Democracy for New Mexico

UVNM Reports Election Reform Day a Success

From United Voters of New Mexico:

VOTER VERIFIABLE PAPER BALLOTS and AUTOMATIC AUDITS have been well explained and supported by legislators, multiple parties, the League of Conservation of Voters, the League of Women Voters, and the NAACP.

We got good press coverage, and over 70 citizens showed up to lobby legislators. In addition, we believe that our language will be present in a substitute bill that will be introduced Friday morning in the Senate Rules Committee. We won't see a copy of the actual text until Thursday afternoon, however. We'll keep you informed as soon as we know.

The substitute bill, if accepted, will replace one, or several, other Senate Bills on election reform. The idea is that this bill takes the place of those other bills, and is the one that will be passed out of committee.

REQUESTED ACTION
If you haven't done so yet, please call the members of the Senate Rules Committee  and specifically request that VOTER VERIFIABLE PAPER BALLOTS and AUTOMATIC AUDITS are included in any election reform legislation. Their contact information can be found here.

If you can attend the Senate Rules Committee Friday, February 25th at 8:30 AM in Room 321 of the Roundhouse, please do so to support this substitute bill.

Expect more details this evening. Thank you to all of you for making this happen. Only by being involved in our democracy can we maintain and protect our democracy.

Good and Bad News on Equal Rights for All Citizens

From Equality New Mexico:

Senate Bill 576 (Domestic Partner Benefits) passed the Senate Public Affairs Committee Tuesday afternoon on a party line vote, 5-4. Please thank Senators Feldman, Garcia, Ortiz y Pino, Papen, and Taylor for their votes.

• Senator Dede Feldman, dede.feldman@nmlegis.gov
• Senator Mary Jane Garcia, maryjane.garcia@nmlegis.gov, 505 / 986-4726
• Senator Jerry Ortiz y Pino, jortizyp@aol.com
• Senator Mary Kay Papen, 505 / 986-4270
• Senator James Taylor, amesg.taylor@nmlegis.gov  505 / 986-4862

Unfortunately, Senate Bill 597 (the "simple" DOMA) also passed and by a wider margin, 6-2. Only Senators Feldman and Ortiz y Pino voted against the bill. This vote crossed party lines, with Democratic Senators Papen and Taylor joining Republican Senators Ingle, Kern, Komadina, and Neville to vote for the bill.

Next hearing on both bills will be in the Senate Judiciary Committee, probably early next week. We'll keep you posted.
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Editor's Note: The two Democratic Senators who voted FOR the Domestic Partnership bill but also FOR the DOMA are:

• Senator Mary Kay Papen (D-Las Cruces), 505 / 986-4270
• Senator James Taylor (D-Bernalillo & Valencia), amesg.taylor@nmlegis.gov  505 / 986-4862

Peace News

The Peace Buttons website is offering a weekly Peace History. Sample entries:

Feb 18, 1961 Bertrand Russell, 89, leads march of 20,000 and sit-down of 5,000 in an anti-nuke rally outside U.K. Defense Ministry and is jailed for 7 days.

Feb 19, 1942 Executive Order 9066, signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt which orders all Japanese Americans (Nisei) evacuated from the West Coast and be forced to live in concentration camps. This day is referred to as the "Day of Remembrance”. It has been commemorated every year, for 60+ years to remind us of that miscarriage of justice, and to insure such injustice does not happen again. In the entire course of the war, 10 people were convicted of spying for Japan, all of whom were Caucasian.

You can see more and sign up to receive Peace News via email each week by clicking here. Of course you can also buy a peace button. Here's the history of the button:

The first famous person to use the peace symbol was pacifist Bertrand Russell. His group used it during a protest march in 1958 for nuclear disarmament in Aldermaston, England. Activist Gerald Holtom, who designed the symbol based it on the international semaphore alphabet. This system uses flag signals in place of letters like a code. The peace sign is actually the flag signals for N and D superimposed upon each other and it stands for Nuclear Disarmament. It has since become the international symbol for peace.

(Thanks to John McAndrew for the heads up on this.)

Be There Or Be Square

From United Voters of New Mexico:
ACTION UPDATE
Tomorrow, Wednesday, February 23rd is Election Reform Day at the Roundhouse. Starting at 8 AM, come out to support fair and transparent elections in New Mexico.

If you can't make it to the Roundhouse, call your legislators and the legislators that are working on this issue. Even one call makes a BIG difference. The Omnibus Election Reform Bill is before the House Consumer and Public Affairs Committee. Click for members. Find your lesiglators here .

Make the following points:

VOTER VERIFIABLE PAPER BALLOTS
    *Legislation that doesn't specify WHO does the verifying leaves this open to interpretation. It could be argued that the current election code provides a verifiable print-out as it is.
    *There is a difference between a PAPER TRAIL and PAPER BALLOTS. Again, we currently have a PAPER TRAIL, and it only provides a tally at the end of the night. PAPER BALLOTS become the official record for recounts and resolution of any discrepancies.

AUTOMATIC MANUAL AUDITS
    *Election results tallied by a machine need to be checked to ensure the accuracy of the results. One small glitch in programming could change the results of an election, and without this check, the public is left to trust proprietary software that is owned by private companies and not subject to public scrutiny.

SCHEDULE
8:00 AM – 10:30 AM Be the lobbyist! Information packets will be available for you to share with your state legislators. Leland Lehrman will be in the rotunda to meet you and answer your questions. Leland is tall with long hair wearing a "Voter Verifiable Paper Ballots" button.

10:30 AM – 11:00 AM Voters lawsuit plaintiff’s press conference: Come hear first hand stories and a legal update from the voters who filed a lawsuit to obtain a permanent injunction on the paperless, electronic voting machines that caused so many problems in the 2004 General Election

11:00 AM – 12:00 PM Verified Voting New Mexico will hold a press conference to address election reform bills.

SPEAKERS WILL INCLUDE:
Maggie Toulouse, League of Conservation of Voters
Agnes Mosses, NAACP
Representative Justine Fox-Young (R)
Representative Mary Helen Garcia (D)
Senator Gerald Ortiz y Pino (D)
12:00 PM - Finish up lobbying!

Hope to see you there!!! https://UVoteNM.org

Paper Trails vs. Voter Verified Paper Ballots

An article in this morning's Albuquerque Journal discusses Governor Bill Richardson's election reform bill, introduced by Rep. Ed Sandoval. Click for a copy of this bill, HB1063, Omnibus Election Reform. Click to track the bill, currently in the House Consumer and Public Affairs Committee.

In the article, Wayne Moses Burke of United Voters of New Mexico states that, while the Governor's bill is generally good, it should be more detailed on paper trails for voting machines. The bill currently says only that the machines "shall have a verifiable and auditable paper trail." This would not necessarily require the Voter Verifiable Paper Ballot (V.V.P.B) receipt that DFNM and many other groups are pushing for.

A V.V.P.B. would provide documentation to the voter on how his or her vote is being recorded. A machine providing a V.V.P.B. for each vote might use, for example, a paper roll alongside it to produce a receipt that can be viewed by the voter to see his or her selection before it's finalized and dropped into a secure box not accessible to the voter.

Unfortunately, it sounds like Rep. Sandoval would rather refer this matter to House Speaker Ben Lujan's interim election reform task force than take action now, in time for the purchase of new machines before the 2006 election. And, as expected, Secretary of State Rebecca Vigil-Giron is critical of the push for V.V.P.B. She reportedly is concerned that a paper trail for each vote cast could potentially violate the secrecy of an individual's ballot. Right. Better to preserve "secrecy" than ensure that people can see how their vote will register. Our Secretary of State seems to have an excuse for any and all attempts to make voting more reliable.

Vigil-Giron also falls back on one of her favorite excuses by claiming that there are no voting machines approved by the NM Voting Standards Committee that would provide V.V.P.B. I do imagine that situation could be fixed in a New York minute if the powers that be really supported voting machines that make it difficult for tampering to occur. Apparently, however, Vigil-Giron (and Gov. Richardson) aren't that interested in fixing things. At least not enough to take the steps necessary to make it possible. Do you join me in wondering why?

According to Vigil-Giron, she has until June to spend about $9 million to buy 1,450 new machines as required by the federal Help America Vote Act. There are more than 4,000 voting machines in NM. Rep. Sandoval reportedly wants to push for identical machines in all NM counties, so a switch to V.V.P.B. machines would take a healthy dose of additional funds if his position on this is adopted. It strikes me Rep. Sandoval may want to require identical machines state-wide as a way to stop V.V.P.B. machines -- by claiming we don't have the funds. But that's just me.

If you'd like to contact Secretary of State Vigil-Giron, you can call her at (505) 827-3600 or toll free at 1-(800) 477-3632, or email her at secstate@state.nm.us. Go to the NM Legislature website to contact Rep. Ed Sandoval or other legislators

We believe that NOW is the time to act on Voter Verified Paper Ballots and other election reform issues. If these issues are shunted instead to an interim study committee, we may never get any action on them. If you agree, I hope you'll travel to the Santa Fe Roundhouse tomorrow for Election Reform Day and make your views known. See the post below for details.

VERY IMPORTANT: Please Attend Election Reform Day at NM Legislature on Wednesday

Please consider attending Election Reform Day at the Legislature in Santa Fe on Wednesday, February 23rd at the Roundhouse. Consponsored by United Voters of NM and Verified Voting NM, this is perhaps our best chance to convince legislators that there is widespread and passionate support for such things as voter verified paper ballots, automatic random recounts and more.

We know that many of you work during day, but if there's an event that merits taking the day off to work at democracy, this is it. If we don't have fair, transparent and accountable voting, what do we have?

LET'S COME OUT IN LARGE NUMBERS ON WEDNESDAY so Legislators, reporters and our fellow citizens know how serious we are about supporting effective election reform -- not window dressing or a future committee study.

Here's a summary of events on February 23rd at the Capitol Rotunda:

8:00 AM - 10:00 AM Lobbying Legislators (pick up packet in Captiol Rotunda)

ELECTION REFORM DAY News Conferences
Date:  Wednesday, February 23
Time:  10:00 AM and 11:00 AM at Capitol Rotunda
Subjects: Law Suit on 2004 Voting Problems in New Mexico (10:00 AM)
The Need for Voter-Verifiable Paper ballots (11:00 AM)
Followed by Rally!

NOTE: Terry Riley of NM Democratic Friends has created a sign for us to hold up during these events. Download it here: JPEG version , , . Pass it on.

Here's the press release on Election Reform Day from United Voters of NM:

A coalition of citizens and organizations is urging the legislature to institute major reforms in New Mexico voting procedures, including voter-verifiable paper ballots for electronic machines, and automatic random recounts in every election.

“We ask our lawmakers to act now to ensure that votes by New Mexico citizens are efficiently cast and accurately counted,’ said Wayne Moses Burke of United Voters of New Mexico (UVoteNM), the coalition of election reform supporters.  “Without that assurance, our fundamental American right to vote has been and is in jeopardy.”

UVoteNM has set Wednesday February 23 as Election Reform Day at the Roundhouse and scheduled two news conferences on the issues in the Capitol Rotunda.  Activities start at 8 a.m. with a “citizens lobbying effort” and continue at 10 a.m. with a news conference by the plaintiffs in the pending lawsuit by New Mexico voters seeking an injunction against further use of voting machines that malfunctioned during the November election. At 11 a.m. there will be a news conference and speakers forum by Verified Voters New Mexico (VVNM), a voting rights advocacy group which is focused on the need for voter verified paper ballots and automatic audit provisions.

Organizations represented in the UVoteNM coalition include Verified Voting New Mexico,  Progressive Democrats of America, Democratic Party of Los Alamos County, NM Democratic Friends, Democracy for America - DFNM, Green Party of Santa Fe, Buena Gente, Tikkun, Las Vegas Peace & Justice Center, Las Vegas Committee for Peace & Justice, among others.

“We want a state law that mandates a voter-verified paper record of the votes counted by every electronic machine so that the machine count can be double-checked for accuracy,” said Pat Leahan of VVNM.  ”This issue cannot be postponed. Bernalillo County is considering buying more than a thousand new voting machines.  There will be a major waste of taxpayer money unless those machines are required to provide the voter-verified paper trail that makes audits and recounts possible.”

Wayne Moses Burke added, “Automatic audits are an absolute necessity in order to be sure that vote tallies from electronic machines are identical to those done by hand counting.”

Robert Stearns of VVNM said, “These are not partisan issues.  They affect all New Mexico voters, all candidates, all political parties.”

United Voters of New Mexico
1415-E West Alameda St.  Santa Fe NM 87501 505-310-1272
https://uvotenm.org/
A coalition of citizens and organizations committed to ensuring transparency, accuracy, and fairness in the voting system of New Mexico.

Stop SB221 and Its Limitation on Fines for Polluters

From Patricia Lee:
Sunday morning I caught an interview on KNME with State Senator Stuart Ingles (R) of Portales.  He is the sponsor of SB221.  Pasted below is the text of the Act along with the Fiscal Impact Report.  Please contact your state senators and urge them to vote NO on this bill.  (Click to to find your senator.) Not only does it curb pollution sanctions currently in place aimed at protecting our environment, it also takes potential monies out of the state's coffers.  Many polluters would find it easier and cheaper to pay a fine capped at $250,000 than to clean up their act.

This bill is bad for our environment and it's bad for our finances.  If we don't make the polluters pay for the damage they do, ultimately the taxpayers will pay.

Thanks.

SB 221 Proposed by Sen. Stuart Ingles (R)
AN ACT RELATING TO THE ENVIRONMENT; PROVIDING LIMITATIONS ON THE ADMINISTRATIVE IMPOSITION OF CERTAIN CIVIL PENALTIES.

BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF NEW MEXICO:

     Section 1. A new section of the Environmental Improvement Act is enacted to read:

     "[NEW MATERIAL] CIVIL PENALTIES--LIMITATIONS ON THE ADMINISTRATIVE IMPOSITION.--Except as otherwise provided, no order issued by the secretary under the Environmental Improvement Act, Air Quality Control Act, Hazardous Waste Act, Radiation Protection Act and Solid Waste Act may assess a total civil penalty in excess of two hundred fifty thousand dollars ($250,000) or assess a penalty for violations that occurred more than twenty-four months prior to the initiation of the administrative action."

     Section 2. A new section of the Water Quality Act is enacted to read:

     "[NEW MATERIAL] CIVIL PENALTIES--LIMITATIONS ON THE ADMINISTRATIVE IMPOSITION.--No compliance order issued by a constituent agency under the Water Quality Act may assess a total civil penalty in excess of two hundred fifty thousand dollars ($250,000) or assess a penalty for violations that occurred more than twenty-four months prior to the initiation of the administrative action."

F I S C A L  I M P A C T  R E P O R T

SPONSOR Ingle DATE TYPED 1/26/05 HB SHORT TITLE Environmental Civil Penalties Limits  SB 221  ANALYST Hadwiger  APPROPRIATION (in $000s)  Appropriation Contained Estimated Additional Impact Recurring or Non-Rec Fund Affected FY05 FY06  See Narrative  (Parenthesis ( ) Indicate Expenditure Decreases)  SOURCES OF INFORMATION  LFC Files  Responses Received From  New Mexico Department of Environment (NMED)  Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources Department (EMNRD)

SUMMARY  Synopsis of Bill
Senate Bill 221 would enact a new section of the Environmental Improvement Act that would  cap civil penalties from orders issued by the secretary of the New Mexico Department of Envi- ronment (NMED) under the Environmental Improvement Act, Air Quality Control Act, Hazard- ous Waste Act, Radiation Protection Act and Solid Waste Act at $250,000 and would prohibit  imposition of any penalty for violations that occurred more than 24 months prior to the initiation  of the administrative action. The same limitations would be imposed on compliance orders is- sued by a constituent agency under the Water Quality Act.

Significant Issues
The penalties that would be capped by SB221 have been particularly critical in NMED’s efforts  to enforce environmental quality standards against federal facilities such as Los Alamos National  Laboratory, Sandia National Laboratories, and the Waste Isolation Pilot Project. Beyond these  venues, the higher penalties have been imposed relatively infrequently and only against flagrant  violators of environmental standards. This bill would likely undercut NMED’s enforcement ef- forts with regard to these violators.

NMED indicated three major concerns with SB221. First, NMED indicated that penalties should  be proportionate to the violation. When penalties are capped, the most egregious polluters might  fight it cost-beneficial to pay the penalty rather than remediate the pollution. A crucial compo- nent of any deterrence program is ensuring that penalties are commensurate with the impact of a  violator’s actions and his economic or other gain. The penalty caps in SB221 would be benefi- cial only to the worst violators of environmental standards in the state.  Second, NMED indicated concern that the two-year statute of limitations would encourage the  worst polluters – those who repeatedly defy the law and damage resources – to continue to pol- lute with near impunity, as their past sins would be forgiven after two years. SB221 could pro- vide an incentive for polluters to conceal the incident for at least two years until NMED would  be prohibited from penalized them. NMED was concerned that this statute of limitations might  also create an unlevel playing field, whereby businesses that comply with environmental regula- tions would suffer a competitive disadvantage against violators. EMNRD shared this concern,  indicating the limitation period provided in the bill apparently would run from the occurrence of  the violation, not from its discovery by the agency. This would provide for operators an incen- tive not to report releases in hopes of delaying discovery until after the two-year limitation pe- riod.

Finally, NMED was concerned that passage of SB221 would cause the federal government to  assume control of environmental enforcement in some areas, due to inconsistency between fed- eral regulations and state laws. Many New Mexico environmental enforcement programs are  delegated from the federal government, contingent upon the state enforcing standards compara- ble to federal laws and regulations. The agency indicated that weakening these penalties might  result in the federal government reassuming administration of the programs due to state noncom- pliance with federal regulations.

NMED indicates that agency seldom levies penalties in excess of $250,000. NMED’s penalty  assessments are governed by policies that define the ways penalties are calculated, and are in  concert with policies adopted by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). These poli- cies also require the State to consider repeat offenders, even when a past violation is more than 2  years old. Some entities – particularly federal facilities – are found to have the same violations  year after year. In the case of the federal government – an entity with virtually limitless means  (and lawyers) – a $250,000 penalty barely registers, hardly serving as a deterrent to bureaucrats  in Washington, D.C. For the federal government, SB221 is nothing less than a bailout.

PERFORMANCE IMPLICATIONS 
NMED indicates that numerous performance measures would be negatively affected by adoption  of SB221, because the agency would not be able to conduct timely and appropriate enforcement.  For example, one of the Air Quality Bureau’s (AQB) performance measures for the upcoming  fiscal year targets corrective action to mitigate violations. The AQB’s goal is to have 95% of in- spected facilities take prompt action to correct violations. SB221 would likely reduce the effec- tiveness of this measure by inhibiting NMED’s ability to assess substantial civil penalties to “bad  actors” and repeat or egregious violators. Similarly, the Hazardous Waste Bureau tracks a per- formance measure (percent of deliverables under executed consent orders that were acted upon  in a timely manner) to assess the pace of cleanup activities conducted at New Mexico’s national  laboratories. Enforcement of the consent orders that govern these cleanups relies on a robust  statutory framework. SB221 removes the primary incentive for the U.S. Department of Energy  and its contractors to conduct their field activities in a timely manner.

FISCAL IMPLICATIONS 
SB221 would potentially have a significant impact on general fund revenues. According to  NMED, the Air Quality Bureau collected $1 million per year in over the last three years from  penalties that would be capped under this proposal. NMED was not able to identify the amount  of penalties that exceeded the threshold proposed in this bill.

TECHNICAL ISSUES 
EMNRD indicated the phrase “initiation of administrative action” is not defined. An agency  would have to assume that it means the time of issuance of formal proceedings to assess a pen- alty, not the time of initiation of investigation. Hence the bill would make it necessary in some  instance for an agency to issue a compliance order or application for penalties without full investigation, in order to avoid being precluded by the two-year limitation provision.  EMNRD also noted it is not clear to what the $250,000 limit applies. As written, it is a limit on  the amount of penalty that can be assessed in any one order. The intention presumably is to limit  the total amount of the penalty for any one continuing violation, and perhaps for multiple viola- tions arising from a particular incident. As the bill is written, however, this intent could arguably  be avoided by issuance of multiple orders.

Sunday Boid Blogging

Here's Bosco the Peach-faced Lovebird preening on his new window setup in our living room. Early on we bought him a little "gym" where he was supposed to hang out while out of his cage. He never stayed on the equipment longer than two seconds. Until now. We moved the gym next to our front window, added a fallen branch from the neighbor's apricot tree and, voila!, he loves it.

He often gets off the branch and ventures along the towel-cushioned window sill, the better to eyeball and peep at all the big black crows and mourning doves and the occasional red-tailed hawks that fly around the big trees in our corner of the neighborhood. And as you can tell, he loves stuffed animals. He particularly likes to pull on their noses and eyes and bite their paws whenever he's irritated with his human companions. Even lovebirds have to vent sometimes.

(Click on images for larger versions.)

The Creation of Gannon

If you've been following the blog-fueled story about White House correspondent slash male prostitute Jeff Gannon and his night life is the right life faux-Marine selling points, you might enjoy this:

Thank billmon over at The Whiskey Bar for this one. If you visit you can see an even bigger image of The Creation of Gannon. And if you haven't yet caught up on the Jeff Gannon, pseudo-reporter story, head over to AmericaBlog and start at the bottom. No kids allowed. Whew. I wonder if he's a friend of Rove or just McClellan? And I wonder how the mainstream media would be covering this if it was Clinton's White House where this was happening.

Update: Election Reform Day at the Legislature

From United Voters of New Mexico:

Save the Date – Voters of New Mexico!

Protect Your Democracy! Make your voices heard….

Wednesday February 23rd, 2005

United Voters of New Mexico is sponsoring Election Reform Day at the 2005 New Mexico State Legislative Session.

8 AM - 10 AM: Be the lobbyist! Information packets will be available for you to share with your state legislators.

10 AM – 10:30 Voters lawsuit plaintiff’s press conference: Come hear first hand stories and a legal update from the voters who filed a lawsuit to obtain a permanent injunction on the paperless, electronic voting machines that caused so many problems in the 2004 General Election

11:00 – 12:00 Verified Voting New Mexico will hold a press conference to address election reform bills

12:00 – 1:00 PM Rally: VVPB Now! (Voter Verifiable Paper Ballots)
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Editor's Note: Let's turn out in large numbers for this event to show how serious the voter's of New Mexico are about election reform! And visit the link to the United Voters of New Mexico website above. Excellent information and recommended actions.