New Mexico State Senator Dede Feldman's Blog

Prison Gerrymandering Twists New Mexico Maps

For the past month, New Mexico's Citizen Redistricting Committee has been traveling the state, taking testimony and maps. In the process a strange phenomenon has been uncovered. Here's a guest blog from Mario Jimenez, of Common Cause New Mexico, about this strange twist-- prison gerrymandering. It recently appeared in the Rio Rancho Observer and the Silver City Daily Press.

 

        Prison Gerrymandering Makes NM Maps Unfair: Contact the Committee to Untangle this Mess  

          Equal representation is the cornerstone of our democracy.  Nowhere is this principle more important than in the redrawing of election district lines every decade.  Federal law requires that electoral districts have substantially equal populations, so voters in one district do not have more—or less—power than others.

            There’s one area, however, where this principle has been compromised, and it all boils down to the US Census Bureau’s count of prisoners as residents of districts where prisons are located, rather than as residents of their home communities. This prison-based malapportionment, also known as “prison gerrymandering,” shifts power to rural counties where prisons are located and away from urban and Native American districts.  It can also dilute power at the local government level.

            At the state level, this system tends to favor districts around Hobbs and Grants, among others. At least three current House districts are comprised of populations that are 4% incarcerated. Within Cibola County, where the women’s prison is located, over 38% of one city district is composed of inmates, who do not vote.  In areas whose populations are inflated by captive constituents, elected officials are beholden to fewer voters—compared to other districts where representatives may be flooded with constituent concerns.

            The problem exacerbates inequality along racial lines. In New Mexico, Hispanic and Native American people are between three and seven times more likely to be incarcerated. Incarceration facilities are frequently located far from their homes.  Home communities—many of them already underserved—suffer not only from the physical loss of incarcerated family members, but also lose voting power through this process.

            A prison cell is not a permanent home. People who are incarcerated must have their dignity restored: we must stop using their bodies to bolster the voting strength of districts housing prisons.  Like anybody else, people who are incarcerated deserve to be counted as residents of their own home communities.

            Eleven states and more than 200 local governments now adjust census data to account for prison populations prior to redistricting in order to shape more equitable and accurate districts.  We have not done that in New Mexico, but it is not too late to mitigate or end prison gerrymandering.

            The state’s new, bipartisan Citizen Redistricting Committee is uniquely positioned to remedy this harm. Although there is no time to enact a state law banning prison gerrymandering, there is time for the Committee to work with the NM Corrections Department to use the home addresses of inmates as the basis for a revised map.  With a decreased prison population (5,662) this should not be an insurmountable task.

The new, revised map would not count inmates as residents of the communities surrounding prisons.  Instead, they would rightly be counted as part of their own communities of interest, among like-minded residents with whom they share a culture and history. By reassigning people who are incarcerated back to their hometowns, the Committee can bring our state closer to the constitutionally-enshrined, one person-one vote ideal.

Please contact members of the Citizen Redistricting Committee to make this change (https://www.nmredistricting.org/) or sign a petition by Common Cause New Mexico and co-signed by the American Civil Liberties Union now at https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/end-prison-gerrymandering-in-new-mexico?source=direct_link&_ga=2.218215833.1895546862.1625766547-1807334346.1422053924.

Mario Jimenezworks with Common Cause New Mexico. He is the former Chief Deputy Dona Ana County Clerk. Common Cause New Mexicois a non-partisan organization dedicated to restoring the core values of American democracy, reinventing an open, honest, and accountable government that works for the public interest. 

Hammer's LBGT Clippings Collection Now a Valuable Resource for NM

Blogger's Note:  From an article I wrote for the Oct. 26 2015 ABQ Free Press...

Starting back in the early ‘80s Albuquerque real estate agent Bennett Hammer began what was to become became a life long obsession: clipping, saving and storing magazine and newspaper articles, flyers, posters, memorabilia-- almost anything, with the words “gay” or “lesbian” in it.

“I was curious about the legal part of it,” says Hammer, a former ACLU Board member and the 2005 Civil Libertarian of the Year, “and I wanted to understand and be able to explain, back then, why excluding gay people from the military was wrong, for example.”

“I didn’t censor the anti-gay stuff,” he says. “There are lots of materials from the Christian Coalition and I saved articles about parenting, money, schools, medicine, because these involve gay people as well.”  He also collected letters to the editor written by gay people, even obituaries.

“I’m like flypaper,” he says.

 Hammer is standing in a storage unit filled with hundreds of boxes of the stuff, along with Barbara Korbal, who is doing the painstaking work of organizing about 250,000 articles from 220 publications into a community archive, which will be housed at UNM’s Center for Southwest Research, starting in October.  Korbal, a cultural studies historian, joined the project in earnest in 2009 to ensure future generations can learn about the LBGT movement during a crucial time. She had just organized the papers of gay rights activist Neil Isbin, who died of Aids in 1996.  Isbin, credited with mobilizing the NM LBGT movement during the 80s and 90s, also saved everything.   His papers—condensed into about 19 boxes—are at the Fra Angelica Chavez library at the NM History Museum in Santa Fe.

Hammer and Korbal have gone through the boxes many times. As he makes his way through the shed, Hammer points out some boxes donated by Jean and Jim Genasci, from the Parents and Families of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG).  He holds a the program of a 1994 conference “Fight the Right” that he attended, even then sharing his articles, many of which he has since cleaned up and put in clear plastic sleeves.  Korbal holds an issue of the Nation Magazine from 1993 with the cover story “The Gay Moment.”  Somewhere, she says, there’s a copy of a 1997 or 1998 Time or Newsweek with Ellen DeGeneres on the cover, marking another seminal moment. And there’s another, a 1956 cover from Look or Life (she couldn’t remember which) with Rock Hudson on the cover.

The 364-box collection includes five boxes of magazine covers alone. There are gay publications from the early days, documenting the organizational growth of the LGBT movement.   And there are 40 years of clippings from the New Mexican, the Albuquerque Tribune and Albuquerque Journal, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Time and Newsweek.

Hammer used to have more storage units but the material now has been culled, categorized and put into chronological order, reducing its bulk and increasing its usability. A number of interns have helped in the process, Korbal says, and some of the younger ones are amazed.

“One of them told me he couldn’t believe the progress gay people made in ten years.”  

Hammer says that 1979- 2010 witnessed the premier change in cultural attitudes toward gay people. Legally, he says the struggle for equality is part of an ongoing civil rights movement.  “Gay people have just been at the end of the line.”

There are other gay archives in Minneapolis, Amsterdam, North Carolina, New York and elsewhere, each with its own emphases. Hammer’s passion for collecting local materials has now grown into an ongoing project officially called The Bennett A. Hammer LLGBT Archives Project (www.hammerarchives.com), which shares information and accepts donations. Once fully catalogued and digitized, the collection will be available to the public at UNM Library. It will be a treasure trove for all kinds of people—medical researchers, playwrights, and historians.

“The ability to write and analyze the struggle for civil rights is only as good as its documents, says Barbara Korbal, who now directs the project. 

Hammer is pleased that what began as a personal obsession has become so organized and he credits Korbal and the professionalism she brought to the project. But he knew the potential early on when he would get calls from little towns in New Mexico about hate crimes, and he would send them materials.  Years later, the materials and the people would resurface.

“Cultural change comes when people talk to one another not at one another,” he says.  The materials are an invitation to do that. 

“I don’t’ think I am exaggerating when I say that making this kind of information accessible saves lives.   I know it has—by reducing isolation, changing attitudes, sometimes preventing people from killing and shaming each other.

--- From the Archive:  Watershed Moments for the NM LBGT Community

1975 law sponsored by Sen. Tom Rutherford repeals earlier sodomy law

1985 Executive Order issued by Governor Toney Anaya prohibits discrimination in state employment on the basis of sexual orientation

1985 NM Aids Services Founded

1987 APS adopts anti-discrimination policy

1993 SB 91, the first statewide anti discrimination bill introduced to become rallying cry for a decade

1997 Mayor Jim Baca issues non-discrimination order for Albuquerque city government

2000 Mayor Jim Baca issues executive order for city to insure domestic partners

2003 Hate Crimes Law enhances penalties for crimes committed vs. GLBT community

2003 Human Rights Act becomes law protecting against discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity "in matters of employment, housing, credit, public accommodations and union membership."

December 19, 2013, the New Mexico Supreme Court ruled that the state must provide same-sex couples with the same marriage rights as different-sex couples, making New Mexico the 17th U.S. state to recognize same-sex marriage

 

 

 

The APS Telenovela Continues... Aug. 28, 2015

Attention APS Students, Parents, Teachers and Taxpayers:

 In our latest episode of "As the District Turns," on which I was asked to weigh in for KNME’s In Focus, Ex-Deputy Superintendent Jason Martinez, was telling a Denver Judge that he was really telecommuting to Albuquerque from his Denver home, and thus not violating the conditions of his bail agreement.  Unbeknownst to APS staffers and board members, Martinez was awaiting trial on a number of felony counts—one for alleged sexual abuse of children and the another for a domestic violence assault on a boyfriend.  He was not supposed to leave the state.

APS staffers, including Superintendant Luis Valentino, the man who hired him without checking his references or heeding repeated warnings that he had not undergone a required background check, saw him often, however, and said so.  The judge has now held Martinez and upped his bail to $200,000.

 It’s only by luck—or incompetence—that the public found out about any of this when the new superintendant Valentino (on the job for 2 ½ months) sent a text to Education Secretary Hanna Skandera boasting that he was going to fire the district’s Chief Financial Officer(CFO), who was acting without authority in trying to put the kibosh on a contract for IT services that Jason Martinez was trying to give to an old friend, Bud Bullard.  Bullard had earlier been dismissed from the Denver School District for taking kickbacks.  Foolishly, the CFO, Don Moya, was worried about the waste of taxpayer dollars.  One problem: the Superintendant mistakenly sent the text with his boast to the CFO himself instead of Skandera.

Moya then apparently sent the text back to Valentino and it somehow became public.  The cat was then out of the bag.  Shortly thereafter, Moya was put on administrative leave.  To date, no reason has been given for that.

 Meanwhile The NM Political Report’s Joey Peters uncovered the questionable background of Jason Martinez—without much more than a Google search, I’m told. The public outcry began. And rumors started spreading.

How could the new Super have hired a pedophile without a background check or even a simple reference check? Aren’t even parent volunteers required to get a background check? Is this Superintendant competent to run one of the country’s largest school districts?

Why was the Super communicating with the controversial PED Secretary about his intention to fire staff?  Was he protecting Jason Martinez? Does he routinely ask permission from the Secretary on major moves? Did the two have a prior relationship before Valentino came to APS? Is he a shill for the administration?

Some of these questions were fueled by a whistleblower lawsuit filed a few days thereafter by Don Moya.  It was filed not just against the APS Superintendant and the Board but also vs. the Public Education Secretary and Governor.  Moya alleges he was put on leave because he blew the whistle on Jason Martinez whom he says got the dept. superintendant job, which had earlier been promised to him.   His lawyer comes from a Santa Fe firm who also employs a Democratic House member, prompting calls from the Governor that Moya’s complaint is purely partisan.

Honest, you can’t make this stuff up.

Luis Valentino is not resigning.  Instead he made an apology tour to Albuquerque media, pleading for understanding.  But Valentino is standing on shaky ground. With only a few months under his belt, he has no offsetting accomplishments to point to, no reservoir of good will he can draw upon. 

Yet incredibly, the APS Board delays action on whether his should be fired or retained.  At their last meeting on Thursday Aug. 27 they decided—to decide at the next meeting.  Sound familiar?  It’s exactly what they did at their last closed session on Sunday Aug. 23.

 Here’s my opinion: Valentino should do more than apologize.  He should resign.  I feel bad for him.  Maybe it was just a mistake.  But students and teachers suffer consequences for their mistakes. The top dogs should too. I don’t see how Valentino can inspire any credibility. Someone who hires a friend in spite of repeated red flags cannot rebuild public trust in the district. And if the Board enables his behavior it will do even more to dash public confidence than it has by its inaction.

Yes, it may cost money to get rid of Valentino.  But how much is public trust in our schools worth, anyway?   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

Ethics? What Ethics? Getting Away with It Again in Santa Fe

    The first day of every legislative session legislators raise their right hand and take the oath of ethical conduct, swearing that they shall not use their office “for personal gain and shall scrupulously avoid any act of impropriety or any act which gives the appearance of impropriety.”   But the honor system isn’t working and it’s only the legislators that deny that reality.  New Mexico constantly flunks on national scorecards on ethics and disclosure, and this year a Common Cause poll found that only 19% of voters feel that elected officials are more responsive to voters than lobbyists.  

    Examples of abuse abound.  This year the Santa Fe Reporter documented how Sen. Phil Griego, serving as both a realtor for a client buying a state property and a state senator, pushed through the sale (and voted on it) under suspicious circumstances.  But has anybody done anything about it?  No. New Mexico is one of nine states that does not have an independent ethics commission, although it does have a legislative ethics committee.  The committee never meets, however, and the pubic is barred from finding out if any complaint has been filed unless legislators themselves find probable cause.  The latest we heard from the committee was about six years ago, when someone complained about the misuse of the state seal.  Yet for the past several years, public polls indicate overwhelming support (always over 85%) for the establishment of a commission.

    Meanwhile, the Secretary of State recently admitted that she didn’t punish candidates who violate campaign finance laws, and lobbyists…. well, lobbyists, have gotten their way again, with the party-line defeat last week of Rep. Jeff Steinborn’s HB 155 which required additional disclosure of how much special interests are paying overall to push specific issues in Santa Fe. Coincidently, the SOS website, which allows at least a glimpse into how much lobbyists are paying for gifts, special events and contributions, has malfunctioned this session, making access to the existing records difficult, if not impossible.

    For a good look at this subject check Sandra Fish’s story on KUNM http://kunm.org/post/lobbyists-lax-spending-disclosures and for a real case study see what lobbyists have spent to defeat a interest rate cap on payday loans http://nmindepth.com/2015/02/06/storefront-lending-lobbyists-spend-big-on-nm-officials/   

    At least we’re not New York where the Speaker of the House recently was arrested on corruption charges.  But without transparency or accountability—how do we know that there aren’t lots of Sheldon Silvers out there making policy, levying taxes, and influencing education and economic development?

    I can personally attest that most legislators are honest and hard working.  But they are caught up in a system that demands constant fundraising and interaction with special interests and their representatives.  And they are in denial if they think that contributions, personal relationships don’t influence their vote.  It did mine.   They don’t realize that what is just a campaign contribution to them looks a lot like legalized bribery to the public.

    The restoration of public trust starts with a few good people in office coming forward and saying here’s how we can begin to fix the system—even in the face of Citizens United. And that’s happening this session.

    There are several bills to establish an ethics commission (HB 115) and shine some light on who is funding all those independent PACS that are now heavily influencing the outcome of our elections (HB 278 and SB 384).  There are others to fix our public financing system (SB 58).  And HB 155, to require more lobbyist disclosure, is showing signs of life. Sen. Peter Wirth is, again, a hero.  I hope you will weigh in with legislators on committees to which these bills have been assigned. Keep track of the bills at www.nmlegis.gov 

For Political Junkies and Last Minute Shoppers

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 “An insightful and compelling history of New Mexico’s legislative battles. Feldman’s observations are astute and her story well told.” US Senator Tom Udall

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In Upcoming Election, Don't Overlook Mental Health Ballot Issue

    This election season, I've been working on two important ballot questions one one whether we should impose a tiny tax increase here in Alb. to provide long-sought mental health programs, and another on decriminalizing small amounts of marijuana.  Here's an Op Ed I wrote for the Alb. Journal on the mental health issue last week.  When you go out to vote in the next few weeks, don't forget these two issues at the bottom on the ballot!

From the Alb. Journal Oct. 9, 2014

Evidence keeps mounting that the lack of mental health treatment facilities here in Bernalillo County has tragic consequences for children, families, taxpayers and for the community’s image as a safe place to live and do business. The news surrounding the shooting of James Boyd and the Justice Department’s finding that the Albuquerque police are inadequately trained to handle people with mental illness just keeps on coming. And it is not good.

 For the past 14 years, there have been countless memorials, task forces and studies commissioned by Bernalillo County and the New Mexico Legislature that all say the same thing: Our stopgap system of treating mentally ill people in crisis through emergency room admissions, incarceration and overmedication is not working. I have been involved in many of these efforts.

 Most recently the city-county Task Force on Behavioral Health has recommended what prior task forces have recommended: a centralized crisis stabilization center where people in crisis could be taken to talk to mental health professionals to reduce acute stress. A center like this is far preferable to an already overcrowded detention facility or a hospital emergency room.

 Most often these facilities re-traumatize people with mental illness, and increase the possibility of a violent confrontation further down the circular path. Meanwhile the taxpayer’s bill is mounting. And jails and emergency rooms are not cheap.

 Yet while policy makers, law enforcement officials and other have long known that we need a crisis triage center and follow-up treatment, they have not come forward with the funding to adequately address this problem.

The result is the broken system that creates violent confrontations between the police and homeless mentally ill men like James Boyd. The longstanding situation has disheartened the huge number people with treatable mental illnesses (estimated in two out of every 10).

In addition, it literally strikes fear into the hearts of families who just don’t know what to do – or where to send their son or daughter – when things get terribly out of control.

Now members of the public have a chance to weigh in on this problem and let elected officials know that this is a problem with a solution that has been vetted and must be funded.

In Bernalillo County on Nov. 4, citizens can vote “YES” in support of a 1/8 percent gross receipts tax advisory question (regarding) needed mental health programs in Bernalillo County – programs like the one the Albuquerque Journal in its Oct. 1 editorial urged the Task Force to pursue: a mental health crisis center. Although the measure would not become law upon its passage it would give County Commissioners a push to pass an ordinance which could generate approximately $19 million for mental health services we desperately need.

As a member of the advisory committee to support passage of this advisory question, I encourage you to learn more at www.YesForMentalHealthSolutions.com.

Treasurer's Race Ho Hum? Not Really

Take it from former New Mexico Treasurer Doug Brown, who wrote about his first day on the job in his memoir, My Life in Stories.  Here, with permission, is an excerpt.... and it's my reason for supporting Tim Eichenberg for Treasurer. I know Tim from our time in the Senate together and am confident he has the experience and professionalism to never let this happen again......

from Corruption, a chapter in former NM Treasurer Douglas Brown’s My Life in Stories…

 “I’d done several corporate turnarounds, but nothing to prepare me for this experience…The NM State Treasurer’s Office had just erupted in scandal. Four former employees would eventually be indicted for various crimes ranging from extortion to conspiracy.… Would I please be willing to fix it?....

…Fact finding was made easy thanks to a thorough investigation by Deloitte & Touche begun months before.  The facts they found were anything but easy.  The state’s checkbook was out of balance by $160 million, and unreconciled items stretched back over five years.  The officer in charge of the banking department had no banking experience.  His previous job was as a baggage handler for America West.  Only one of my staff of 42 had any previous investment industry experience, and we were running a $5 billion portfolio.  There were few controls, little disclosure, and no effective oversight.  Investment guidelines, purchasing policies, and personnel policies were routinely ignored.  All efforts had been directed to overpaying on commissions and purchases to generate the wherewithal for “campaign contributions.”  The agency’s outside auditor was a small firm from the southern part of the state and had for years given the Treasurer’s Office clean opinions with no material weaknesses.  That relationship was so cozy that other CPA firms had stopped bothering to bid.  I came to appreciate Warren Buffett’s observation that there is seldom just one cockroach in the kitchen.

 Now for the scary part.  Document shredders had been working overtime.  The alarm contacts on doors and windows had been super-glued together to enable after-hours entry.  Video cameras had been redirected and videotapes erased.  Staff members who were reluctant to go along with these schemes had their personnel evaluations downgraded retroactively.  One had her car vandalized.  Alerted to this pattern of criminality, I had a detective agency check the premises for telephone bugs.  They found five, including one on my phone…

…it became clear that all roads led to a cohort of nine staff members.  Several of them were related to the former State Treasurer.  Fortunately all but two of them were patronage appointments who could be summarily replaced.

 At the staff meeting I assembled to announce the departures, I had expected some regrets… Instead, the news was greeted with a standing ovation….An agency veteran said that this was the first staff meeting that the agency had held during her ten-year career there.  The other surprise was that there was no extra burden of work despite a reduction of over 20% of the workforce.  That rogue group had been doing nothing but making mischief. “