Democracy for New Mexico

Bush Picks PNAC Member to Head World Bank

Remember the neoCON organization supreme -- Project for the New American Century (PNAC) -- and its infamous letter to President Clinton urging an attack on Iraq to remove Saddam Hussein? Bush's pick to replace that sorry sack of you know what, Paul Wolfowitz, as head of the World Bank is none other than Robert Zoellick, another of the original signatories of the 1999 letter. What a coincidence.

It's easy to see why Bush would want Zoellick in the role since he no doubt shares all that wisdom and integrity exhibited by the other stellar signatories to the PNAC letter: Elliott Abrams, Richard L. Armitage, William J. Bennett, Jeffrey Bergner, John Bolton, Paula Dobriansky, Francis Fukuyama, Robert Kagan, Zalmay Khalilzad, William Kristol, Richard Perle, Peter W. Rodman, Donald Rumsfeld, William Schneider, Jr., Vin Weber, Paul Wolfowitz, R. James Woolsey. A motley Bushie crew indeed.

Zoellick is a former U.S. trade representative who's in love with "free" trade (and the hell with our working class). He also served as a Deputy Secretary of State and and his latest role was as managing director and chairman of the International Advisors department at investment bank Goldman Sachs. During the 2000 presidential election campaign, Zoellick served as a foreign policy advisor to Bush as part of a group, led by Condoleezza Rice, that called itself The Vulcans. Peachy.

Tonight on KUNM's 'Espejos de Aztlan': Creators of Play About Working Poor Fighting Injustice

From Javier Benavidez:
Check out KUNM 89.9 FM tonight, Monday, May 21st, at 8:00 PM for a half-hour live interview by host Javier Benavidez on "Espejos de Aztlan" with creators of the political theatrical production "We Won't Pay! We Won't Pay!" Written by Nobel Peace Prize for Literation winner Dario Fo and locally produced by the Southwest Organizing Project and OmniRootz Productions, the play focuses on the desperation of the working poor in one neighborhood faced with ridiculously high food costs and the families who join in protest to fight the associated economic injustices. Local Stefani Willis directs the play which features local youth actors Venessa Katzenberger, Cherish Henson, Virginia Hampton, Ife Hampton and Shrayas Jatkar. Locas Enrique Cardiel, Rosina Roibal, Patrick Clark create the production's music score.

The Albuquerque running of "We Won't Pay! We Won't Pay!" will conclude with three productions on Friday, May 25th at 8:15 PM, Saturday, May 26th at 8:15 PM and Sunday, May 27th at 3:15 PM. Each play takes place at the Out ch’Yonda Live Artz Studio, 929 4th St. SW (9 blocks south of Central Avenue). For more information, contact Out ch'Yonda at 385- 5634 or the Southwest Organizing Project at 247-8832.

Espejos has been on-air since 1979 and is part of the Raices Colectiva which conducts programming on news, culture and music from a Latino perspective on KUNM 89.9FM.

Press Conference Today: Health Insurance, Pension Benefits and the Employee Free Choice Act

From :

• Americans United for Change to release new report showing how many more thousands of New Mexicans would receive health insurance and pension benefits under the Employee Free Choice Act
• Senator Domenici called on to vote for publicly supported legislation that would level the playing field for middle class workers by fixing a broken system for forming unions and bargaining for better pay, improved benefits and retirement security

WHO: Americans United for Change: Christine Trujillo, AFL-CIO, Carter Bundy, AFSCME, Local Healthcare Advocates

WHAT: Press conference to release new report showing how many more thousands of New Mexicans would receive health insurance and pension benefits under the Employee Free Choice Act.  Following the press conference participants will deliver the report to Senator Domenici's office.

WHEN: Monday April 16th at 10:00 AM
WHERE: Albuquerque Plaza, Near Corner of 3rd & Copper

As more and more middle class American workers become disenfranchised in a broken system for forming unions and bargaining with employers for fair, treatment, better pay and improved benefits, and local labor leaders and healthcare advocates will release a timely new report prepared by the Institute for America's Future showing how many more New Mexicans would likely receive health insurance and pension benefits if the Employee Free Choice Act were to become law.

The Employee Free Choice Act passed with bipartisan support in the U.S. House of Representatives on March 1 and will come to the floor of the U.S. Senate this month.  The Employee Free Choice Act is overwhelmingly supported by 69 percent of American public, according to a recent poll from the AFL-CIO, and more than half of U.S. workers -- nearly 60 million -- say they would join a union right now if they could.  Senator Domenici will be called on to stand with middle class New Mexican workers and vote for the publicly supported legislation to restore their freedom to choose a union voice. 

New Mexico Compromise Minimum Wage Passed

The final bill (SB 324) passed by the SNM enate 22-20 today would raise the minimum to $6.50 an hour on January 1, 2008 and $7.50 an hour on January 1, 2009. It has no provision for the rate to rise according to inflation. It doesn't cover agricultural workers. It doesn't allow communities to adopt a higher rate until 2010. I guess that last part is considered a House victory over the Senate plan to freeze the ability of communities to raise it until 2013.

(Updated) Call Your Senator to Support Compromise Wage Hike

UPDATE: I'm moving this up from the comments. Excellent report on Barbara Ehrenreich's appearance this past weekend in Santa Fe. Among other things, she pointed out that a real living wage is at least $13.00 an hour! Now think about Senators trying to freeze the minimum at $7.50 an hour....

From ACORN NM:
On Saturday, the NM House of Representatives passed a compromise minimum wage bill, SB 324, sending it on to the Senate for concurrance. Now there is a move in the Senate to FREEZE wages by eliminating the right of cities to pass local wage ordinances until 2013 -- meaning that wages would almost certainly be frozen at $7.50 until then. We would oppose such a wage freeze and opt to support the Congressional wage increase instead of a state bill that freezes wages until 2013.

The amended House bill offers a compromise by raising the wage to $7.50 by January 1, 2009 and eliminating local control of wage increases (other than in Albuquerque and Santa Fe) until 2010, thereby allowing cities to consider new wage increases the year after the state and the City of Albuquerque reach $7.50.

Call your Senator today: 505-986-4600. Ask them to support the compromise minimum wage bill and oppose removing local control until 2013. We expect a close vote, so call your Senator today.

Gallup Gets a Raise!

From ACORN NM:
Gallup, New Mexico voters approved one of the most aggressive municipal wage hikes in the country yesterday. The measure will give Gallup workers a raise to $6.50 on July 1, $7.00 on January 1, and $7.50 on July 1, 2008.

Election results are still unofficial; final results may not be available until Friday; but, for now, it is clear that both minimum wage measures passed with comfortable majorities. Measure 1, which would have provided an annual cost of living increase in addition to the immediate wage increase, had a higher percentage of yes votes than Measure 2, but Measure 2 will become law because it received a larger total of yes votes.

Whatever the result, Gallup workers are benefitting from the volunteer efforts of the tireless Gallup Campaign for a Living Wage, backed by ACORN, AFSCME, the Central New Mexico Central Labor Council, and the United Food & Commercial Workers.

Their success did not come easily. The City Council reacted in fear to their petitioned proposal and tried to under cut it, but wage supporters changed the power dynamic in Gallup. Even the Chamber of Commerce, which had fiercely opposed an increase, came out in support of Measure 2. By winning a raise for thousands of Gallup workers, the Gallup Campaign for a Living Wage has helped the struggle for all hard-working New Mexicans and laid the groundwork for other reforms in Gallup.

For more information, contact Matthew Henderson at nmacorn@acorn.org.

NM House Passes Minimum Wage Bill

From ACORN NM:
Today the New Mexico House of Representatives approved SB 324, sending the legislation--which the House amended to reach $7.50 by January 1, increase annually with the cost of living, and preserve the right of cities to pass their own increases--back to the Senate where it originated.

This is a tremendous victory for working New Mexicans. Please call Speaker Ben Lujan and your local legislator to thank them for ushering through one of the strongest minimum wage bills in the country. (Click for contact information.)

Our work is not done. We expect the Senate to reject the House's changes, sending the bill into conference committee. Stay tuned for more information on how to insure that New Mexico gets a minimum wage law significantly better than what Congress is debating. For more information, contact Matthew Henderson at nmacorn@acorn.org.

DC Dems to Hold Official Forum With Wal-Mart, Chamber of Commerce

As David Sirota says in this piece (click on 'read more' below), be prepared to puke. He reports on our Beltway Democratic leadership setting up a kiss-kiss meeting with all the big money culprits pushing "free" trade on workers here and around the world. Given that a significant number of newbie Dems won in '06 by running on a populist, economic fairness agenda, doing something like this takes real nerve. Apparently the Dem leadership in both the U.S. House and Senate has guts when it comes to making nice with the forces working against labor and the common folk, but can't find the gumption to go up against the Bush-Cheney all war all the time machine. That certainly makes me want to puke. How about you?

Reminds me of the recent actions of some of our local Dems -- like Sen. Lidio Rainaldi of Gallup introducing a "Defense of Marriage" bill, or Sen. Michael Sanchez of Belen whining that the proposed ethics and campaign finance reform package represents unwarranted punishment against legislators or Rep. Joni Gutierrez of Las Cruces changing her vote to resurrect the despicable $85 million tax subsidy for the filthy, coal-fired Desert Rock power plant on the Navajo reservation or the long list of Democrats fighting effective regulation of payday loan sharks in the state. Of course, there are many excellent, true to our core beliefs Dems, but these days I think way too many are being swayed by all the wrong forces.

I'm sure big dollar donors have nothing to do with it. Just like "campaign contributions" from insurance companies and HMOs have nothing to do with the Dems, at both the state and national level, refusing to do anything meaningful to stop the escalating shoveling of money to those interests so that universal, high quality health care can be provided to everyone. Just remember, they're ALL "for health care" (as they put it) -- just not enough to risk pissing off the people who cough up funds and perks for them. Ordinary citizens be damned.

It's always instructive to remember that it was Bill Clinton who pushed and signed NAFTA, put Robert Rubin in charge of the Treasury and gave us the telecommunications act that allowed all that power to gather in the hands of big, global media conglomerates. You can see what will happen if Hillary or another DLC clone gains the presidency again. The results of our "win" in the Congress appear to be disappointing enough. Think what damage such a Congress and DLC Executive branch working together would be able to do.

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Minimum Wage Heads to NM House Floor

From ACORN NM:
The House Business and Industry Committee approved minimum wage legislation that will now move to the floor of the House for approval. Call your representative now to ask that they approve Senate Bill 324 without further amendments (see below).

SB 324 has been amended by the House to resemble the Speaker's proposal, HB 759, which will provide a wage of $7.50 on January 1, an annual cost of living increase, and preservation of munipical control to enact further minimum wage legislation. The only change to the Speaker's proposal was made yesterday in the B & I Committee, which restored the existing state exemptions to the bill. For more information, contact Matthew Henderson at nmacorn@acorn.org.

Editor's Note: If you don't know who your representative is, click here, type in your zip code and then click on the name of the legislator to visit his or her page with contact information. You can also access a listing of legislator office assignments and phone numbers here.

Support the NM Identity Theft Protection Bill

From the office of NM Senator Dede Feldman:
The Credit Security Freeze -- aimed at Identity Theft -- will hit the NM Senate Floor Tuesday. Senator Dede Feldman asks everyone to call all Senators to pass the Senate Judiciary Committee Substitute for SB 448 and SB 165. Click to find contact information for your State Senator.

Listen to Sen. Feldman's latest podcast (mp3) discussing this bill (and Miss New Mexico).

Senator Feldman has been working on a compromise with everyone who's interested in protecting consumers from identity theft. The compromise would allow consumers to freeze their credit report. The Attorney General, AARP and many others support the bill Senator Feldman is sponsoring. If passed, consumers could call the credit agencies, and, for $5, place a freeze on their account information so no one with whom they do not already do business can have access to their data to open new accounts or commit crimes. Consumers can then unfreeze their accounts and allow people to see it when they want to make a major purchase.

Senator Bill Sharer (R-Farmington) introduced a related industry-backed bill. Together with Senator Sharer, Senator Feldman got everyone together and hammered out a compromise, which was passed by the Senate Judiciary Committee on Friday. Efforts are still being made to accommodate the auto dealers who want consumers to be able to "thaw" their credit almost immediately. Miss New Mexico, a victim of identity theft, who has made this her platform, was at the Capitol Friday to help with the passage of the Bill. Senator Feldman has already received many emails but urges everyone to keep them coming because there is still a long way to go before the bill is finally passed and signed into law.

Editor's Note: Be sure to add Senator Dede Feldman's Blog to your favorites and blog roll.