game has the makings of a runaway, like a loaded beer truck flying down an icy hillside.

A bipartisan mercy bill, sponsored by freshmen Reps. Jason Harper and Stephanie Garcia Richard, could be the only way to stave off humiliation for the distinguished gentlemen of the House.