New Mexico State Senator Dede Feldman's Blog

"This Changes Everything," Former Sen. Feldman tells UNM Masters in Public. Policy Grads

I had the great honor of giving the first graduation address ever to the now-well prepared graduates from UNM Masters Program in Public Policy. Many of these fine folks are already serving as analysts for the NM Legislative Finance Service, the NM Tax and Rev. Dept., NM Voices for Children and other non-profits,  This was their first live event in over a year!   Here's what I told 'em.

 

This Changes Everything

May 13, 2021

Thank you Melissa Binder for the opportunity to share a few thoughts with you on this special day, which comes as we emerge from one of the most difficult and tumultuous years in our country’s history. It is a year that, very likely, will change everything we know about government, about work, public health, elections, and even daily life.

I am particularly honored, and humbled to be with you today, because I know that many of you are already applying what are learning from this program out in the community.  You are addressing big problems facing non-profits, you are analyzing data from state agencies, and evaluating the effectiveness of various approaches to child poverty or homelessness. 

Congratulations to each of you—not only graduates but families, faculty, friends and the constellation of people in the community who support you.  Today is a day when I hope you will see just how many people there are out here in the community who are pulling for you, who are proud of you and who believe in you.

I am one of those.

When I obtained a Master’s Degree in political science from the University of Pennsylvania in 1969 – out of the same ratty building in the Wharton School where Donald Trump and I earned bachelors degrees the year before— no, I didn’t know him-- I didn’t even know there was such a field as public policy or public administration.  I just knew that I was interested in politics, so I majored in Political Science.   The events of the 1960s convinced me politics was fast moving, dramatic, chancy, dependent on human quirks and ---above all importantin determining almost everything about our lives from war and peace to death and taxes. I became obsessed—a news junkie, a groupie for my heroes in the civil rights movement like John Lewis and Martin Luther King.

But I had no earthy idea of how I would earn a living with my degree.  I veered off into journalism, teaching, public relations and then—almost  30 years later—I found myself running for office, walking door-to-door, losing, winning, then serving 16 years in the New Mexico Senate. I was just following my interest, with no end in sight, no burning ambition. And things happened, just like they will happen to you.  Except, I think you have a  far firmer foundation.  You are developing an understanding of budgets and statistics, how to evaluate the performance of a policy or a program at the state, local or national level.

That’s what elected officials need, especially here in New Mexico, where we have an unpaid, largely unstaffed citizen legislature, and a personal style of politics that is still based in  regional, ethnic or personal loyalties.  And now, with national issues invading state campaigns and  the partisan divide ensuring gridlock,  the solutions offered to problems are sure to become more divisive, more oppositional more “all or nothing”--- Like either defund the police or crackdown hard on crime and protestors; like either continue to subsidize the oil and gas industry or replace it entirely with alternative fuels; or maybe either place early childhood education in private hands or get the teachers unions involved. 

As long as solutions are limited to campaign promises, the  decision makers who want to make real progress will turn to staff and to non-partisan sources to find the evidence, to frame the questions and chart the directions.  Politicians are too busy fighting their own wars.

And that’s where youcome in.

Your group comes into professional life on the heels of the greatest health crisis in a century. …A pandemic that has killed 582,000 in the US…  A new civil rights movement that was spurred by the murder of George Floyd … It’s a movement that has brought hundreds of thousands to the streets and spurred a racial reckoning …And 2020 was the hottest year on record, with intense hurricanes, apocalyptic fires and droughts which have made climate change all but undeniable.

But that’s not all. Most important, for those who depend on a functioning democracy. There was the attempt to overturn the 2020 Presidential election with misinformation about fraud and rigged voting machines. The campaign brought with it over 40 lawsuits, the bullying of state officials… and finally, an armed insurrection at the Capitol Jan. 6  to prevent the counting of electoral votes. This last-ditch attack was fueled by lies. They were spurned by the courts and local Republican officials, and the lie was repeated and used  by a sitting president to incite insurrection, on live TV, for everyone to see.  It left behind a scaffold to be used to hang Vice President Pence and blood on the floor of the US Capitol. Five people lost their lives. Senators and Congresspeople hid under their desks.

There has not been another watershed year like this since the civil war. And we are not out of the woods yet. The very foundations of our republic have been shaken.  Yet, we have survived. A constitutional crisis was averted. A vaccine against COVID 19 has been deployed.  Derek Chauvin has been convicted. The fires and hurricanes have abated—for now.

But the events of 2020 and 2021 have rocked us. They have created great dangers and great opportunities. They have changed everything, and they are your inheritance.

The rules of the game by which governments have operated for decades are hanging by a thread. There is no longer common agreement on a set of facts assembled over decades, even centuries  by scientists, historians, doctors or the media.  Public trust in all institutions—from the athletic department to the Catholic Church—is at an all-time low.  Elected officials pledge allegiance to their leaders, or their parties not to common sense, or the evidence. 

The media checks facts and calls out misinformation, but it doesn’t matter to many. The public has become numb, cynical about the government, the politicians, even the courts. Decision makers often retreat into their own corners, rely on their own sources, shut out conclusions and data they don’t like.

Caught in the middle are the hundreds of thousands of pubic servants charged with keeping the lights on, the roads in repair, the schools open, the taxes collected, the votes counted, the prisons operating, the fire department responding.

And, there you are as a policy analyst for the Legislative Finance Committee, or an assistant to a department head in the state or city government, a public information officer for the district court, maybe an election administrator, or a lobbyist for the Governor or a non-profit. 

What do you do to foster sound policy?  What do you do to bridge these cultural and political divides? What do you do to be ethical in a political arena fraught with conflict, and tough calls.? What do you do to ensure the survival of our system? Ok I know that last one was not in the job description and not in the scope of services.

But I am asking you to include it, and I am asking you to do that by standing up for facts, standing up for the evidence, and for social science,  It used to be easy, it used to be simply a matter of professional ethics… but now it’s not. Thousands of elected officials have swallowed the big lie that the 2020 election was stolen despite the recounts, the certifications, the court decisions.  Their staffs, their contributors, those who report to them are along for the ride.

Yet there are a few who have stood up—who have refused to back down from the facts—and have chosen to take the heat in order to preserve a nation based on laws, not expediency, not loyalty, not corruption. 

They are my new heroes.

In late November, Christopher Krebs, the Director of Cybersecurity in the Department of Homeland Security  called the 2020 presidential election one of the best we ever had.  Based on his investigation ,He saw no evidence of election fraud. His findings infuriated his boss, Donald Trump, who fired him immediately.

Republican Secretary of state Brad Raffensperger counted and recounted votes in the close Georgia presidential election, standing by their accuracy. He was vilified, his home was attacked but he stood his ground. Later, he was bullied by the President.  All he was asking, President Trump said, was that he find 11, 780 votes.  It was simple. Raffensperger declined.

Ukrainian Ambassador Marie Yovanovich was a career diplomat, served both Republicans and Democrats but she refused to bend to a President’s desire to get the Ukrainians to provide political dirt on his opponent. “Bad things” were going to happen to her, as a result of her failure to cede her authority to Rudy Giuliani, said President Trump. Hew was right. He fired her for sticking to the evidence and for refusing to say what he wanted her to.

And at the eleventh hour, Vice President Mike Pence stood up and told an insistent President that—even as President of the Senate-- he did not have the power, by law, to block the counting of certified electoral votes, and the election of Joe Biden. The consequences came very quickly.  His very name immediately drew the wrath of the President’s followers who stormed the capitol looking for Pence, to kill him.

I do not agree with these folks philosophically. Some of them have gone on to do things I don’t approve of. But that is not the point. They had the knowledge, the facts, they had investigated and could detect deliberate misinformation. And they had the courage to stand up for the evidence.

That’s what you need to do.  The knowledge you have, that you have accumulated, is power, but it is only power if you are willing to stand up for it.  It is power only if you are willing to testify, to not back down to bullies, or threats or personal attacks.  Because if we continue on the path broken in 2020, they will come.

And every attack on science, every attack on the data that supports the efficacy of fluoride and now vaccines is an attack on you.

When a Michigan legislator introduces a bill—as happened Tuesday—to punish fact checkers like those used by TV stations and newspapers—it is an attack on you.

When a TV station reports a conspiracy theory as if it was real news, it is an attack on you.

When no one questions the cost of tax breaks for the film industry of housing people with mental illness in state institutions, it is an attack on you.

When certain politicians say there is massive voter fraud that  justifies erecting new barriers to voting, it is an attack on you.

So, graduates, in this year where everything has changed, I hope you will continue to do some of the old things: to ask questions, to analyze, to probe, to look for solutions grounded in evidence.  Do that and you’ll  not only be a professional policy maker, but you will be a protector of democracy—here at the local level, where everything begins and is reflected.

Congratulations again on your achievement and thank you so much for letting me share this special day with you.

 

We Dodged a Bullet, but Now Need to Repair Ramparts

New President New Day.  I didn't realize just how negative I'd become until the wave of relief hit me. The inauguration of a new president, the acknowledgement of the hardest of times, the renewal of hope and dreams now allowed, and celebrated in song and poetry-- I hope it had as strong an impact on everyone as it had on me.  We need the strength to repair the damage done to democracy that culminated in the insurrection and murderous riot at the Capitol on Jan. 6. It was instigated by Trump and carried out by militants who had become so brainwashed that they believed the election had been stolen and they were the heroes. It did not succeed. But it could have. The legitimate results of an election could have been overturned by chaos and a President that knew no limits.

This summer I read a book that sent me back to Europe in the 1930s --On Tyranny, by Timothy Snyder.

https://www.amazon.com/Tyranny-Twenty-Lessons-Twentieth- Century/dp/0804190119/ref=sr_1_2?crid=1SRBSLU9DL6OM&dchild=1&keywords=on+tyranny+by+timothy+snyder&qid= 1606044161&sprefix=on+Ty,aps,205&sr=8-2

 It's worth a read.  

Here are 20 ways to prevent tyranny going forward, from this book:

A View from Just Outside the Roundhouse: All Hands on Deck

We Are All Citizens Now

Photo Art by Carolyn Fischman

Jan. 31, 2017

What a difference a few months have made. I remember when I lost my first election in 1995 writing a letter to the voters who had supported me. I said then that the most important office in a democracy was that of Citizen, not councilor, not senator not president. With “alternative facts,” blatantly unethical appointments and rash executive orders, it’s even truer today. But how to keep the momentum from the millions (yes millions!) in the streets and even more on the Internet going in an effective direction?   My suggestion is to keep your eye on the ball—Congress. I’m trying not to pay much attention to Trump’s talk and bluster but to his policies, which must be funded (or defunded) and passed by the Republican Congress.   There are lots of online tools to make it easy to contact your representatives like Indivisible ABQ. But no sense in preaching to the choir. I’m concentrating on moderate Rs who might still have some common sense—Jeff Flake and John McCain in AZ, Susan Collins in Maine. You might even have some relatives or friends outside of New Mexico. Work with them! Yes, many Republicans will say no, or equivocate. But for every elected official, this is a profile in courage moment. Remind them of that.

And don’t forget that letters to the editor, op eds, phone calls and hand-written letters count. Mailbox full? Switchboard tied up? Be ingenious. One friend suggested post cards to Rep. Paul Ryan’s home (Paul Ryan 700 St. Lawrence Ave., Janesville, WI 53545); another suggested filling in required email forms with a zip code from the targeted state. I suggest tea party style town halls in all swing districts. Hey, we might even have to travel. This is what a movement looks like.

Ethics? What Ethics?

President Trump’s unwillingness to divest, to disclose, to remove himself completely from his hotels and businesses guarantees continued conflicts of interest and public distrust. His insistence that the laws don’t apply to him sounds like a central African dictator, who’s squirreling away the country’s money. Even worse are the conflicts that his top appointments brush off so lightly. So what if the new HHS Secretary profited off of pharmaceutical stocks he bought in advance of a vote on RX pricing? Too bad if OMB pick Mick Mulvaney didn’t pay taxes on his housekeeper. Not long ago that was enough to stop Tom Daschle and Zoie Baird, but not this group. Shameless behavior on display here http://www.newyorker.com/news/amy-davidson/tom-prices-confirmation-hearing-muddies-the-swamp as Republican senators wink and nod at nominees enduring the pesky press and public. Here’s another run-down of all the conflicts:http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/01/trumps-appointees-conflicts-of-interest-a-crib-sheet/512711/?utm_source=eb And is it coincidental that none of the Muslim majority countries where Trump has business dealings are covered by the travel ban?

Friends, if we loose our outrage about the basic principles of ethics and transparency—we’re collaborating. Common Cause, a group I am now connected with, is standing up at the national and state level. Support them. Closest to home, you can contact legislators for a strong ethics commission, disclosure of PAC and lobbyist activities and other reforms. To find out how, go to nm.commoncause.org and scroll down to Democracy Wire, at the very bottom. Common Cause New Mexico has a Face book page, too.

ABQ School Board Elections Tuesday Feb. 7

Lorenzo Garcia, Amy Legant are my picks for the North Valley district. I know, there’s only one seat—but longtime friend Lorenzo G. told me he wasn’t running and I told Amy Legant I’d support her. Darn it! Not much help on this one.

Solutions from the Grassroots

As gridlock—and worse—looms nationally, we need to remember that we have a lot to be proud of here in New Mexico. I am now hard at work on a book featuring some of the solutions that are working here at the grassroots level in health care, housing, local foods, education, and arts. I’ve always believed that real change comes from the bottom up and now I’m exploring that idea. And I’m finding a lot of local heroes here who didn’t wait for Washington to start solving problems. Let me know if you know one.

Repeal and Replace is Really, Really Bad for NM

The Affordable Care Act has cut our 2^nd highest uninsured rate by half. Over 266,000 citizens who didn’t have insurance now can go to the doc thanks to the Medicaid expansion. 40,000 more people get it through the exchange, which subsidizes policies and makes sure that they include basic benefits with no lifetime or annual caps and no exclusions due to preexisting conditions. All that will be swept away if there is no replacement, along with a reduction in RX prices for seniors and free screenings for Medicare recipients. I’ve seen estimates that from 6,000- 19,000 people will lose jobs in clinics, hospitals, insurance companies that have benefited from the act.

Fortunately, the NM legislature had the foresight to enshrine some of the ACA insurance reforms in state law, something that I was a part of. For example, under state law, insurers cannot charge women more than men for the same policy, “20- somethings” can be included on parents policies, and 85% of insurance revenues must be spent on care, not profit or admin.  

Republicans are already finding out how difficult it is to replace the ACA. http://wapo.st/2kccZkx?tid=ss_mail Certainly the ACA has not been perfect. Deductibles, premiums and co-pays have gone up. But just wait until you see the death spiral when the mandate is withdrawn. My prediction is that the replacement will be the same sorry health savings accounts or barebones policies that cost more with less coverage. Lifetime and annual limits will be restored. And oh, if we can buy cheaper policies across state lines, kiss our local insurance companies (like Presbyterian) goodbye. Lots of political risk here, but nothing compared to the real lives at stake.

Call members of the U.S. Senate and tell them not to confirm Tom Price as HHS Secretary. Meanwhile,

Keep the faith! With all its perils, we may be entering the most exciting time of our lives since the 1960s (for those of you who remember them).

It Can't Happen Here-- Or Is Trump Bringing it All Back Home?

Note:  Here's a book review I wrote that appeared recently in the ABQ Free Press. 

Sinclair Lewis’s classic American satire, It Can’t Happen Here, was first published in 1935 in an era of economic depression and growing fascism at home and abroad. The dystopia was an immediate bestseller, spurring an unabridged series in the New York Post and countless theater productions.

Yet today’s citizens know little about it. They should pay more attention.

            Consider the main character Buzz Windrip, a presidential candidate who is a professional common man. His folksy, down-to-earth speeches use simple words to extol the greatest nation on earth, bash the big banks, the political elites and the press. He suggests that Negroes and Jews be barred from civic activity (even though he allows that many, many Jews are part of his movement) and that women stay at home. For safety’s sake, foreigners present too great a risk to America’s way of life to permit their presence. Windrip’s 15-point plan enlarges the military, increases veteran’s benefits and expands the definition of treason to include among other things, advocating foreign alliances.

            Sound familiar? Just replace the word Mexican or Muslims for Jews and Negroes and it’s hard not to think of Donald Trump. In the novel, the rise of the Chief, as he is later called, is preceded by an era of radio demagoguery voiced by a Father Charles Coughlin figure that bears a striking similarity to Rush Limbaugh. Like the anti-Semitic Coughlin, Bishop Paul Peter Drang has a huge following. His “League of Forgotten Men” is 27 million strong and forms the base of Windrip’s growing support. It is composed of formerly middle class men dispossessed by the big banks.   It is strongly reminiscent of the Tea Party.

            In an era of economic insecurity and a fear of foreign forces, Buzz Windrip is elected legally. Opposition does not mobilize quickly and he carries out his promises, which most had not taken seriously. He declares martial law. The Supreme Court is abolished. Congress becomes an advisory body. The “MM”, formerly a private marching club tasked with beating up opponents who dared to appear at Windrip’s campaign rallies, becomes a national police force, staffing checkpoints and concentration camps to which dissenters are sentenced—when they are not summarily shot.   Ironically the wall Windrip said he’d build to keep foreigners out is ultimately used to keep Americans from escaping to Canada.

            It Can’t Happen Here is not regarded as one of Sinclair Lewis’s best books. He won the Nobel Prize for his others: Main Street, Arrowsmith and Babbitt, mainstays of high school English classes. But this is his strongest protest against middle class complacency and the tendency of most Americans to opt for security—tendencies that have lingered into our era, and now loom over the 2016 presidential race.

Where are the heroes, the protestors, and the resistance to Lewis’s creeping fascism? The protagonist of It Can’t Happen Here is a small town newspaper editor, a reluctant liberal, who values his individualism and intellect too much to take action in time. Finally, he joins the resistance just as the totalitarian regime declares war on (where else?) Mexico. At the end of the novel, his success is uncertain.

In 2016, my friends assure me that Donald Trump will never be elected. Too many constitutional protections, too much media scrutiny. But in the wake of terrorist attacks, the shrinking middle class, and the waning hopes of our youth, I can’t help but worry. Anything can happen when fear takes over. Especially, as Lewis demonstrates, when the groundwork for fascism has already been laid.

Ground Control to Major Tom: We May Have a Systems Failure

Blogger's Note: This is from the latest edition of my e-newsletter, From Just Outside the Roundhouse

I couldn’t help but think of our departed David Bowie this winter as I watched the legislature from just outside the roundhouse. It’s been four years since I’ve been out of that fray, and it looks, like Major Tom, untethered, disconnected and headed for parts unknown—in spite of the false display of accomplishment and good feelings on the final day. I feel the same way about the national political scene, where each party seems to be in denial that its grassroots are demanding an overhaul.

Is it just me or do you find these items disconcerting?

Item #1 The lack of meaningful action on the elephant in the room, i.e. an economy that continues to tank, making us first in unemployment, last in job creation. It’s fueling an exodus to neighboring states and leaving boarded-up buildings and For Rent signs in once thriving commercial centers like Nob Hill. The tired tools—smokestack chasing, tax breaks-- are not working. It’s obvious, but we’re stuck in political gridlock. Both the Governor and the divided legislature are to blame. Alan Weber had it right. The solutions are at hand: cellular phone service and high speed internet for the whole state; more flights at the Alb. Airport; diversification away from oil and gas to renewable energy; legalization and taxation of marijuana; investments in infrastructure and education; the use of unspent state funds identified by Auditor Tim Keller in his recent report.

Instead, the legis killed a measure that would have extended a tax credit for rooftop solar, dismissing an industry that is one of the few bright spots in the economy. And it made sure the voters would not have the opportunity to weigh in on legalizing (and taxing) marijuana, a proposition that brought $70 million into Colorado’s tax coffers last year.

Item # 2 In the wake of a major scandal involving the state’s chief ethics officer, the Secretary of State, the legislature, once again stuck its head in the sand and said the details weren’t quite right yet on the Ethics Commission, or on making lobbyist expenditures or independent PAC donors public. Really? Don’t we have a right to know? Shouldn’t lobbyists and elected officials be held accountable? Members of the Senate Rules Committee have had ten years to deliberate on this one, as bill after bill has come before them (I know, I was there), and their excuses are wearing thin. Many of the veterans are all for transparency—except when it applies to them. Then, as Sen. Jerry Ortiz y Pino said, a certain “paranoia” takes over that the elected officials will be victimized by the media or political opponents—and that-- with very few exceptions-- trumps the public’s right to know.

Almost all of the ethics initiatives were victims of a short session—and political moves designed to kill them. The Governor didn’t give messages or gave them too late, and House members got to vote for measures they knew would never make it through the Senate. Such is life in a divided body. The legislature, may be able to save itself at the 11th hour from Real ID, but can’t enact systemic reform to address deep-seated problems like declining public trust or economic stagnation.

Item #3 The unexpected rise of Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders. The way we have constructed the primary system has magnified the extreme wings of each party…. but, whoa, is there some realignment going on here? Some of the polls say that there’s crossover between Sanders and Trump supporters. They’re so disaffected that they’re for anyone who’s against the “establishment.” Think of what would happen if they somehow united. There are lots of institutional barriers of course, but… just saying. Our two-party system has created stability, but change is very difficult, especially without the reforms that would open it up. It’s gratifying to hear Bernie rail vs. Citizens United and dark money, just as it is to hear Trump tell a few truths about the power of moneyed donors on the Republican side. Without reform in this area, there’s going to be even more frustration from the shrinking middle class and… who knows, maybe even a push for deeper changes like independent redistricting (killed by the leg), ability for independents to vote in primaries (also killed) and even…. perish the thought, term limits or statewide voter initiatives.

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

 

 

 

Denver Voting Rights Conference an Eye Opener

Bloggers note: A week or so I attended a voting rights hearing in Denver sponsored by the National Commissioin on Voting Rights and organized in the wake of the 2013 SCOTUS decision Shelby v Holder, which struck down important parts of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.  Along with Dr. Lonna Atkeson, of UNM, I was a guest commissioner tasked with taking testimony from both the New Mexican and Colorado voting rights advocates and county clerks officials.  What I heard was pretty shocking.  Here's a news release the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights, which actually organized the event, put out:

On March 7th at a National Commission on Voting Rights (NCVR) public hearing organized by the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law and partners including the Colorado Lawyers Committee, voting rights advocates and election administrators gathered at the Sturm College of Law, University of Denver to share their experiences of both initiatives to improve elections in Colorado and New Mexico as well as ongoing challenges.

Nadine Padilla, Political Director of Native American Voters Alliance spoke of the challenges Native American voters face in rural New Mexico often driving almost 2 hours to the nearest polling sites located in hostile communities.

 “…Another common practice is tow trucks going into polling locations in Native communities looking for license plates numbers of people who are behind on their car or truck payments and word will get around pretty quickly and that will discourage voters from going to the polls,” said Nadine Padilla who works with Native American voters in rural New Mexico. “In the last elections in 2012 there were reports of tires being slashed of everyone that was going to vote.”

    Both Padilla and Jennifer Weddle, chair of the Colorado Indian Bar Association, spoke of Native American voters being intimidated at the polls or given wrong information about polling locations. Challenges facing Native American voters were among a diverse range of voting rights and election administration issues addressed by expert witness panels representing civic engagement groups, government watchdogs, election administrators and advocates from Hispanic and Native American communities.

Guest Commissioners Dr. Lonna Atkeson of the University of New Mexico; former New Mexico State Senator Dede Feldman; Colorado, Montana and Wyoming NAACP State Conference President Rosemary Harris Lytle; and John Zakhem of Zakhem Laww LLC heard about the challenges of providing access in Colorado and New Mexico to Native American, Hispanic and persons with disabilities as well as election administration initiatives in both states to improve elections.  Other topics included excessively long lines at polling sites in minority communities, providing language access to Hispanic voters, perspectives from county and state election administrators on implementing voting laws and innovative technology programs to increase access and voter participation. Witnesses also testified about rural communities still lacking the resources to implement these technology programs because those communities have limited broadband access and cell phone service.

 The Denver event was the ninth in a series of nationwide hearings scheduled throughout the spring to collect testimony about voting discrimination and election administration challenges and successes.  Over the past few years, many states have enacted restrictive voting laws, others continue to grapple with recurring election administration challenges and a growing number have proposed electoral reform to expand access.  In June of 2013, the United States Supreme Court's decision in Shelby County v. Holder stripped away a key provision of the Voting Rights Act that protected many communities against voting discrimination.  The goal of the NCVR is to document both what continues to keep voters from the ballot box as well as efforts to expand opportunities to vote, in two reports, which will be released in 2014.

 NCVR hearings will address a range of topics, including: voting changes, voter registration, election administration (e.g., provisional ballots, polling location issues, and method of elections), voting discrimination, student voting issues, and access to the ballot for individuals with disabilities, language minority voters, and communities of color.  Upcoming hearings include:

 North Carolina- March 28, Boston Regional (MA, ME, NH, RI & VT)-March 31, Alabama- April 1 and Texas- April 5

For more information about the National Commission on Voting Rights, please visit ncvr.lawyerscommittee.org. 

 Quotes from Colorado-New Mexico Guest Commissioners:

Dr. Lonna Atkeson, Professor and Director, Center for the Study of Voting, Elections, and Democracy, University of New Mexico

 “Witnesses testified on the successes and failures of election reform efforts in Colorado and New Mexico and provided an important backdrop to the voting rights agenda as we prepare for the 2014 midterm elections.”

 Dede Feldman, Former New Mexico State Senator

 “Testimony from Native Americans and Hispanic groups at the National Commission on Voting Rights hearing in Denver was eye-opening. There are still lots of reasons to worry about whether Hispanic language minority voters in New Mexico are being forced to wait in long lines and to vote under the eyes of hostile authorities in Southern New Mexico. Witnesses testified, too, about misinformation and intimidation of Native Americans. But the discouraging stories were counterbalanced with reasons to hope.  County and state election officials in Colorado and New Mexico are harnessing technology to expand-- not contract -- access for voters.”

 Rosemary Harris Lytle, President, Colorado, Montana and Wyoming NAACP State Conference"

“The NAACP State Conference believes Americans love democracy, though it’s sometimes hard to tell these days with the egregious attacks we see on voting rights. In the end, what it means is that it might be harder for too many Coloradans -- some people of color, people economically-challenged, people with disabilities, and young and not-so young -- to exercise the jewel of our democracy, their right to vote. These hearings, however, offered documented data, case studies, best practices, and hope that we are moving closer in our states, at a steady clip, toward full civic participation for every person and for the fullest vision of voting rights possible."

 John S. Zakhem, President, Zakhem Law LLC

  “The National Commission on Voting Rights hearing provided outstanding demonstration of the innovative, positive steps being taken by many Colorado and New Mexico election officials to enhance voter participation.   This strong leadership, in combination with the guidance of the Colorado Lawyers Committee Elections Task Force, will continue to improve voter experience and protection, so long as we all remain vigilant in safe-guarding this basic human right.”

 Partner Organizations:

 Colorado Lawyers Committee; Colorado Common Cause; Common Cause New Mexico; Elections Task Force of the Colorado Lawyers Committee; Sturm College of Law, University of Denver; The Legal Center for People with Disabilities and Older People; and The Sweetser Law Firm, P.C.

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