Democracy for New Mexico

State Sen. Ortiz y Pino to Sponsor NM-01 Redistricting Bill?

Democratic State Senator Gerald Ortiz y Pino wants to introduce a bill when the Legislature convenes in January that would redraw the boundaries of New Mexico's first congressional district. Repub Heather Wilson recently beat Dem Patricia Madrid in the NM-01 congressional race by only 862 votes.

Sen.Ortiz y Pino is proposing two different configurations meant to consolidate the area's urban and Native American components and make the district more cohesive as a metro area voting bloc. Proposed changes would include moving more rural parts of Torrance County, in the East mountains, to the second district and including more urban parts of Valencia County, south of Albuquerque, into NM-01. The district currently consists primarily of Bernalillo County, but also encompasses portions of Sandoval, Santa Fe, Torrance and Valencia counties. According to an Albuquerque Tribune article:

"The last election showed how uncohesive our current district is," Ortiz y Pino said.

"We'd like to not be splitting the Native Americans as we are now and we'd like metro Albuquerque to be metro, not urban and rural."

Sen. Ortiz y Pino's introduction of a redistricting bill appears contingent on gaining the support of Governor Bill Richardson and his fellow State Senators:

Ortiz y Pino said he hasn't talked to Senate leaders about the plans and hopes to present them to Gov. Bill Richardson soon. Richardson spokesman Gilbert Gallegos said the governor will consider Ortiz y Pino's plans.

"The governor would prefer to wait until the next round of redistricting in 2010, but is willing to listen to Sen. Ortiz y Pino," he said.

However, Ortiz y Pino said he won't push the issue if Richardson doesn't want to. Redistricting in 2000 dragged on until a court ordered the current districting map in 2001.

"I would hold off if he (Richardson) asks me, but I'd like us to begin talking about it," Ortiz y Pino said.

Predictably, New Mexico's Repubs are against the plan. NM Senate Minority Whip Leonard Lee Rawson of Las Cruces said, "I think it's wrong-headed. I think we do redistricting once in a decade, not right after an election." Pretty funny, considering that the now discredited Repub Tom DeLay hatched a non-census year plan that resulted in a nice gain of seats for his Party in Texas. Thanks to a U.S. Supreme Court decision on DeLay's plan, it's now been ruled constitutional (with limitations) to redraw boundaries in non-census years. I guess Repubs can't bring themselves to believe that what's good for the goose is good for the gander.

There's reportedly also some grumbling coming from several Dems in NM's southern second district, an area currently represented by Repub Steve Pearce. They believe Dems have a chance to win a congressional seat in the district given that voter registration figures there actually favor Dems. They claim adding more Repub-heavy areas to NM-02 could end those hopes.

Note: DFNM guest blogger 'Land of Enchantment' recently advocated for redistricting of NM-01 in this post. What do you think?

This Just In: Richardson Will Run for Prez (Debunked)

Not unexpected, but still news or at least Faux News: According to a Fox News story, Gov. Bill Richardson WILL run for president in 2008:

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson is expected to formally file papers to form a presidential exploratory committee in January. But today he told FOX News "I am running," as he described the professional and personal experiences that he believes have prepared him for the job.

He also gave a speech on comprehensive immigration reform today, something one might expect a presidential candidate to do. Let's see how much buzz the Fox item produces....

UPDATE: Ah, but wait, now kos sez the Richardson camp is calling the Fox report a lie. Video to come at kos. Also, a new Albuquerque Tribune article contains the denial. Either way, more media coverage for Richardson.

UPDATE #2, 12/8: Faux News clearly twisted the facts on this one, but the Richardson denial story garnered a front page headline in the Albuquerque Journal this morning.

The Disappearing Recount in NM-01 and What We Can Do About It

Despite statements all over the media by DPNM Chair John Wertheim that the Party planned to pursue a 2% audit recount of the Patricia Madrid - Heather Wilson congressional race, yesterday's deadline came and went with nothing filed. Another lost opportunity to gauge the accuracy of our new paper ballot - optical scanner system.

Legal Fog
I understand that the State Party got bogged down in trying to decipher the meaning of New Mexico's election law pertaining to recounts, who can legally request them and what limitations apply to the process. There was reportedly much concern that their request -- even if they got a power of attorney declaration from Madrid -- wouldn't be allowed because Madrid had officially conceded. It appears that only candidates themselves can formally request recounts, and only if they believe an error in the tally would be large enough to change who won. Regardless, I'm not sure how supportive the Madrid camp was about seeking any kind of recount, which is a shame considering how many people worked their butts off and dug deep into their pockets to try and get her elected. In a race this close, I think she owed us one.

Madrid Following the Kerry Strategy?
Even if Madrid thought a complete recount would be quixotic, I think the least she could have done was request a limited recount before conceding to see how our new voting system performed. This would no doubt have garnered much positive press and good will for her here and nationally. Instead she apparently bought into the handler notion that requesting a recount in a race decided by 862 voters would somehow tarnish her chances to run again in the future. Remember Kerry and his cave-in on similar grounds in the 2004 prez election? It's hard to calculate just how much negative reaction that decision provoked against Kerry with Dem voters. Sadly, Madrid seems to be following in his misbegotten footsteps.

Money, Money, Money
It's instructive to ponder how tens of thousands of dollars were raised by the netroots in record time to support Dem candidate Christine Jennings' efforts to get all the votes counted in Florida's CD-13. In that race, more than 18,000 votes were "lost" by the electronic machines in a contest decided by only 369 votes. Surely the Madrid campaign could have raised whatever funds were necessary to pay for a full recount in a race decided by less than half a percentage point, let alone a much cheaper limited recount to audit how accurately our scanners counted the votes from the paper ballots. With so much passionate activism going on in the area of election reform, adequate funds could have been raised in no time by the Madrid camp via small donations. But then, we'll never really know, will we?

Mary Herrera Our Last Chance?
The only remaining opportunity for checking the system apparently would be in the form of an unofficial, "educational" audit of 2% of the NM-01 precincts, to which current Bernalillo County Clerk Mary Herrera reportedly agreed prior to the election. I haven't heard a peep from Herrera on this score since the election was certified, have you? I suggest we might encourage action on this front by emailing or calling Herrera and urging her to follow through on her promise. Be polite, but assertive. The DPNM is reportedly looking into how they might support such an effort, and perhaps even contribute funding for it. I hope this is the case and we can at least get a snapshot of how well the new voting system operated.

Denish Proposal for Automatic Recount
The good news is that Lt. Gov. Diane Denish, along with NM State Senators Dede Feldman and Gerald Ortiz y Pino, announced support for passage of legislation this coming January to require a recount whenever the margin in an election falls below .5%, as it did in the Madrid-Wilson race. The proposal would also create a funding mechanism for paying for these mandatory recounts, perhaps by instituting a registration fee for all candidates to be held in a recount pool.

Given the DPNM's discovery of just how vague our law is in terms of recounts, I hope the scope of this recount bill will be widened to include a clean-up of all the legal language currently in force regarding recounts. The election reform community will also be pushing for legislation that would require same day voter registration, tighten the automatic audit provisions that will kick in for the 2007 election cycle and other fine tuning of our election laws. I think it's imperative that we gear up now to actively support these improvements when the 60-day legislative session kicks off on January 16th.

In Search of Certified Results
This might also be a good time to ask why the certified precinct by precinct results of the November election are not yet up on the Secretary of State's website. Once the numbers are certified, I don't understand why there would be any delay in transferring the numbers to the SOS website and letting the public in on the detailed reporting.

Generation Dem

More good news for Dems: voters under 30 supported Democrats by significant margins in the November election. According to an article examining 2006 election trends by Sidney Blumenthal, "the momentous 2006 elections signaled the emergence of a younger, bluer America that could reshape politics for years to come. Blumenthal describes a "younger generation that is overwhelmingly Democratic." Tidbits:

While voters under 30 were the most favorable age group in 2004 for Kerry, casting 54 percent of their votes for him, Democratic House candidates in 2006 received 60 percent of their votes, compared with 38 percent for Republicans.

Nationally, partisan identification breaks 38 percent Democratic to 35 percent Republican, but among those under age 30 the percentages are 43 to 31 in favor of Democrats. This pattern runs as strongly in the West as in the East, the Midwest and the Pacific states, a clear indication that the Western states are heading out of the Republican camp -- out of alliance with the deep South's Republican states and into coalition with the broad majority.

In Wyoming and Arizona, where Republicans won elections for the House and Senate, the Democrats would have won by 16 and 15 points, respectively, if the elections had been conducted only among under-30s. In Montana, where Democrat Jon Tester won by 1 percentage point, fewer than 3,000 votes, his margin among under-30s, who were 17 percent of the electorate, was 12 points.

Bush has been the formative political experience for the youngest generation of voters, those 18 to 30. Studies of voting preferences show that the experience imprinted on a generation in its 20s largely determines its future political complexion. This generation is the most Democratic generation ever -- more Democratic than the youngest voting generations of the New Deal and the 1960s.

Blumenthal also analyzes demographic data generally and in other categories. His findings are strongly positive for Dems almost across the board. Excerpts:

Exit polls showed that the Democrats won the popular vote by 52 to 46 percent. Given that Bush won the popular vote by 3 points in 2004, this was a reversal of not 6 but 9 points. An analysis of the actual popular vote for the Senate, however, reveals an even greater Democratic margin of 55 to 42.4 percent. That number also coincidentally corresponds to the margin by which Democrats won women, the greatest margin since 1988. Yet Democrats won independents by an even bigger margin, 18 points, the greatest spread in House races in 25 years. The profile of independents on issue after issue now mostly resembles the profile of Democrats.

One of the largest shifts appeared among Hispanics, the group that Rove targeted most intensively for six years. In 2006, Hispanics went for the Democrats 69 to 30 percent, a 10-point increase in the spread from two years ago. Unpopular as Bush may be today, he has been the most accessible Republican to Hispanics ever, a Spanish speaker from a state with a large Hispanic population. Next time, in 2008, the Republicans do not have a potential candidate who can remotely approach Bush's appeal.

The dramatic turnover of both the House and the Senate should not obscure the profound transformations going on in the states, where 10 state legislative chambers switched to the Democrats, and, as political analyst Charlie Cook points out in the National Journal, "the Democratic advantage over Republicans in state legislatures went from 15 seats (3,650 versus 3,635) to 662 seats (3,985 versus 3,323), with gains in every region.

There's certainly much to celebrate in the 2006 election results. Just think how much more we can improve our chances for victory in 2008 and beyond IF Dems across the nation take the reins and dedicate themselves to representing ordinary people and the core Democratic values of fairness, opportunity for all, common sense and the common good. More and more Americans -- particularly younger voters -- have caught on to the lies and manipulations employed by rightwing Repubs to try and fool all of the people all of the time. Clearly, the Dem Party needs to accellerate outreach to younger voters and take full advantage of the trend building for a Generation Dem. Let's hope DNC Chair Howard Dean's 50-state strategy places a strong emphasis on reaching out to young voters.

Money Party Dems: Oh No You Don't!

If this is what the Democratic takeover of Congress is going to mean, the battle for the heart and soul of the Party has just begun. We'd better put the pressure on ASAP to confront any and all Dems who dare to talk like Rep. Rangel on middle class issues and more. Check out what David Sirota is reporting on the Money Party leanings of our new Chair of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee:

Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-NY) represents one of the poorest congressional districts in New York City. He also chairs the House Ways and Means Committee - the panel that oversees taxes and entitlements. This combination would lead the casual observer to think that Rangel, trying to represent his district, would be aggressively using his chairmanship to redirect President Bush’s tax cuts to lower-income people, strengthen and even expand Social Security and renegotiate trade deals to protect American jobs. But, no. That’s not what appears to be happening. In the weeks after the congressional election, Rangel has expressed interest in doing the exact opposite: preserving President Bush’s tax cuts for the wealthy; considering Social Security benefit cuts and retirement age hikes; and supporting lobbyist-written trade pacts that have no wage, environmental or human rights protections in them. He has, in other words, moved to side firmly with the Money Party against the People Party.

I have to agree with Sirota's earlier take on a definition of the sides that really are in play in Washington. Not conservative vs. liberal, not Democratic Party vs. Republican Party, not left vs. right, not centrist vs. extremist, but Money Party vs. People Party:

Anyone who spends 5 minutes around the halls of power in the nation’s capital knows that Washington is dominated by one party: The Money Party, and that the People Party is far outnumbered - even after this election. Look no further than votes on the bankruptcy bill, the energy bill, the class action bill, China PNTR and NAFTA to figure out which politicans who call themselves Republicans and Democrats actually belong to the Money Party and which politicians actually belong to the People Party. The Establishment pretends this paradigm doesn’t exist - they need the drama of Democrats vs. Republicans to sell newspapers, and more importantly, hiding the existence of the real power equation is in the interest of all the major for-profit corporations that own the media.

Thankfully, some of the Dem fresh faces in Congress, like Senators-Elect John Tester (D-MT) and Jim Webb (D-VA), and new House members Sherrod Brown and Heath Shuler, ran on strongly populist economic platforms. It's the old hands -- like Charlie Rangel, our own Jeff Bingaman, Steny Hoyer and others -- we'll have to watch closely.

Big corporate campaign donors always seek to put the kabosh on anything that benefits ordinary people or creates a level playing field, and the longer politicos luxuriate in the lobbyist-run bubble of DC, the more they seem to forget the people and their issues. Money talks. Hence we have the mainstream media -- and many Dem analysts -- emphasizing the need to focus on "bipartisanship." What they want is a bipartisan effort by Money Party members on both sides to kill the populist impulse that was expressed so clearly by voters in the midterm elections.

Yes, we now have Dem majorities in both Houses of Congress, but People Party stalwarts are still in very short supply. The real battle will be between the corporatists and those who are truly dedicated to representing the needs of ordinary people. Are you ready? Something tells me we've only begun to fight.

Hold Howard Accountable: Sign the Card

I'm sure by now you've heard about James Carville's nasty comments about Howard Dean's performance as DNC Chair. Yes, it's terrible indeed when Dems win 30 or so House seats, regain the Senate and take back 6 governorships, many more state legislatures and a myriad of local offices across the nation. According to the arrogant and misguided Carville, who's married to one of worst examples of Repub rightwingnuttery in the form of Mary Matalin, Dean should be "held accountable" for us failing to win 50 House seats. He's traveling the chattering class circuit proclaiming that Dean should step down as DNC chair because his record at the DNC is "Rumsfeldian." Guess Carville is jealous that people are now paying more attention to Dean's 50-state strategy than they are to him and his outdated advice. Below is a post on the matter by Jim Dean, Howard's brother, who heads Democracy for America. 

Posted by Jim Dean on DFA's Blog for America on Friday, 11/17/06: This is truly a great country.  Where else can you work on one successful election in 1992, lose for the next fourteen years, and still get press? You got to hand it to James Carville; he can still get ink.  But maybe we’re the only ones that can’t remember James Carville predicting that the Democrats should easily gain 50 seats in the House BEFORE the election.  So why should that stop him from insisting that we should have won 50 seats AFTER the election?

I agree with a powerful and important guy like Jimbo. Howard should be held accountable. Hold him accountable for putting resources into Montana, where Jon Tester won a critical Senate seat. Hold him accountable for supporting Jerry McNerney in California, who ousted Richard Pombo. Hold him accountable for helping state parties nationwide to support competitive campaigns in places where Democrats haven’t won for years. Hold him accountable for helping return checks and balances to what was once a rubber stamp Congress.

Today is Howard's birthday. Tell him that you know our success was a direct result of his strategy and the work of activists at the local level:

https://www.democracyforamerica.com/happybirthday

Send your message of thanks and support to Democracy for America's founder and sign the birthday card today. Howard put the strategy in place.  But it was you who powered the effort in so many ways. We've got the power!

*********************

Where it all began: Dean for America Meetup back in the days of the 2004 presidential primary season on Albuquerque's West Side with Dr. Ken Harper's Deanmobile van. Many grassroots and netroots activists motivated by Dean's fresh approach back then are continuing today, active in almost every aspect of progressive and Democratic politics. Thank you Howard!

Remember: From Dean's electrifying early speech out in California in March 2003 that got so many of us off the couch and into political activism:

What I want to know is what in the world so many Democrats are doing supporting the President's unilateral intervention in Iraq? ... As Paul Wellstone said, I'm Howard Dean, and I'm here to represent the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party.

... I want my country back! We want our country back! I am tired of being divided! I don't want to listen to the fundamentalist preachers anymore! I want America to look like America, where we are all included, hand in hand. We have dream. We can only reach the dream if we are all together - black and white, gay and straight, man and woman. America! The Democratic Party!

Here's an audio version of the speech.

The Meetups continue with our monthly Albuquerque DFA-Democracy for New Mexico Meetups. Join us.

No More Clowns: Vote Democratic!

You may recall an earlier post about a pony board created and paid for by Terry Riley and Friends that has been up since last month near Louisiana and Zuni in Albuquerque. These are photos from Terry of a full-size version that went up about a week before the election on Menaul just West of Eubank.

Both boards will carry the message through November 7th. This is grassroots energy in action, isn't it?

New board near Menaul and Eubank

(Click on photos for larger versions.)

NM Dem Whistle Stop Tour Set for Sunday

Above: ABQ Mayor Chavez, Lt. Gov. Denish, State Auditor candidate Hector Balderas, Gov. Richardson and Sen. Bingman at last night's rally with Bill Clinton

It's time for change! This Sunday, November 5, the Democratic Victory Train will stop in Las Cruces, Hatch, Socorro, Belen, Albuquerque, Bernalillo and Las Vegas, NM. Come out and rally with Governor Richardson and the Democratic Statewide Ticket. Read all about it at the Gov. Richardson campaign's blog, The Plaza. Make sure your sound is on before you head over there....

Video Clips: Bill Clinton Speaking at Madrid Rally

Below the fold: video clips of Bill Clinton speaking at the Patricia Madrid GOTV rally in Albuquerque on the evening of Thursday, 11.2.06:

Bush-Repub campaign style

More terrorists, not less

All clips by Mary Ellen using her little digital still camera on vid mode.

Details on Bill Clinton Rally for Madrid This Thursday

Latest info on the Albuquerque Bill Clinton GOTV rally for Patricia Madrid and all Dems:

Thursday, November 2, 9:00 PM
Where: Seven Bar Aviation, 2505 Clark Carr Road, Gate F-5
Click for map. This event is open to the public.
No signs allowed. Click for flyer.

UPDATE: Satellite Parking and Shuttles Set for Clinton-Madrid Rally: Due to the limited parking near Thursday night’s rally with former President Bill Clinton and Attorney General Patricia Madrid, FREE satellite parking and shuttle bus service will be available.

The public is asked to park at Airport Parking, 1501 Aircraft Ave. (near the intersection of Sunport and I-25 South). Parking opens at 8 PM; shuttles will begin running at 8:30 PM. Shuttles will run again after the rally ends. Additional information is available from Madrid for Congress, 242-6000.