New Mexicans pressure federal lawmakers to join calls for ceasefire in Gaza - Austin Fisher, Source New Mexico
New Mexico’s congressional delegation is facing pressure in D.C. and here in New Mexico to join the call for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip.
There were two marches in New Mexico on Monday calling for a ceasefire, one in the state’s capital, Santa Fe, and the other in its largest city, Albuquerque.
They followed similar demonstrations outside the University of New Mexico bookstore on Oct. 8 and Oct. 18, and at the Santa Fe Railyard on Sunday. More protests are expected in Albuquerque on Saturday.
On Oct. 7, Hamas militants invaded settlements and military bases in southern Israel, killing more than 1,100 people, including children and the elderly, and wounding over 2,500.
Israel responded with airstrikes on Gaza that have so far killed at least 5,000 Palestinians and injured more than 14,000. Israel also bombed a mosque in a Palestinian refugee camp in the West Bank on Sunday, and since Oct. 7 has arrested 4,000 workers from Gaza and 1,000 Palestinians in the West Bank.
After one of the marches on Monday, Dr. Fatima Van Hattum, with the Southwest Coalition for Palestine, said there is never an opportune or convenient time for justice.
“We’re asking them to put their votes on the line, to act with integrity,” Van Hattum said of the New Mexico congressional delegation. “We are watching you.”
ALBUQUERQUE JEWS OCCUPY SENATORS’ OFFICES
While the U.S. and Israel have refused to push for an immediate ceasefire, American diplomats have privately expressed alarm about their Israeli counterparts’ intentions to deny water, food, medicine, electricity and fuel to Gaza.
Led by Jewish Americans, protests convened at 3 p.m. on Monday in Robinson Park in Albuquerque to conduct mourning ceremonies for all the dead, call for humanitarian aid, and march to Sen. Martin Heinrich’s field office in that city. They expected between 100 and 200 people to attend.
A smaller group of about a dozen started a sit-in at Sen. Ben Ray Luján’s office and Heinrich’s office late Monday afternoon.
“The folks in the offices are planning to stay until the senators release a statement supporting a ceasefire in Gaza,” said Libby Shrobe, a spokesperson for the group.
Alan Wagman, lay service leader for Nahalat Shalom in Albuquerque and a co-organizer of the event, said protesters in Albuquerque are mourning all the dead and are committed to all the living.
“We want the killing to stop, and we want people to have food, water, and the essentials of life, and then to work things out from there,” Wagman said. “First things first: Stop the killing. Share food. Share water.”
Event co-organizer Joanna Kaufman said in a news release that a ceasefire could save both Israeli and Palestinian lives.
“We have been grieving since October 7th, but our grief is not a weapon to be used against the Palestinian people,” Kaufman said. “We need our Senators and Representatives to show moral leadership and take life-saving action. We were raised to say ‘Never again.’ We have the moral clarity to recognize that never again means right now.”
‘A FIGHT FOR ALL INDIGENOUS PEOPLES’
The United Nations has called for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, saying Palestinians are in grave danger of mass ethnic cleansing.
U.S. Rep. Cori Bush (D-Missouri) has introduced a resolution “calling for an immediate de-escalation and cease-fire in Israel and occupied Palestine.”
At least 100 Palestinian, Jewish and Indigenous people gathered for a rally at the Santa Fe Plaza at noon on Monday to demand an immediate ceasefire, stop the bombing, supply humanitarian aid, and end the 16-year-long siege of Gaza.
They included members and supporters of Santa Feans for Justice in Palestine, Veterans for Peace, and NM JEWS For a Ceasefire. They listened to Lyla June (Diné) sing a song called “All Nations Rise.”
“Let us remember that this fight for Gaza is also a fight for all Indigenous peoples around the world,” June said.
They marched to the local office of Sen. Heinrich and hand-delivered a letter to his staff from civil rights attorney and author Jeff Haas asking him to introduce or support a similar resolution in the Senate.
“True safety for everyone doesn’t come from the mass bombing and killing of civilians, nor from mass displacement, the denial of water, electricity, food and the destruction of neighborhoods all of which are collective punishment of civilians and are war crimes,” the letter states.
Then the crowd marched to the offices of Sen. Luján and Rep. Teresa Leger Fernández, where they delivered similar letters.
Israel on Oct. 12 ordered 1.1 million Palestinians living in the northern part of Gaza to move south. It then bombed some of the people who fled, killing 70.
“We have to stand up right now,” Haas said. “We have to stop U.S. support for this Israeli genocide that could well happen. We are seeing a potential genocide in our day, time and life. We have to stand up and we have to oppose it. We have to prevent the U.S. endorsing it, arming it. We have to try to stop Israel from what could be another Nakba, even worse than the 750,000 people who were displaced in 1948.”
MOST MEMBERS OF N.M. CONGRESSIONAL DELEGATION SILENT ON STAFF LETTER
On Oct. 19, 411 congressional staffers published an open letter to their bosses urging them to call for a ceasefire.
Source NM reached out for comment to all five members on Oct. 20. As of Monday afternoon, Sens. Heinrich and Luján had responded, but neither of them mentioned any support for a ceasefire.
“The news from Israel and Gaza has been devastating and congressional staff, like the leaders they work with, do not look away from the news. The weight of that is real,” Heinrich’s statement said. “Israelis and Palestinians deserve peace; we are far from that right now.”
In response to Heinrich’s statement, Wagman said organizers stand by their demand for immediate ceasefire, immediate provision of full humanitarian aid, so that the people of Gaza have enough food, water and fuel to survive.
“We recognize the sorrow of everybody in the region, and we work to protect and provide for the living,” Wagman said. “To the extent that Sen. Heinrich’s statement does not go that far, we demand that he revise his statement to take it that far.”
Luján’s statement said the U.S. “must support the people of Israel and provide vital humanitarian aid to civilians in Gaza.”
“In the Senate, I am focused on passing a robust aid package that provides Israel the resources to defend itself against terrorist organizations and bolster global security,” Luján said.
It’s important for American Jews to be speaking up right now, Wagman said, because there is an assumption that Jewish Americans always support Israel.
“Not every Jewish American blindly follows whatever Israel does,” Wagman said. “We have the same morality of right and wrong, and preserve life that we hope everybody else does, and it doesn’t have sides.”
Wagman has worn a kippah since a week after former president Donald Trump was inaugurated “and the anti-semites started coming out of the woodwork.” Often people see him wearing it and say, “God bless Israel.”
“Well, no. God bless everybody. I don’t support Israel no matter what,” Wagman said. “Never again doesn’t just mean not to us, it means not to anybody.”
State awards $8 million to NM organizations addressing housing insecurity - By Nash Jones, KUNM News
Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham yesterday/Monday announced a second round of awards through the Casa Connections Grant Program totaling $8 million dollars to address housing insecurity across the state.
Seven local organizations and governments spanning the state from Las Cruces to El Rito will receive the grants. The Governor said in a statement that the program is part of her administration’s “commitment to addressing homelessness and removing barriers to affordable housing in communities across the state.”
The projects include permanent, transitional and emergency housing options, along with student housing.
Northern New Mexico College will receive $700,000 to turn buildings on its El Rito campus into affordable housing.
The City of Santa Fe and Española Pathways will receive $2 million each to turn local hotels into transitional housing with support services available for residents. Transitional housing in Albuquerque will also get a boost with the state awarding Saranam $750,000 to expand its program to the city’s westside with 25 small homes.
Meanwhile in southern New Mexico, the City of Las Cruces and El Camino Real Housing Authority in Socorro will spend their grants on long-term affordable housing developments, while Sheri’s House of Hope in Hobbs will build an emergency shelter for abuse survivors.
PNM wants to let more customers participate in EV charging pilot - By Hannah Grover, New Mexico Political Report
New Mexico’s largest electric utility has asked state regulators to increase the number of customers who can participate in a pilot program that encourages electric vehicle owners to charge their vehicles overnight when demand on the grid is lower.
The Public Service Company of New Mexico’s Whole Home EV rate does so by offering participants base electric rates of 3 cents per kilowatt hour if they charge their vehicles overnight.
When it was approved by the New Mexico Public Regulation Commission a couple of years ago, the regulators set the cap at 3,900 customers who received rebates for charging systems and 1,000 customers who did not. The commission further requested that PNM file a notice once 75 percent of the slots reserved for non-rebate customers were filled. That notice would allow regulators to determine if the cap should be increased.
In September, PNM reached that point and, when it filed the notice with the PRC, the utility asked to increase the cap by 1,000 customers.
However the PRC is not ready to approve such a request quite yet. On Thursday the commission voted 2-1 to ask the utility to provide expert affidavits in support of the increase.
Commissioner James Ellison cast the dissenting vote. He pointed to the pending transportation electrification plan case in which PNM has also asked to increase the cap. Ellison said the commission will vote on that case likely in March.
He said the program has been in place for two years and just reached the 750 customer level that triggered filing the notice. Should more than 250 customers apply for inclusion in the program, he said they would only face a short wait.
Ellison argued that waiting to increase the cap would allow the commission to gather information about whether the pilot program is doing what it is intended to do and if the new meters associated with it are functioning as intended.
“There would be a lot of value in hearing how that program’s going,” he said.
West Texas county bans travel on its roads to help someone seeking an abortion - Associated Press
Commissioners in a west Texas county have banned drivers from transporting a person seeking an abortion, making it the largest of five counties, three in Texas, that have approved the measure.
Lubbock County commissioners voted 3-0 Monday, with two abstentions, to approve the ban and declare the county a "Sanctuary County for the Unborn," rejecting County Judge Curtis Parrish and the district attorney's office request to postpone the vote.
The ordinance allows citizens to sue anyone who assists a person in traveling to get an abortion in Lubbock County or even traveling through the area to seek care elsewhere.
No violations of the travel prohibition, now approved in four Texas and two New Mexico counties, have been reported and the ordinance does not apply to the person seeking an abortion.
"This ordinance as written has many legal problems," said Parrish, who joined Commissioner Gilbert Flores in abstaining. "This ordinance, however, does not have a problem with its intent or the intent of those who are passionate about this."
Commissioner Jason Corley, who voted for the travel ban, said the ordinance could be amended later as needed.
Mark Lee Dickson, a Longview pastor who has championed anti-abortion ordinances, praised the vote.
"Guys, I long for the day (when), coast to coast, abortion is considered a great moral, social and political wrong and is outlawed in every single state," Dickson told commissioners.
How the ban would be enforced is a question, according to health law expert Seema Mohapatra, a law professor at Southern Methodist University.
"We haven't had this kind of issue tested, so it's really kind of a case of first impression," Mohapatra said.
The Lubbock County Sheriff's Office declined to comment on the ban or its implementation.
Planned Parenthood of Greater Texas criticized the county ordinance in a statement.
"Texans already live under some of the most restrictive and dangerous abortion bans in the country, yet anti-abortion extremists continue to push additional unnecessary, confusing and fear-inducing barriers to essential healthcare," said spokesperson Autumn Keiser.
Lubbock County has about 317,000 residents and far outnumbers the population of the three other Texas counties — Mitchell, Goliad and Cochran — that have approved the ordinance in recent months, with each county's population counting fewer than 10,000 residents.
Lea and Roosevelt counties in New Mexico have also approved the measure, according to Sanctuary Cities for the Unborn's website.
The ban does not apply to cities within Lubbock County, including the city of Lubbock, which has about 264,000 of the county's residents. Lubbock voters in 2021 adopted a similar measure.
More than 60 other cities have also approved similar measures, according to Sanctuary Cities for the Unborn.
A 2022 state law severely restricting abortions by potentially fining and imprisoning doctors who perform the procedure was blocked in August by a judge who found that portions of the law violated the rights afforded to pregnant people under the Texas Constitution.
The judge's injunction was immediately blocked by an appeal to the Texas Supreme Court by the state attorney general's office.
The Texas law was passed prior to the U.S. Supreme Court's 2022 ruling that overturned the landmark Roe v. Wade decision that allowed abortions nationwide.
Lawmakers discuss how Native American Voting Rights Act is changing election processes - Megan Gleason, Source New Mexico
While New Mexicans around the state head to the polls to cast their ballots during early voting in the ongoing local election, lawmakers met in Santa Clara Pueblo last week to talk about how the election is different on tribal land this time around.
The recently passed Native American Voting Rights Act lifted barriers, but challenges still remain, they said.
Rep. Charlotte Little (D-Albuquerque) is the Indigenous Center Administrator for Naeva, a Native rights advocacy organization. She went over tribal elections processes to her colleagues on the legislative Indian Affairs Committee on Friday.
Specifically, she voiced changes from the 2023 Voting Right Act that affect tribal voters, like provisions that add more ballot drop boxes or designate a government or official building where people without traditional mailing address can still receive mail ballots or register to vote.
Sen. Nancy Rodriguez (D-Santa Fe) said allowing people to list official buildings as addresses can help solve errors that have happened in the past, like ballots getting lost for people who have non-traditional addresses. She also pointed out that this is optional for tribal buildings.
“It leaves it to the tribe to make that decision,” Rodriguez said. “We didn’t try to infiltrate our provisions in there that would impact the tribe without the tribe having their full input or their own decisions for their sovereignty.”
When Rep. Anthony Allison (D-Fruitland) asked if his family can’t use personal post office boxes to get their ballot now, Little said PO boxes aren’t used at all to mail or receive ballots. She referred to when people without a street address had to indicate where they live by drawing a map on the back of a registration form.
Committee vice chair Sen. Shannon Pinto (D-Tohatchi) said she has seen firsthand the complications of PO boxes on tribal land, with local post offices not having enough PO boxes or too many people assigned to one box.
“Is getting your mail a right for every citizen? Because that’s how our government conducts business — through the mail,” she said. If you don’t have internet access, she said, stuff gets sent through the mail.
“And yet we have people that don’t have the capability or the ability to have those boxes, pay those fees and just have that simple way to have access,” she said.
Pinto also brought up challenges elderly people have when voting. She recounted her own experience seeing people who use wheelchairs or walkers walking long distances in the cold at a polling place that restricted handicap parking. She moved to the back of the line so they could take her place in the front, she said.
Pinto said maybe there’s a way to give preference to the elderly or move them ahead of people in line who aren’t as vulnerable.
Rodriguez said lawmakers need to look at these types of issues. She said the American Disabilities Act should be at the forefront of the state’s Voting Rights Act, including for people who have limited mobility like the elderly.
“I’ve seen actually elderly people holding onto a fence because they need to stay up as they’re waiting in line,” she said. “That’s not not acceptable. We need to help those that have such great needs like that.”
QUESTIONS ABOUT FINANCES AND STAFFING
Also part of the Voting Rights Act is a requirement for the Secretary of State’s Office to pay or reimburse for any costs local county clerk’s incur in complying with the law, Little said.
Rep. Patricia Lundstrom (D-Gallup) said local governments in rural areas are the ones that don’t have the funds to cover substantial election expenses.
“Where I think we’re missing voting is in the most remote areas, where they have the least amount of staff support, the worst travel conditions, in terms of road conditions, that kind of stuff,” she said.
She said she’s curious about how much that’ll cost and suspects that money will have to be done through the general appropriations act.
The three-year total cost of the Voting Rights Act is $717,000, according to the fiscal impact report. It doesn’t pull from a general appropriation, Rep. John Block (R-Alamogordo) pointed out, but rather more specific funding pots. He asked Little to follow up with the Secretary of State’s Office on that.
Lundstrom, who represents areas in northwestern New Mexico heavily populated by Native communities, also asked if chapter houses count as an official building that people can list their address under.
When Little said yes, Lundstrom said there’s a high turnover rate with chapter house coordinators and questioned what happens if the person responsible for managing the new election process leaves.
“That’s a heavy responsibility for somebody to have in addition to the other duties that they may have in those chapters,” Lundstrom said. “They got a lot of stuff going on.”
Little said she made note of the question and will forward it to the Secretary of State’s Office. She added that when a tribe signs a building up to be a viable ballot mailing address location, “they might have to review prior that they’ve got the personnel available” for the responsibility.
Lundstom also asked if local chapters can opt out of being official address designations, especially at times when they aren’t getting along with the current administration in charge.
Little again said she made a note of the question.
US Forest Service sued over flooding deaths in the wake of New Mexico's largest recorded wildfire - Associated Press
Relatives of three people who died last year in a flash flood stemming from the largest wildfire in New Mexico's recorded history are suing the U.S. Forest Service.
The wrongful death lawsuit filed earlier this month alleges the Forest Service was negligent in the management of the prescribed burn and also failed to close roads and prevent access to areas at risk for flooding that followed the Hermit's Peak/Calf Canyon Fire.
The three West Texas residents were staying at a family cabin in northern New Mexico in July 2022 when monsoon rains hit the burn scar near Tecolote Creek. That created a flash flood that swept the three victims to their deaths.
According to the Albuquerque Journal, the lawsuit also contends that the Forest Service failed to provide adequate warnings to the victims about the dangers caused by the wildfire and the dangers of potential flooding in the area.
Neither the Forest Service nor its parent agency, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, has formally responded to the lawsuit so far.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture didn't provide a settlement offer or denial of claims initially filed in the case earlier this year, according to the lawsuit.
The blaze burned more than 533 square miles (1,380 square kilometers) in San Miguel, Mora and Taos counties. Authorities said an improperly extinguished pile burn operation rekindled and merged with another prescribed fire that went awry, destroying about 900 structures, including several hundred homes. No deaths were reported while the fire raged for months.
Congress set aside nearly $4 billion to compensate victims. FEMA has said its claims office has paid more than $101 million so far for losses, but many families have complained that the federal government is not acknowledging the extent of the damage or the emotional toll the fire has had on families whose ties to the land go back generations.
Abel Otero suspends Albuquerque City Council campaign - Albuquerque Journal, KUNM News
Abel Otero has been running for the District 6 seat in the Albuquerque City Council race on a platform of sharing lived experience with his constituents who’ve struggled with addiction and who have served time. After the Albuquerque Journal reported last week that there is no evidence Otero was ever incarcerated, the candidate is now suspending his campaign.
Otero wrote in a statement published in the Journal Monday that his explanation for the discrepancy between his memory and corrections records is related to his trauma-filled history and dark skeletons within [his] family,” including being a survivor of childhood sexual abuse.
Despite the work he’s done on his mental health, Otero wrote that he was convinced of his “hazy understanding” of his past, including his history of incarceration, of which there’s no record.
He said he was upset to find out the Journal was writing the article about the missing documents, saying he saw it as “a small issue” compared to those his campaign was focused on addressing in the city.
He said his campaign consultants quit after the Journal article came out and that he felt betrayed by them — but more so himself — and will no longer “actively campaign” for the city council seat.
He urged his District 6 supporters who have decided not to vote for him to instead vote for Nichole Rogers.