Democracy for New Mexico

Voters Unite Warns Sen. Feinstein’s Election Reform Bill is a Constitutional Heresy

From Ellen Theisen, Co-Director and Managing Editor, www.VotersUnite.Org:

June 11, 2007 -- Senator Dianne Feinstein’s bill S. 1487, “The Ballot Integrity Act of 2007,” was introduced on May 24, 2007. Some were expecting it to be a companion to, and improvement on, Representative Holt’s bill, H.R. 811. (See Theisen's new post on The Brad Blog, which delineates the serious failures of the Holt bill.) Far from an improvement, S. 1487 introduces surprising — and disturbing — new provisions. The bill systematically dismantles government by the people, and it sanctions the disenfranchisement of “distinct communities” such as racial minorities. What follows is a discussion of these disturbing provisions. Click to read the report.

ALERT: Please contact your Senators and tell them that you oppose S. 1487, and before writing another bill they must learn more about the electronic voting machine industry, the use of electronic voting to disenfranchise minorities, and the past problems citizens and States have had with the EAC. If necessary, refer them also to the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution.

Editor's Notes: Click here for contact information for Sen. Jeff Bingaman. Also see our previous post on the seriously flawed Holt bill.

Next DFA-DFNM Meetup to Feature Community Organizer Santiago Juarez

Our regular monthly Albuquerque DFA-Democracy for New Mexico Meetup is set for Thursday, June 7th, at 7:00 PM at the Social Hall of the First Unitarian Church at Carlisle and Comanche. To join the group, get on our mailing list or RSVP for the Meetup, click here. Our special guest will be long-time community organizer SANTIAGO JUAREZ (photo), who'll address the topic, "Electing to Resist: Vote Suppression and Community Empowerment."

"You take away people's health insurance and you take their right to union pay scales and you take away their pensions--taking away their vote's just one more on the list."--(Santiago Juarez, "Armed Madhouse")

Prominently featured in investigative reporter Greg Palast's recent bestseller, "Armed Madhouse," veteran New Mexico community organizer and attorney Santiago Juarez returns to Democracy for New Mexico, after a nearly two-year interlude. Santiago will recount his exploits in the 2004 Presidential campaign and election, and bring with him the spirit of citizen fightback in a time of both uncertainty and renewed hope.

Based in Espanola, NM, Mr. Juarez's community development work and his influence touch Albuquerque and span New Mexico and beyond. Counting among his early influences the late Chicano labor and civil rights leader Cesar Chavez, Santiago continues and extends the tradition of working-class, community-based political activism.

Santiago Juarez has held organizing positions in Mexicano/Chicano communities in the western United States since the 1970's. A founding organizer of Seattle's ground-breaking community center, El Centro De La Raza, Mr. Juarez also worked in the 1980's with Rev. Jesse Jackson's Rainbow Coalition.

Since 1995, Mr. Juarez has worked with communities in New Mexico as an organizer and facilitator for Re-Visioning New Mexico. He maintains a private law practice, is on the Board of Directors for the International Relations Center, and is currently the Executive Director of New Mexico Progressive Alliance for Community Empowerment (NM PACE).

Mr. Juarez holds a B.S. from Eastern New Mexico University and a J.D. from the University of Washington.

REMINDER: NM Blog Radio Streams at 4:30 PM Today

The topic of today's New Mexico Blog Radio show will be Elections Evolve: Democracy Wins, with guests Matt Brix, Maggie Toulouse Oliver and Kelli Fulgenzi. Visit the program page at 4:30 PM for a live stream of the show, or visit later to listen to an archived copy. See our previous post for more info.

Even though clean election and campaign finance reforms are extremely popular with Albuquerque voters -- about 72% voted in favor of the 2005 ballot referendum that established the public campaign funding option for City Council elections -- some rightwingers remain opposed to such measures. Check out that discusses Republican blogger Whitney Cheshire's opposition to public funding of campaigns, as well as comments by Matt Brix that contradict some of her key claims.

Cheshire calls the public campaign financing law a "travesty," deeming it a waste of taxpayer money. I guess she prefers that candidates get their money in large "donations" from special interests so they can be beholden to deep-pocket benefactors if they win office. Heaven forbid that City Councilors would instead be representing the interests of their constituents!

I'd love to hear candidates who refuse to use the public financing option explain why they prefer to take money from special interests, wouldn't you?

New Mexico Blog Radio: Program Archive and Next Up

If you missed the live webcast of the premier episide of New Mexico Blog Radio last Thursday, you can visit the show's webpage and listen to an archived copy of the show, or download it as a wmv file or a podcast (mp3). Also, when you visit the program's webpage, the last show aired automatically begins playing. The first show, co-hosted by the show's creator, Suzanne Prescott, and me, featured guests Rey Garduno and Debbie O'Malley, who are running for Albuquerque City Council and using the new public financing option to fund their campaigns. The topic was Public Campaign Financing in New Mexico - Is it working?

This Thursday: Matt Brix, Maggie Toulouse Oliver, Kelli Fulgenzi: The second episode of the show will be webcast live on Thursday, May 31, at 4:30 PM and I'll again join Suzanne as cohost. Scheduled guests include Matt Brix, who worked hard for clean elections and campaign reform in his previous role as executive director of Common Cause NM, Maggie Toulouse Oliver, our current Bernalillo County Clerk, and Kelli Fulgenzi of the Albuquerque City Clerk's office. Our guests will be discussing election innovations that Albuquerque and Bernalillo County can be proud of and how they work on a show entitled Elections Evolve, Democracy Wins.

Listen live here on Thursday at 4:30 PM. You can also call in live during the show with questions or comments: 718-664-9717.

Blog Radio is a relatively new phenomenon on the net, and we're new to it too. Check out the show and let us know how we're doing! You can leave your comments on the Show Notes section of New Mexico Blog Radio.

You can check out our previous posts on New Mexico Blog Radio here and here.

National Election Reform Bill Garners Strong Criticisms

Although HR 811, the Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act of 2007 sponsored by Rep. Rush Holt (D-NJ), was initially created to address the rampant and well documented problems caused by electronic voting machines, most election reform activists are now fighting the bill. Critics say it's been amended and watered down in ways that make it part of the problem, not the solution. Mark Crispin Miller explains in the video above why we should say NO to HR 811, the Holt Bill, saying it's a poison pill, a billion-dollar-plus boondoggle and tyranny disguised as reform.

If you agree, please contact Tom Udall's office to express your deep concern with and adversity to the Holt Bill (HR811):

• Santa Fe: 505-984-8950
• DC fax: 202-226-1331
• Washington: 202-225-6190

More resources and information about the Holt Bill and its problems:

RESOURCES:

Teresa Hommel's site: https://www.wheresthepaper.org

Zogby Poll: 92% of people don't want Secret Vote Counts
Voters Unite: Peering Through Chinks in the Armor of High-Tech Elections

Some of the election reform activists that are against the Holt Bill:

• Election Defense Alliance
• Vote Rescue
• Brad Friedman of Brad Blog
• Voter Action

COMMENT SPOTLIGHT FROM MARK CRISPIN MILLER BLOG:

• At #c1658364216473477457" target="_blank">10:26 PM, steve rosenfeld said…
• Mark is completely correct with this analysis. This creates a new layer of problems in terms of accountability and transparency in US elections - on top of all other unsolved issues. The bottom line with these printout from elecronic machines is simple: they're not the same as a paper ballot marked by a voter, which shows voter intent in a recount or contested election. Just wait until the next contested election and you'll see how and why this differnce matters.
• At #c7384018538652155195" target="_blank">2:17 AM, Mark E. Smith said…
• Mark is right. Not only are voting machines little more than $5,000 pencils, they don't work. Aurora, Texas may have to hold a new election because their Diebold machines lost 38 votes. https://tinyurl.com/39nfvh
• The dangers of secret vote counts that occur inside proprietary corporate voting machines cannot be exaggerated. The Holt bill is more than a billion-dollar boondoggle, it is tyranny disguised as reform. The only people who want voting machines are crooked politicians and corrupt corporations. We the People want hand-counted paper ballots that we can mark, read, count, and control ourselves, without any need for experts, technicians, or $7,000 ballot conversion devices that don't even exist.
• At #c4340466468860131208" target="_blank">3:18 AM, Karen Renick said…
• I think that Mark's video lays out very clearly why we should be extremely wary of the Holt bill, HR 811, and why we all should contact our representatives in Congress and tell them NOT to support this bill. (Go to www.congress.org for contact info.)There is, however, one part of his explanation about which I am compelled to present a different interpretation and clarification. It is regarding Mark's description of the bill's original provision for allowing public review of the voting machine software.
• First, having access to review the software never provides a way for knowing how votes are being counted and if they are being counted accurately. It's not like opening the back of a watch and seeing the gears moving and the springs tightening. Actually, as it has been described to me by computer security experts, analysing software code is extremely tedious and time-consuming and would never provide a way to "see" how that code performs, i.e., how it casts and/or counts the voters' selections, either during an actual election or in one happening in the future.
• Secondly, the magnanimous act of allowing the "public" to view the software that was in the original version of the bill was, in actuality, a "literacy test" for "reading" computer code that most voters fail and therefore, would never have been able to enjoy any benefit from this so-called "offer".
• The raw truth about electronic voting is that computer-illiterate voters (like myself) must always rely on an expert for an explanation of the voting process and must always depend on an expert (or, most often, an election official) to know if everything about the election has proceeded smoothly or not. We the Voters are being forced to trust the "word" of the very same government of which we are supposed to be in charge.
• Voting isn't about trusting. It's fundamentally about voters seeing,knowing and participating in how the votes are counted.
• As Mark so aptly describes, the only voting method that meets the above criteria is hand-counted paper ballots, counted in full public view on election night in every precinct across our nation.
• Tell your representatives to pass a bill for hand-counted paper ballots instead of the convoluted disaster that is HR 811.

Barnett and Rogers Implicated (Again) in Rove's Plan to Keep Minorities Off Voter Rolls

Facts be damned. No matter how much evidence undermines the validity of the Republican "voter fraud" claims, they keep on insisting there's a "there" there. And they keep sticking to their odd view that, for some strange reason, certain Republican U.S. Attorneys -- many of whom have since been fired by BushCo -- didn't want to prosecute "voter fraud" even though evidence was supposedly abundant. It's never really been explained why any U.S. Attorney would avoid issuing headline-grabbing indictments if the cases could be made.

The truth is that BushCo wanted these prosecutions in battleground states despite there being no real evidence of crimes -- and they were dedicated to applying political pressure to get them even if they weren't justified. Politics is politics and political gain often seems to be the only goal of Rove et al. What's a little destruction of the integrity and ethics of the U.S. Justice Department when Congressional seats are at stake? One of the top priorities of Rove's strategy for the last few election cycles was to disenfranchise minority voters and discourage them from registering to vote. After all, minority voters tend to vote for Democrats. Creating the "voter fraud" myth and launching headline-making investigations were a big part of Rove's plan, and pressure was applied liberally to U.S. Attorneys who were reluctant to play ball.

Wa-Po Piece Debunks "Voter Fraud"
In a Washington Post op-ed this week, Harold Meyerson debunks the long-running Repub "voter fraud" myth in no uncertain terms. Quote:

... five of the 12 federal prosecutors either sacked or considered for sacking last year had been singled out by Rove and other administration officials for nonperformance on voter fraud. Amazingly, all five came from states -- Missouri, Nevada, New Mexico, Washington and Wisconsin -- where Republicans were embroiled in tight election contests.

With the home office in Washington breathing down their necks, why did these experienced prosecutors fail to bring voter fraud indictments? The crime, after all, had become a major Justice Department concern. Starting in 2002, Justice required every U.S. attorney to designate a district election officer, whose job it would be to end this epidemic of electoral fraud. These officers' attendance was required at annual training seminars, where they were taught how to investigate, prosecute and convict fraudulent voters. The statutes were adequate; the investigators were primed, well funded and raring to go.

And nothing happened. For the simple reason that when it comes to voter fraud in America, there's no there there. Voter fraud is a myth -- not an urban or rural myth, as such, but a Republican one. [emphasis mine]

...  to prosecute or convict more than a handful of people for voter fraud isn't for lack of trying. Since 2002, the Justice Department's Ballot Access and Voting Integrity Initiative has, as Gonzales put it, "made enforcement of election fraud and corruption offenses a top priority." And yet between October 2002 and September 2005, just 38 cases were brought nationally, and of those, 14 ended in dismissals or acquittals, 11 in guilty pleas, and 13 in convictions.

... And thus, as has so often been the case in the Bush presidency, a government department was instructed to negate its raison d'etre. Just as consumer protection and environmental protection agencies were transformed into agencies protecting manufacturers and despoilers, so Justice -- whose imperishable glory was its role in extending the franchise to African Americans during the civil rights years -- was told that its new mission was to suppress the franchise.

Rogers and Barnett Work the Rove Strategy
Now evidence is mounting that local Repub political operatives Pat Rogers (right) and Mickey Barnett (below left) were, in essence, part of an organized effort in New Mexico to pressure Iglesias to help carry out Rove's strategy.

Barnett was once a legislative aid to Sen. Domenici and was his pick for a slot on the U.S. Postal Service Board of Governors. A former NM Senator, Barnett has also lobbied on behalf of the payday loan industry, Corrections Corporation of Amerca and gambling interests. Albuquerque attorney Patrick Rogers served on the board of the American Center for Voting Rights Legislative Fund, which has ties to The Donatelli group involved in the Swiftboat plot during the 2004 election. He testified about "voter fraud" and the need for voter ID at a U.S House Administration Committee hearing organized by fromer Repub Rep. Bob Ney, who later was jailed for crimes connected with the Abramoff scandal.

In a major story in yesterday's LA Times, David Iglesias describes a politicized lunch where Rogers once again applied the pressure:

Weeks before the 2006 midterm election, then-New Mexico U.S. Atty. David C. Iglesias was invited to dine with a well-connected Republican lawyer in Albuquerque who had been after him for years to prosecute allegations of voter fraud.

"I had a bad feeling about that lunch," said Iglesias, describing his meeting at Pappadeaux Seafood Kitchen with Patrick Rogers, a lawyer who provided occasional counsel to the New Mexico Republican Party.

When the voter fraud issue came up, Iglesias said, he explained to Rogers that in reviewing more than 100 complaints, he hadn't found any solid enough to justify criminal charges.

... Rogers, Iglesias recalled, had pressed him in 2004 and then again just before the 2006 election to push for voter fraud convictions in the state. Iglesias said he was so concerned about the propriety of the preelection get-together with Rogers that he asked a colleague from the office to join him as a witness.

Sour Grapes When Iglesias Won't Cooperate
As it became more and more clear that Iglesias wouldn't go along with the "voter fraud" charade, complaints by Rogers, Barnett and Sen. Pete Domenici bombarded the Justice Department and White House, urging that Iglesias be replaced. The plot thickens and "all roads lead to Rove."

Unbeknownst to Iglesias, a few months before that lunch, Rogers and another Republican attorney from New Mexico, Mickey Barnett, had complained about Iglesias at the Justice Department in Washington. The session was arranged with the assistance of the department's then-White House liaison, Monica M. Goodling, and an aide to White House political strategist Karl Rove, according to e-mails released recently by congressional investigators.

One of those they met with was Matthew Friedrich, a senior counselor to Gonzales. Friedrich would meet again with Rogers and Barnett in New Mexico, where, he told congressional investigators, the pair complained about Iglesias. They made it clear "that they did not want him to be the U.S. attorney…. They mentioned that they had communicated that with Sen. Domenici, and they also mentioned Karl Rove," Friedrich said, according to a transcript provided by congressional investigators.

... Iglesias has said that he believes "all roads lead to Rove" in explaining the dismissals and that he is counting on the Office of Special Counsel to find the truth.

Obstruction of Justice?
Another fired U.S. Attorney says the political pressure could merit a criminal investigation:

This week, another fired U.S. attorney who has said he felt pressure on voter fraud cases, John McKay of Seattle, said he thought interference with Iglesias and other prosecutors amounted to "possible obstruction of justice." He predicted that a criminal inquiry would be launched. He said he felt pressure to bring voter fraud charges in his district after a 129-vote margin put a Democratic governor into office in Washington.

Remember that both Sen. Domenici and Rep. Heather Wilson made phone calls to Iglesias in the run-up to the 2006 election that he perceived to be intimidating. Clearly, a message was being sent to Iglesias and other recalcitrant U.S. Attorneys that they must proceed with politically motivated indictments and investigations about "voter fraud" and other matters or face the wrath of the DOJ and Rove. Those who didn't respond were put on the to-be-fired list.

Domenici Pushes Rogers to Replace Iglesias
A final "irony": Pat Rogers was one of the names reportedly submitted by Domenici as a suggested replacement for Iglesias. I guess Rogers did such a good job keeping the pressure on Iglesias that Domenici believed he deserved a reward, like any good flunky.

Rove in the Crosshairs in DOJ Scandal

You remember "voter fraud," the fictional problem concocted by Repubs to provide a tool they could use to suppress and purge Dem voters and those who were dedicated to registering them. One of the main excuses used by those who went after U.S. Attorney David Iglesias and the others was that they were allegedly refusing to prosecute massive "voter fraud" cases in the run-up to the 2004 and 2006 elections. All research findings to the contrary, the Repubs persist to this day in insisting that voter fraud on the part of Dems is rampant. Why let facts get in the way of a useful Repub political tactic?

Now it turns out that Rove was the Repub operative orchestrating this effort -- from inside the White House. New information shows that Rove led an attempt to manipulate the Department of Justice so that U.S. Attorneys in battleground states, including Iglesias, would either have to agree to prosecute these baseless "voter fraud" cases or risk being fired. Always ready to subvert democracy to benefit BushCo, Rove had no qualms about using the DOJ to try and tamp down Dem voting in areas where such tactics might well make a difference. Like the 2006 Wilson-Madrid race in NM that was ultimately decided by fewer than 900 votes.

Harper's Magazine states:

The McClatchy Newspapers report today that in the final weeks before the midterm Congressional elections of November 2006, presidential political advisor Karl Rove orchestrated a large-scale effort to suppress voter turnout among potentially Democratic constituencies, leveraging Department of Justice resources in the process. Key to the project were P. Kyle Sampson, Alberto Gonzales’s chief of staff, and Matthew Friedrich, then chief of staff in the Department’s Criminal Division.

Friedrich’s testimony and statements to Congressional investigators made clear that the decision to proceed with “voter fraud” charges in a series of dubious cases resulted from direction from partisan political operatives in the White House, including Rove.

As the McClatchy story relates:

While it was known that Rove and the White House had complained about prosecutors not aggressively investigating voter fraud, Friedrich's testimony suggests that the Justice Department itself was under pressure to open voter fraud cases despite a department policy that discourages such action so close to an election.

Greg Palast Has 550 "Missing" Emails from the RoveTeam
Also be sure to read the entire Democracy Now report by Greg Palast (transcript and audio), which details his recent telephone interviews with David Igelsias and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. about the scandal. Excerpt:

GREG PALAST: Rove flew to New Mexico just before the [2006] election and got an earful of complaints about Iglesias from state party chiefs. Rove reported to President Bush, who personally put the heat on Attorney General Gonzales. Iglesias was stunned.

DAVID IGLESIAS: I had no idea that a few local yokels in New Mexico would have enough stroke to get the President to complain.

GREG PALAST: There was more than failing to help the Wilson campaign. In the 2004 presidential election, Republican operatives blocked a quarter-million new voters nationwide from voting on grounds they brought the wrong IDs to the poles. To justify this massive blockade, Republican officials wanted Iglesias to arrest some voters to create a high publicity show trial. Iglesias went along with the game. Just before the 2004 election, he held a press conference announcing the creation of a vote fraud task force. But the prosecutor drew the line at arresting innocent voters.

DAVID IGLESIAS: They were telling Rove that I wasn’t doing their bidding. I wasn't filing these voter fraud cases.

GREG PALAST: The evidence fellow Republicans gave him was junk. He refused to bring a single prosecution.

DAVID IGLESIAS: It was the old throwing pasta at the wall trick, that he’s throwing up pasta. Something’s got to stick, and it didn't.

GREG PALAST: For failing to bring the voting cases, Iglesias paid with his job.

DAVID IGLESIAS: They wanted a political operative who happened to be a US attorney, and when they got somebody who actually took his oath to the Constitution seriously, they were appalled and they wanted me out of there. The two strikes against me was, I was not political, I didn't help them out on their bogus voter fraud prosecutions.

GREG PALAST: Rove personally ordered his removal. As a prosecutor, Iglesias says that if missing emails prove the firing was punishment for failure to bring bogus charges, Mr. Rove himself is in legal trouble.

DAVID IGLESIAS: If his intent was, look what happened with Iglesias, if that was his intent, he’s in big trouble. That is obstruction of justice, one classic example [emphasis mine].

After reviewing Palast's cache of misdirected email from RoveCo, voting rights attorney Kennedy had this to say:

ROBERT F. KENNEDY, JR.: They ought to be in jail for doing this, because they knew it was illegal, and they did it anyway.

GREG PALAST: What is it that was so obviously illegal that law professor Kennedy thought they deserved prison time? The evidence that shook him was attached to fifty of the secret emails, something that GOP party chiefs called caging lists, thousands of names of voters. Notably, the majority were African American. Kennedy explained how caging worked.

ROBERT F. KENNEDY, JR.: Caging is an illegal way of getting rid of black votes. You get a list of all the black voters. Then you send a letter to their homes. And if the person doesn't sign it at the homes, the letter then is returned to the Republican National Committee. They then direct the state attorney general, who is friendly to them, who’s Republican, to remove that voter from the list on the alleged basis that that voter does not live in the address that they designated as their address on the voting application form.

GREG PALAST: In all, the Republican Party challenged nearly three million voters, a mass attack on minority voting rights virtually unreported in the US press.

ROBERT F. KENNEDY, JR.: So they disenfranchised millions of black voters who don't even know that they’ve been disenfranchised.

GREG PALAST: Page after page of voters with this address, Naval Air Station, Jacksonville, hundreds, thousands of soldiers and sailors targeted to lose their vote. Go to Baghdad, lose your vote.

And what does this have to do with the prosecutor firings? Take a look at the name at the top of the secret missing email: Tim Griffin. This is the man in charge of the allegedly illegal caging operation. He is research director for the Republican National Committee, special assistant to Karl Rove, and as of December 7 Karl Rove's personal pick for US attorney for the state of Arkansas. Is this a case of the perpetrator becomes the prosecutor?

(Updated) More on Rey Garduño's Run for District 6 City Councilor

Suzanne Prescott has posted of an excellent two-part interview with Rey Garduño (left), who's running for the District 6 seat on the Albuquerque City Council, on New Mexico FBIHOP. will be is now up there tomorrow as well. As explained in our previous post, Rey is one of several progressive candidates who are trying to qualify for public campaign funding under the city's new clean elections law. He needs help to be successful. You know what to do: email him at reygard@unm.edu or call 505.266-4424 or 688-698. Also be sure to check out Garduño's new campaign blog called "Elect Rey Garduño - He's running Clean!" to learn more.

O'Malley Also Needs Our Help
District 2 incumbent Debbie O'Malley, one of our most effective City Councilors, is also trying to qualify for public campaign funding. Read more about that in a recent DFNM guest blog by Suzanne Prescott. To find out how you can lend a hand call 304-3960 or email .

(Updated) Rey Garduño Seeks Public Funding for ABQ District 6 City Council Race

UPDATE: Rey Garduño now has a website: https://reygarduno.blogspot.com/
****************
Long-time community activist, public information specialist and small businessman Rey Garduño (right) has decided to pursue public funding for his campaign to replace Martin Heinrich on the Albuquerque City Council in District 6 in the Southeast Heights. Heinrich has plans to run for Congress in CD1 against Repub incumbent Heather Wilson and will resign his seat on the Council when his terms ends. City Council elections are set for even numbered districts this coming November.

Garduño currently serves as Vice Chair on the Board of Common Cause NM. He's also a member of the Board of the Southwest Organizing Project (SWOP), and operates Rey Garduño Photography. He retired in 2005 from his post as head of marketing for UNM Hospitals, and he was a Public Affairs Representative at Carrie Tingley Hospital for nine years. Click to see his extensive resume detailing 25 years of professional experience in managing staff and resources, as well as his many years of service to the community on various boards and professional organizations. Rey has also worked hard in support of various initiatives including passage of minimum wage and clean elections legislation, the Better New Mexico campaign and ethics reform.

Like Debbie O'Malley, who's running for reelection to her North Valley City Council seat in District 2, Garduño is currently in the process of collecting signatures and $5 donations from registered voters in his district so that he can qualify for public funding. He has to gather more than 250 before the May 31 deadline. If you live in District 6 and would like to sign up, you can contact him at 266-4424 or reygard@unm.edu. He's also looking for people to help collect the signatures and donations. You don't need to be a resident of District 6 to help out.

Other reported candidates for the District 6 seat include UNM graduate student Joe Garcia, who is president of the Graduate and Professional Student Association, and Joan Griffin, who owns a local ad agency and operates a dating service franchise. Griffin served as Mayor Marty Chavez's press person during his 2005 reelection campaign.

More on O'Malley's District 2 Race
See our previous guest blog by Suzanne Prescott to learn more about the public financing program, as well as how to get involved with Debbie O'Malley's (left) campaign in District 2. According to a post today on Joe Monahan, O'Malley will have a competitor in her race to retain her seat in the form of Katherine Martinez, who has close ties to Albuquerque Mayor Marty Chavez:

Meantime, on the city election watch 34 year old Katherine Martinez, who is active in the mayor's ABQ Green initiative and is the government affairs director for the Central NM Homebuilders Association, has launched a campaign against City Council President Debbie O'Malley who has often clashed with His Honor over growth issues. Martinez also worked in government affairs for the ABQ Chamber of Commerce.

Martinez (Katherine Carroll), a Democrat like O'Malley, was born in North Carolina and moved to New Mexico eight years ago with her native New Mexican husband. She says she has lived in the ABQ North Valley district only two and a half years, but "it doesn't take long to get to know people."

to determine which Albuquerque City Council district you reside in.

UPDATE: Also see our later post on Rey Garduno, which includes links to a two-part interview with him by Suzanne Prescott that appeared on New Mexico FBIHOP.

Guest Blog: Albuquerque City Council Candidates to Test New Public Financing Option

This is a guest blog by Suzanne Prescott:

Maria Martinez (right), Democratic Chair of Albuquerque's precinct 162, says campaign finance reform is a good thing, and helps to insure that our elected officials represent their communities and not special interests. Listen:

Voluntary public campaign finance reform for Albuquerque municipal elections was passed by referendum in the fall election of 2005. This is the first time that the law is being put to the test. Candidates and their supporters will have to feel their way through what is at present an untested procedure set in motion by the referendum that was passed in 2005. To qualify for public campaign funding, the new law requires that a candidate for City Council get signatures and $5.00 from 1% of the registered voters in their district from May 1 to May 30  -- that's gives them less than a month.

For Debbie O'Malley, running for City Council from District #2, that means collecting 300 signatures.  A question worth raising is whether it's worth the effort to get the signatures if a candidate is running unopposed. At present O'Malley has no opposition, but that could change. Collecting the signatures now could be good insurance if an opposing candidate decides to enter the race at a later date. If O'Malley is unopposed and decides not to run a campaign, then the money that has been collected would have to be returned to the initial signators.

ith an official campaign organization just getting off the ground, and with no explanatory literature to hand out, it may not be easy to quickly gather the needed signatures. The first week of collecting signatures is already over -- close family members, and friends have been mined for their support.  Now the hard work begins of explaining the new law and reaching out to those less familiar with the candidate.

Some observers say that with the money in hand there would be at least two advantages to running a campaign: First, it would allow O'Malley to get her name and credentials before a larger audience. This could be useful later if O'Malley were to decide to run for another elected office and there seem to some available. Second, O'Malley's collection of 300 signatures is a good opportunity for supporters to actively engage registered voters in a discussion of public campaign financing and its merits. There are still voters who are not sure what public campaign financing entails and why it's important.

Get Involved
Signatures are already being collected. Registered voters in District  #2 who support Debbie O'Malley can sign a form by calling 304-3960 or emailing . Anyone who is not a registered voter in District #2 and who would like to become one of the 300 signators must register to vote by the end of the month and also sign the form and submit the $5.00. Use the contact information above to become a registered voter. You don't have to live in District #2 to help O'Malley round up signators who will donate $5.

Those who qualify would receive $1 for every registered voter in their District that would be used to finance their campaign. Click for a copy of the issued by the Albuquerque City Clerk.

Editor's Note: Albuquerque will be electing City Councilors from Districts 2, 4, 6 and 8 in November, 2007. :

District 2: Debbie O'Malley is running as an incumbent. No other candidates have announced.

District 4: Brad Winter running as an incumbent. No other candidates have announced.

District 6: Incumbent Martin Heinrich will not run again so that he can enter the Congressional race for CD1. One candidate who has announced he will enter this race is Rey Garduno, who has said he will pursue qualifying for public financing. A subsequent post will provide more information on his campaign.

District 8: It's not known if incumbent Craig Loy is planning to run again for his seat.

This is a guest blog by Suzanne Prescott. Guest blogs provide an opportunity for readers and others to express their views on issues of political interest to DFNM. If you'd like to submit a post for consideration as a guest blog, contact me by clicking on the Email Me link on the upper left-hand corner of the main page.