Legislatures have a habit of writing open-government loopholes for themselves, especially when they're striking last-minute deals or forcing party-line votes.

Not all do it so blatantly as New Mexico, however.

There, the Open Meetings Act requires that "all meetings of any public body except the legislature and the courts shall be public meetings."

The state Association of Commerce and Industry complained that a lot of things "are decided behind closed doors that are very important to business."

ACJ joined with the Foundation for Open Government and the New Mexico Press Association to push for open meetings of conference committees, but they lost by one vote after the lieutenant governor changed the rules and required a super majority vote.

The ACJ president said, "there's fairly good momentum to get that rule changed" in the '03 session.