Democracy for New Mexico

Guest Blog: How to Get Health Security for Everybody

This is a guest blog by Terry Riley of Albuquerque:
New Mexico is working on health care coverage reform. The movie "Sicko" will convince you of the critical need for such reform if you are not already convinced. I urge everybody to take everybody that you know to the movie. I cannot imagine anybody coming out of the movie without understanding that our system of health care reimbursement is broken and that there are plenty of systems that we could adopt that work well.

I have been working on a plan here in New Mexico that will work well and will reduce what New Mexico pays for health care plus it will cover everybody in the state. The Governor and the Legislature put together a committee to study the problem and to make a proposal in time for the 2008 legislative session. As part of the work that they have done they hired a consulting firm to calculate how much each of the three systems that the committee had narrowed to would cost. The Health Security Plan would cost less than we spend as a state now where the other two plans would cost more.

Cost should never be the only reason to rely on when making such an important decision. What and who will be covered should be of equal importance. The Health Security Plan won again. It is the only plan where everybody in the state will be covered. The other two plans have some small gaps, which I fear will become wide gaps after implementation. One example of a group of people who would not be covered in the two more expensive plans, is people who are homeless due to domestic abuse.  Personally, I don't need to look for any more examples of who would not be covered. These people desperately need coverage and they are not. I see that everybody is covered under the Health Security Plan.  I don’t understand why the other two plans are still being considered. They cost more and they don't cover everybody.

The hearings that were held on Thursday and Friday, June 21 and 22 also reported on the impact on gross receipts taxes, job losses vs. job gains, legal ramifications relating to federal government medical assistance programs, etc. The study by Mathematica was extremely detailed. I believe, from having attended the reports from Mathematica, and from having read as much of the 218 page report that I have completed so far, that the Health Security Plan is the least expensive, the least difficult to implement, and everybody is covered. 

Thursday afternoon the committee received a communication from Governor Richardson. Michele Welby who is on the Governor's staff and is a member of the committee relayed the communication. What I feel is the most significant and most disturbing point in his communication is that he will not support any plan that does not include the health insurance corporations. This is the largest and most unnecessary cost in our entire health care delivery system.

The argument that the Health Security Plan is a single payer system - AND - unworkable because it would be run by the "Government", is stupid. The Health Security Plan is a Co-Op, which is a distinct type of single payer system that has a long history of success in the development of our country. The argument that we cannot trust the "Government" to run anything seems very unrealistic to me.  Aren't our fire departments, police and sheriff's departments run by the government?  Aren't Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid run by the government?  Aren't our streets and highways maintained by our government?  What about the obvious failure of the privatization of services to our armed forces in Iraq and Afghanistan?  The same failure due to the privatization of aid to the victims of Katrina?  A government system that is constructed by people who have a financial interest in that system's failure will likely fail.  A government system that is constructed by people who have a personal interest in the success of that system have a high probability of success.

I want success. I want lower cost. I want everybody covered. We will only achieve these goals if we get organized and convince our elected representatives that we will accept nothing less. Please join me as I develop the necessary organization for New Mexico to bring health security to everybody.

The web site for the Health Security Plan is not working; for information on the Health Security Plan and to join in supporting the Health Security Plan please go to:  www.whatifyouknew-nm.com. The Health Security supporters do not have the funding of our private health coverage corporations and therefore cannot afford the fancy literature, TV ads, radio ads, and expensive retreats and luncheons for our legislators and for our Governor. We are citizens who are trying to put together a plan that will improve life for all of our neighbors.  The plan that we are proposing has now been analyzed by a company with extremely good credentials and has passed the test. It is time for us to come together and to explain to our representatives what we want done in our name.  In New Mexico we want the Health Security Plan.

Editor's Note: This is a guest blog by Albuquerque citizen-activist Terry Riley. Guest blogs provide our readers with an opportunity to express their opinions on political issues, and they may or may not represent our views. If you'd like to submit a post for consideration as a guest blog, contact me by clicking on the Email Me link at the upper right-hand corner of our main page.

Guest Blog: Ben Luce on Why He Launched "Break The Grip!"

This is a guest blog by environmental activist Ben Luce of Break the Grip!:

For the past ten years I have tried as hard as I could to work through our existing political system, as a mostly polite and "professional" environmental advocate, to bring about policies that support renewable energy development and energy efficiency. I collaborated with the Richardson Administration and the utilities, to the extent that this was possible, to "move the ball forward" as people say. Mind you, this was not an easy process, I sometimes sparred publicly with the Administration and the utilities, and often sparred with them behind the scenes, but I mainly pursued the usual channels of lobbying politely, participating in PRC cases, etc.

We did make some progress, to be sure, getting things such as solar tax credits and stronger solar rights through, and the initial renewable energy standard and some other things. I am still very happy and proud about those things.

But I did fight many quiet wars, things were often delayed or compromised to a great extent, and I was always bothered by the pervasive and blatant undue corporate influence that I saw around me at the Legislature in general.

Then, in the recent Legislative Session, I experienced undue corporate influence to the extreme: The Richardson Administration, to my great sadness and dismay, basically teamed up with PNM to exclude citizen advocacy at all costs and try to gut the effectiveness of the new renewable energy standard, of course while making it look good for Richardson. They also tried to strip out crucial renewable energy provisions from the Renewable Energy Transmission Authority (already an extremely scary piece of legislation), and force a clean coal incentive down our throats. The Administration even had a PNM lobbyist working inside and officially representing the Administration (Art Hull), who was assigned to work on the Transmission Authority. Similarly, the clean coal incentive was forced us by a coal-industry connected LANL person named Charryl Berger, who was "on loan" to the Legislature.

Moreover, I sadly watched as the Democratic Leadership put a PNM lobbyist forward and bully citizen advocates to pass a PNM originated bill that rolls back protections for low-income people, and also try to force a $60 million tax incentive through for the Desert Rock Power Plant.

All of this obscene abuse of power was finally too much for me. After mulling it all over, and writing down my experiences over the past ten years (and storing this for safe keeping with others), I finally decided to go public about what actually happened. More than that, instead of just issuing an angry "rant" (as the Administration characterized my first press conference), I decided to launch, with other concerned citizens, a new campaign called "Break The Grip!". This will hopefully be a persistent citizens' campaign to systematically expose as much of the corporate political monopoly over New Mexico as possible, and call for a wide range of reforms.

I spent a few weeks developing the web site , which now contains much detail about the past relative to my own experiences, and we launched the campaign on Tuesday, June 19th (Tuesday being associated with the Greek God of War).

Since that time, AP coverage of the event has spread widely, including nationally, so I think we've made some impact.

We've also received tremendous support from the public: It seems that many people feel the way I do.

But we will need lots of help from the public on keeping the buzz going. We already used up a lot of publicity capital in our first press conference, so we need people to write letters-to-the-editor, join our network , etc. Don't let these guys hear the end of it!

The forces that be are already fighting back: A Richardson appointee named Gregory Green already crashed my press conference on behalf of the Administration and attempted to blunt our coverage by playing dumb about what happened during the session (he was a lobbyist for my former organization during the session), and apparently conveniently managed not to mention that he is currently a Richardson Appointee to the powerful Environmental Improvement Board. This is the kind of unethical response that needs to be countered. Who knows what else they will try? I've certainly written my fair share of embarrassing emails in the past, and I expect to start seeing them turning up in public. Do I care? Sure, things will likely be painful for me. But I'm persona non grata now anyway (at least among the corrupt! I've gotten lots of support from people on the inside too).

So, please help us rid our state of the obscene grip of corporations over our political system here in this state. Now is the time. Visit , read through the materials there, join the network, and await news of further opportunities to participate. We intend to take this campaign to the doorsteps of the powerful, and not back down.

Thanks and best wishes,
Ben Luce

Editor's Notes: This is a guest blog by Ben Luce, the former Chair and Policy Director of the New Mexico Coalition for Clean Affordable Energy (CCAE). Guest blogs provide our readers with an opportunity to express their opinions on political issues, and they may or may not represent our views. If you'd like to submit a post for consideration as a guest blog, contact me by clicking on the Email Me link at the upper right-hand corner of our main page.

Click to read a previous post on the formation of Break the Grip!

(Updated) Republican NM House Leader Arrested During Altercation in Roswell

UPDATE: KOB News 4 has video of a response from Foley. He states he won't apologize.
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State Rep. Dan Foley (R-Roswell), who serves as the Republican House Minority Whip in the NM Legislature, was arrested Sunday night in Roswell. According to a Roswell Daily Record article,

State Rep. Dan Foley, R-Roswell, was arrested Sunday evening by Roswell police officers after an altercation during the Gus Macker basketball tournament which was being staged in the back parking lot of the Roswell Mall.

... Charged with disorderly conduct, resisting arrest and obstructing an officer, Foley was booked into CCDC Sunday evening and faces a $900 surety bond, according to Moe Espinoza, a CCDC corrections officer.

Click for a video of a KRQE News 13 story about Foley's arrest that aired last night. The story states that, "During that confrontation, a police officer took Foley down." Foley has since bonded out of the Chaves County Detention Center and faces arraignment on Tuesday, June 26th, in Roswell.

Ironically, Rep. Foley is a member of the NM Legislature's Judiciary Committee as well as an advisory member of its Interim Courts, Corrections & Justice Committee and its Interim Legislative Ethics Committee. He's also known as a "law and order," conservative.

Rep. Foley also got into hot water in February of 2006 for requesting a flyover by F-16s at the opening of a Roswell Toyota car dealership owned by Tom Krumland, a prominent Republican donor and 2004 RNC delegate. As reported in an Albuquerque Journal article:

The leader of the New Mexico National Guard has ordered an investigation into a flyover by four F-16 fighter planes for the opening of a Roswell auto dealership.

Brig. Gen. Kenny Montoya authorized the flyover for the day before Veterans Day after being asked by Rep. Dan Foley, R-Roswell. Montoya acknowledged this week that he should have looked closer at the request.

Ah the circles are small in New Mexico. According to a item on Talking Points Memo, it turns out that Tom Krumland's wife, Linda Chavez Krumland, chaired a group called New Mexicans for Honest Courts that bought anti-David Iglesias radio ads earlier this year.

ACTION ALERT: Make Your Voice Heard on Health Coverage in NM

The final draft report prepared by Mathematica to evaluate health care coverage options for New Mexico has just been released. You can find links to the report in two parts on the website of Health Action New Mexico:

• Mathematica's Final Report (pdf)
• Potential Impacts on Revenue (pdf)

Important Opportunities for Public Input
The Health Coverage for New Mexicans Committee, the task force appointed by Governor Richardson to make recommendations for health coverage legislation, will be meeting on Thursday, June 21, starting at 9AM and on Friday, June 22, starting at 8:30 AM, in Room 322 of the Santa Fe Roundhouse to discuss the results of the Mathematica study. If you want to see real health care reform in NM, you should attend this meeting and make your views known. Public input will be accepted on both days.

Next Up: Interim Legislative Committee
The NM Legislative Interim Committee on Health and Human Services will consider the Mathematica report results at its meeting starting at 10 AM on June 25th in Room 322 of the Roundhouse in Santa Fe. Although no public input will be accepted, it's a good idea to show legislators there's strong public interest in reforming health care coverage by your attendance.

You can also find links to the final draft Mathematica report on the Insure New Mexico website, which also has information on the Governor's task force -- the Health Care for New Mexicans Committee.

It's critical that the powers that be hear your views on the future of health care coverage in New Mexico! If you can, please attend one or more of these important meetings.

Health Security Act ACTION

From Terry Riley:
Health Security Local Organizing Committee: There is a meeting of the Health Security Local Organizing Committee on Tuesday, June 19, from 4:30 to 6:00 PM at the Immanuel Presbyterian Church on the corner of Carlisle and Silver Streets. That is just behind the Nob Hill Shopping Center.

Legislative Interim Committee on Health and Human Services: The next important state meeting is in Santa Fe in room 322 of the Roundhouse on Monday, June 25th.  The meeting starts at 9 AM and will last almost all day.  Dr. Debora Challet will presenting a summary of the Mathematica report to the Legislative Interim Committee on Health and Human Services.  We need a large turnout to show the support for the Health Security Act.  (The Mathematica study shows the HSNM plan saving New Mexico almost $200 Million. The other plans will cost more, the worst being an additional $570 Million.)  Speak up now or pay through the nose! You have a choice!

Please read this letter (doc) and please become involved. I have created a web site with a lot of information on what is going on regarding the proposed health care changes in the state -- visit www.whatifyouknew-nm.com.

Editor's Note: For more info on this issue, see our previous post.

Vermont Senate Votes to Impeach Bush, Cheney

Unlike New Mexico, where nine Democrats joined Republicans on a procedural maneuver to kill a NM Senate Joint Memorial seeking impeachment of Bush and Cheney during this year's Legislative Session, Vermont's Senate today voted 16-9 for a similar measure. As reported this morning by the Associated Press:

MONTPELIER, Vt. - Vermont senators voted Friday to call for the impeachment of President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, saying their actions have raised "serious questions of constitutionality."

... The resolution says Bush and Cheney's actions in the U.S. and abroad, including in Iraq, "raise serious questions of constitutionality, statutory legality, and abuse of the public trust."

"I think it's going to have a tremendous political effect, a tremendous political effect on public discourse about what to do about this president," said James Leas, a vocal advocate of withdrawing troops from Iraq and impeaching Bush and Cheney.

... Democratic House Speaker Gaye Symington has kept a similar resolution from reaching the floor in her chamber. She argued that an impeachment resolution would be partisan and divisive and that it would distract Washington from efforts to get the United States out of Iraq, which she says is more important.

... Forty towns voted in favor of similar nonbinding impeachment resolutions at their annual town meetings in March.

To trace what happened with New Mexico's legislative impeachment resolution, check our archive of impeachment posts.

NM Domestic Partnership Act: Wait Till Next Year

Yes, catching up after a vacation is a you-know-what. Sadly, New Mexico's domestic partnership bill died at the Legislative Special Session. Insight New Mexico has the story (and audio clips from Peter Simonson of the American Civil Liberties Union of New Mexico). Equality New Mexico reports that Governor Richardson has promised to put domestic partnership on the call for the thirty-day 2008 NM Legislative Session next January.

This year's Domestic Partnership Act passed the NM House THREE times -- once during its initial trip to the House Floor, once to restore the bill after it was gutted by the Senate, and once during the Special Session. Essenatially, it was stripped of its meaning and killed in the final hours of the regular Session by one vote. This post summarizes what happened. Four Democratic Senators voted with Republicans to kill the bill: Tim Jennings (Roswell), John Arthur Smith (Deming), Lidio Rainaldi (Gallup) and Carlos Cisneros (Questa). Opposition by the first three was anticipated, but Cisneros, for unknown reasons, suddenly switched sides. Sen. Cisneros wins my own personal Democratic Turncoat of the 2007 Legislative Session Award for this vote, as well as the one he cast (with 8 other Dem Senators) to deny the NM impeachment bill a floor debate in the Senate.

Sen. Cisneros has long been a champion of environmental, health care and other liberal causes, so it seems entirely out of character that he voted as he did in these two instances. Who knows what kinds of political pressures convinced him to vote as he did or when they came from. Maybe his thinking was still muddled because of the whack on the head with a hammer he got from his then wife, Patsy, when she caught him at a cabin with another woman in May of 2005. You can't make this stuff up. I just hope he didn't have the nerve to kill the domestic partnership bill on "moral" grounds. Maybe he'll regain his senses by next January.

Should you want to torture yourself, you can refresh yourself on our coverage of the ups and downs of this (and other) legislation by visiting our 2007 Legislative Session post archive. Also see State Senator Dede Feldman's blog post on the wrap-up of the nightmarish Special Session.

Video: Gov. Richardson Speaks at HRC Dinner in L.A.

As anyone following the back and forth on the NM Legislature's Special Session knows, Governor Bill Richardson spoke this weekend at a Human Rights Campaign (HRC) dinner in Los Angeles. He discusses some of his legislative initiatives in New Mexico including those concerning clean energy, a minimum wage raise, medical marijuana and tax cuts, as well as his record on GLBT civil rights, including the domestic partnership bill awaiting a vote by the Senate in our continuing Special Session. Quote:

"I want a domestic partnership bill so I can sign it right now, this year, soon. And I'm pushing this bill because I believe all families deserve our respect no matter their race, creed, sexual orientation. I think people realize that this bill is a victory for fairness and equality as well as to open hearts and open minds. So far my state senate has not agreed. But I'm gonna keep pushing ... This bill is as important to me as it is to you.

Let's hope our NM Senators see this issue through the same prism of fairness and equality for all New Mexican families, and vote to pass it on Thursday, when they are due to reconvene in Santa Fe. The bill has passed the NM House in both our regular Legislative Session and the Special Session. To those awaiting at least basic legal protections under civil law, every year that passes without this legislation is another year at risk.

The HRC release on Gov. Richardson's speech said,

New Mexico Governor and 2008 presidential candidate Bill Richardson pledged his support for equal domestic partnership rights, fighting HIV/AIDS internationally and repealing the military’s anti-gay “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy as keynote speaker at the annual Human Rights Campaign Los Angeles Gala Dinner on Saturday.

‘This country is tired of the politics of hatred and division. What we need in this country is someone that can bring us together,” said Gov. Richardson. “Gay and lesbian families deserve respect. What we don’t need are constitutional amendments designed to exclude supportive, devoted couples. We need to extend the rights due to all of us as Americans.”

The HRC Los Angeles Gala Dinner was attended by over 1000 HRC members and supporters, including Marine Sgt. Eric Alva (ret.), spokesperson for HRC’s efforts to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” and comedian Bill Maher, who received the 2007 HRC Equality Award.

Click for a transcript of the speech.

The Human Rights Campaign is America’s largest civil rights organization working to achieve gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender equality. By inspiring and engaging all Americans, HRC strives to end discrimination against GLBT citizens and realize a nation that achieves fundamental fairness and equality for all.

CVNM Reports on NM Legislature Environmental Successes

From Conservation Voters New Mexico:
At this year's New Mexico Legislature, we passed a breathtaking number of pro-environment bills (over 20 great bills!!) and we defeated the worst anti-environment bills, such as the Desert Rock coal subsidy and the Administrative Accountability Act!  Indeed, this legislature passed more pro-environment bills than we've seen in years.  We provide for you below a link to our final report on the status of all the pro- and anti-conservation bills that CVNM lobbied and tracked during the session.

Of course, we owe this year's environmental achievements to the leadership and tenacity of our pro-conservation legislative , to several new pro-conservation , to the broader NM environmental community, and to the numerous phone calls our CVNM members made to their legislators on specific bills. Thanks also to Speaker of the House Ben Lujan for creating the best House Energy & Natural Resources Committee in recent memory!

Further, our pro-conservation Governor has fulfilled, to date, our veto requests—THANK YOU GOVERNOR RICHARDSON —and we look forward to two additional vetoes in the coming weeks. 

With the arrival of spring, we turn our attention to scoring the votes of legislators for our annual so that you can know how each of your legislators voted on these critical issues.  Thanks for being a conservation voter and let us know if you have any questions or comments about the progress report provided here.

Sincerely,
Sandy Buffett, CVNM Executive Director

(Updated) NM Senators Leave Citizens, Ethics in the Lurch

UPDATE 3.25.07: We now know 3 Dems voted with Repubs to adjourn: Senators Linda Lopez, Tim Jennings and John Arthur Smith. We also know 4 Dems were absent: Senators Cisco McSorley, Ortiz y Pino, Cynthia Nava and Mary Kay Papen. Adjournment was achieved by an 18-17 margin. According to this morning's Sunday Journal article it appears that Governor Richardson and the NM House leadership intend to keep going. Richardson is quoted as saying he'll basically keep a Special Session going until the Senate gives him an up or down vote on the bills he specified in his proclamation. Senate Majority Leader Michael Sanchez and some others appear to favor a cooling down period, with a break before another Special Session is called. The Governor doesn't agree, saying:

"I don't want them to go home and get comfortable and then find excuses not to come back," Richardson said. "If there are some senators that would rather politic and make excuses than do their work, I think the people are going to respond at the polls.

"I want the Senate to ask: What do they say to victims of domestic violence? What do they say to the (people) of New Mexico that wants roads in their cities and counties? What do they say to gay couples that want a fair shot? What do they say to controlling the meth problem in the state? And what do they say about ethics? I mean, we've had all these scandals, and the Senate doesn't even want to vote?"

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Kate Nash reports briefly:

UPDATE 11:23 AM The clerk is calling the roll. At 11:30, Senate Minority Leader Stuart Ingle made a motion to adjourn. It was a voice vote, which is being challenged. The clerk is now calling the roll. There were enough votes, by one, to adjourn. The Senate is clearing out.

They voted on nothing except adjournment, failing to pass even a feed bill to pay themselves. I'd love to know which Democrats voted to adjourn so I could personally thank them for the valiant efforts they made to show Governor Richardson who's boss, to stick it to the majority of New Mexicans who support ethics and campaign finance reform in the wake of ongoing ethics scandals, to make it clear to New Mexican families who critically need the very basic civil law protections of the domestic partnership bill that their civil rights aren't considered important and, well, you get the idea. Shameful. In my view, if there's ever been an argument to be made for terms limits, this is it.

Thanks, Senators! You've shown your true colors.

No word yet on whether the NM House intends to join in the adjournment. If they don't, the Senate would be forced to reconvene again in three days. This could go on for 30 days beyond the start of the Special Session, at which point the Governor could issue another call for a Special Session. We'll see what happens. 

To access all our past coverage of the 2007 NM Legislature, visit our archived posts on the topic.