Indigenous Peoples Day celebrated with an eye on the election - By Hallie Golden Associated Press
As Native Americans across the U.S. come together on Monday for Indigenous Peoples Day to celebrate their history and culture and acknowledge the ongoing challenges they face, many will do so with a focus on the election.
From a voting rally in Minneapolis featuring food, games and raffles to a public talk about the Native vote at Virginia Tech, the holiday — which comes about three weeks before Election Day — features a wide array of events geared toward Native voter mobilization and outreach amid a strong recognition of the power of their votes.
More than 200 people were registered to vote in a matter of hours at the Minneapolis event, where volunteers handed out T-shirts, stickers and special posters created from designs commissioned from artists with tribal affiliations that range from the Onondaga Nation in New York to the Karuk Tribe in California. The theme was clear: Make voting a tradition.
In 2020, Native voters proved decisive in the presidential election. Voter turnout on tribal land in Arizona increased dramatically compared with the previous presidential election, helping Joe Biden win a state that hadn't supported a Democratic candidate in a White House contest since 1996.
Janeen Comenote, executive director of the National Urban Indian Family Coalition, which is involved with at least a dozen of these types of voting events across the country, said this year it's especially important to mobilize Native voters because the country is selecting the president. But she cautioned that Native people are in no way a monolith in terms of how they vote.
"We're really all about just getting Native voters out to vote, not telling them how to vote. But sort of understanding that you have a voice and you're a democracy, a democracy that we helped create," said Comenote, a citizen of the Quinault Indian Nation.
On Monday, the Democratic National Committee announced a six-figure ad campaign aimed at Native voters in Arizona, North Carolina, Montana and Alaska. A majority of the digital, print and radio ads were being placed in local and national Native-owned publications.
In Arizona, Comenote's coalition partnered with the Phoenix Indian Center to hold a town hall Monday called "Democracy Is Indigenous: Power Of The Native Vote," which featured speakers and performances, along with Indigenous artwork centered on democracy.
Local Navajo artist Richelle Key was commissioned to create a painting during the event. Her vibrant brushstrokes were meant to remind people "to keep our culture alive." A second painting featuring the message "Vote for our future" also was on display.
"It's important to vote because we don't want to be forgotten," Key said.
In Apex, North Carolina, about 14 miles southwest of Raleigh, the coalition is working with the Triangle Native American Society for an event expected to include a celebration of the 100th anniversary of the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924 and a booth with nonpartisan voter information and giveaways.
During a celebration in Arizona over the weekend, Walter Murillo, a member of the Choctaw Nation and CEO of Native Health in Phoenix, also talked about the anniversary of the federal act and the power of Native voters.
"That is especially important in an election year," he said, mentioning that activities have been centered on getting people engaged, registering them to vote and encouraging them to cast their ballots.
There were also dances and sunrise gatherings to mark the day at spots across the nation, from the campus at the Santa Fe Indian School in New Mexico. The Indian Pueblo Cultural Center in Albuquerque is hosting an Indigenous Peoples Day “Night at Avanyu Plaza” Monday from 5:00 to 9:00 p.m., featuring live music, art and food. Meanwhile, Snag the Vote is hosting an event to encourage Native people to go to the polls at Tin Can Alley in Downtown Albuquerque from 3:00 to 7:00 p.m.
In San Francisco, passengers boarded ferries headed for Alcatraz Island. Alcatraz has served as a symbol for self-determination after it was taken over in the 1960s by Indigenous students who demanded that the U.S. government recognize longstanding agreements with tribes.
While not a federal holiday, Indigenous Peoples Day is observed by 17 states, including Washington, South Dakota and Maine, as well as Washington, D.C., according to the Pew Research Center. It typically takes place on the second Monday in October, which is the same day as the Columbus Day federal holiday.
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Associated Press journalists Ross Franklin and Katie Oyan in Phoenix, and Susan Montoya Bryan in Albuquerque, New Mexico, contributed to this report.
Undercover chat operation nets 8 arrests for crimes against children – KUNM News
The New Mexico Department of Justice announced Monday that seven men and 1 woman have been arrested for crimes against children in a multi-agency operation.
A ninth person has a warrant out for his arrest. Attorney General Raúl Torrez says each defendant sought to engage in sexual activity with a minor.
Torrez said the investigation, dubbed Operation Overwatch, involved agents from various agencies setting up decoy accounts on digital platforms and messaging services including Kik, SkiptheGames, MocoSpace, Discord, Grindr, Fetlife and Sniffies.
“We are in these spaces. We are looking for anyone who is engaged in this activity,” Torrez said.
Most of those arrested are from the Albuquerque area and have been charged with child solicitation by electronic communication device, and other related crimes.
NMDOJ partnered with the Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Office, the Albuquerque and Santa Fe police departments, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and Homeland Security Investigations on the operation.
But FBI Special Agent in Charge Raul Bujanda said parents also have a key role.
“We need parents to know exactly what their children are doing,” he said. “We need parents to be involved. They need to be someone their children can go to in times of need, so that they can ask the questions that need to be asked.”
Bujanda added that if children become victims, they need to be able to go to someone for help. He says parents in this situation need to reach out to local law enforcement and the FBI.
All five justices recuse themselves from hearing paid leave dispute - By Phaedra Haywood, The Santa Fe New Mexican
All five of New Mexico’s Supreme Court justices — and one person previously tapped as a proxy — have recused themselves from presiding over a legal dispute between the Administrative Office of the Courts and the state Department of Finance.
Two more proxies remain, but it was unclear Friday who will hear the case over compensation for judicial employees.
At issue in the case is how much paid time off state employees can carry over from year to year and the rate at which they are reimbursed for that time.
Under the state’s status quo, paid time off accrual is capped at 240 hours, and employees who opt to be reimbursed for unused time when they resign or retire receive only 50% of their pay rate for each unused hour, according to a statement issued last month by the Administrative Office of the Courts.
The judiciary adopted a new policy last year that combined sick leave and vacation time, removed the cap on hours — instead tying the number of hours eligible for payout to an employee’s years of service — and allowed employees who opted to participate in a buyback to be reimbursed at 100% of their pay rate.
The state Department of Finance processed the payouts in accordance with the judiciary’s new policy for about a year but stopped doing so after Attorney General Raúl Torrez issued a legal opinion in June saying the practice was illegal and conflicted with financial restrictions on the expenditure of public money imposed by the Legislature.
The Administrative Office of the Courts subsequently filed a petition asking the state Supreme Court to compel the Department of Finance and Administration to process payments in accordance with the new policy, arguing in part the refusal interfered with the judiciary’s authority to decide its own personnel matters as an independent branch of government.
Chief Supreme Court Justice David K. Thomson and Justice Shannon C. Bacon recused themselves from hearing the case Sept. 30, the same day the petition was filed. Justice Briana Zamora recused herself Oct.1.
Justice Michael E. Vigil and Justice Julie J. Vargas recused themselves Friday — as did Court of Appeals Judge Kristina Bogardus — after the finance department, in a court filing, said no sitting judge at any level should hear the case.
Bogardus was among three judges — the others were retired Justice Richard Bosson and retired Justice Edward L. Chávez — the Supreme Court had appointed to stand in for the first three justices who had recused themselves.
“Recusal of all non-retired justices and judges is necessary because the petition raises an issue that directly impacts current and future justices and judges and their employees and prospective employees, and is mandated by the Code of Judicial Conduct and constitutional due process requirements,” lawyers for the state agency wrote in the response.
That leaves only Bosson and Chávez, who are both retired, to hear the case.
“We haven’t received new designation orders to replace the judicial officers who have recused themselves,” Administrative Office of the Courts spokesperson Beth Wojahn wrote in an email Friday.
The judiciary’s adoption of a PTO policy that “violates the law and misuses taxpayer funds, is still a significant public concern,” Department of Finance and Administration spokesman Henry Valdez wrote in an email Friday.
“A fair and impartial panel of judges is essential to reviewing and deciding on AOC’s lawsuit against the state because it still poses a serious constitutional threat to the system of checks and balances,” he wrote.
Not exactly smooth sailing at the 52nd Albuquerque balloon fiesta after 4 incidents - Associated Press
A drone show and a flawless mass ascension ended Sunday's last day of the 52nd Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta. But it wasn't all smooth sailing for this year's hot air balloon event.
One balloon partially caught fire Saturday after hitting power lines and landing at a construction site in northwest Albuquerque. Fiesta officials say nobody was injured and the fire was quickly extinguished.
On Friday, a balloon pilot with two passengers aboard struck a radio tower and knocked it down west of Balloon Fiesta Park.
It was the second time in 20 years that a balloon had come into contact with that tower.
The pilot and passengers were uninjured in the crash and were able to land safely, but the radio station was off the air until Saturday.
One person reportedly suffered a head injury Wednesday when a balloon struck a large tree while trying to land at a golf course. The gondola was stuck 25 feet (7.6 meters) above ground and the other two people aboard the balloon had to be rescued.
On Tuesday, nearly 13,000 customers were without power for almost an hour after a balloon bumped into a power line in Albuquerque.
"It concerns us when balloon flights don't go as planned," Fiesta spokesman Tom Garrity said in a statement. "Safe flights are our primary goal, so any accident is too many."
The nine-day fiesta is one of the world's most photographed events, drawing hundreds of thousands of spectators each fall to New Mexico to see the more than 100 balloons in bright colors and special shapes.
Nonprofit says most women living on the street are sex trafficked - Damon Scott, City Desk ABQ
The majority of women living on Albuquerque’s streets are victims of sex trafficking and have fewer options for shelter and support services. Those women face further challenges that men experiencing homelessness generally don’t.
The assessment comes from one of the city’s only nonprofit agencies doing nighttime street outreach to hundreds of women — AsUR New Mexico (as you are). While there are sex trafficking victims of all genders — defined as the use of force, fraud or coercion to engage in sex acts — the group works exclusively with those who identify as female.
“We know many trafficking victims who are staying in tents or who are sleeping on blankets and being trafficked from, literally, the sidewalk,” AsUR executive director Christine Barber said. “Or they sleep on someone’s couch; but then they’re forced into doing dates for that. Everything costs; not even sleeping is free for women on the street.”
Much of the outreach is focused along Coors Boulevard from Central Avenue to I-40 and in the International District — the most active areas, Barber said.
AsUR conducts its own point-in-time count, in the same vein as the annual one led by the New Mexico Coalition to End Homelessness but specific to the women it serves.
“We count the number of women who are on the street at any given time, and then we count the number who fit the indicators of doing dates,” Barber said. “We know statistically [that] most women who do dates are trafficking victims.”
She explained that “doing a date” is the common terminology used on the streets for a sexual exchange. Barber said there are hundreds of women on the streets each night who fit the indicators; some are from out-of-town.
“There are so many more women now, so many more,” she said.
‘NO NICE TRAFFICKERS’
Barber founded AsUR last year after leading Street Safe New Mexico for 10 years. During street outreach it distributes feminine hygiene products, female condoms and other supplies while building relationships and trust with the women. AsUR also gives referrals for housing and behavioral health and substance abuse treatment.
A key part of the outreach is handing out a newsletter featuring the “Bad Guy List” — a profile of men who have attacked or harmed women on the street. The hope is to spread the word and warn others.
“There are no nice traffickers. None of us who work in this field have ever seen a nice trafficker,” Barber said.(Roberto E. Rosales / City Desk ABQ)
She said one of the biggest challenges the women face is finding a safe place to stay while waiting for stable housing. While there are currently a handful of options — referred to as an aftercare agency or safe house — demand is high.
“Right now if they’re not in the aftercare agency they’re back on the street, and back with their trafficker,” Barber said. “They have so much trauma. It takes a lot of work to get one trafficking victim into a place; there’s security issues.”
Barber said smaller, more accessible shelters that are targeted to certain populations like the disabled, elderly and those who are being sex trafficked would help.
AsUR is primarily funded by private donations. More information is here.
UNM Sandoval Regional Medical Center reaches ‘tentative’ deal with health professionals union - Kevin Hendricks, Sandoval Signpost
After more than two years of public feuding, the University of New Mexico Sandoval Regional Medical Center and the United Health Professionals of New Mexico division of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), which represents UNM SRMC workers, reached a tentative contract agreement, the union announced Friday.
The medical center and the union were finally able to sit down for “good-faith bargaining” on Sept. 18, more than three years after the union was formed. A deal was reached late Thursday night, less than a month after negotiations began.
According to a press release from the union, the tentative agreement will cover approximately 400 nurses and other health professionals at the medical center.
Members voted to ratify the contract over the weekend.
The contract creates a labor-management committee to oversee safe staffing ratios and other ways to improve patient and staff working conditions – including a wage increase, job protections and a prohibition on the hospital changing the working conditions and benefits without negotiating with the union.
At the time, a representative from UNM Health Sciences said the hospital was holding off on commenting on the deal until after union members have voted on it. The hospital is expected to publicly comment on the contract by Monday.
Legislative majorities giving one party all the power are in play in several states - By John Hanna and David A. Lieb, Associated Press
After introducing herself at their front doors, Vanessa Vaughn West began her pitch to voters with a question: What issues are important to you? She heard frustration about rising local property taxes, a desire for smaller government and questions about affordable housing.
West is a Democrat making her second run for a Kansas House seat representing a western Kansas City neighborhood where Republicans have held sway since the construction of homes began in the late 1990s.
Despite that history, West's race against Republican state Rep. Angela Stiens is on the national Democratic Party's radar, as is the Kansas Legislature. Democrats need to gain just two seats in the 125-member House or three in the 40-member Senate to break a supermajority that has enabled Republicans to override Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly's vetoes of measures restricting abortion providers and transgender rights.
A similar battle is playing out in North Carolina, where the flip of a single seat in either the House or Senate could cost Republicans a veto-proof majority that has repeatedly imposed its will over the objections of a Democratic governor. In Nevada, meanwhile, it's Democrats who stand to gain a veto-proof majority over a Republican governor, if they can pick up just one more state Senate seat without losing one in the Assembly.
Nationwide, more than 5,800 state legislative seats in 44 states are up election this year in the background of higher profile contests for president, Congress and governor. Groups aligned with Democrats and Republicans are expected to pour a couple hundred million dollars into the state legislative battles, focusing most intensely on states where control of a chamber is in play: Arizona, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
But they also are paying attention to some states where there is little doubt about which party will prevail, because there is still plenty at stake.
The Associated Press identified 14 states where a swing of just three or fewer seats could determine whether a party holds a supermajority, meaning a margin so dominant that a party is able to enact laws despite a governor's veto, convene special sessions or place constitutional amendments on the ballot without needing any support from lawmakers of an opposing party.
"Having a party in power is really important — the most import thing," said Wesley Hussey, a political science professor at California State University, Sacramento. But "having a supermajority can give you additional tools to enact policy."
GOP DISTRICTS IN KANSAS DRAW DEMOCRATS' ATTENTION
In Kansas, Stiens was appointed to fill a House vacancy this spring in time to help override Kelly's veto of a bill requiring abortion providers to ask patients why they want to end their pregnancies and submit that data to the state health department. The law isn't being enforced amid legal challenges.
But West said the Legislature's continued push for restrictions on abortion providers is one reason she is running against Stiens, just two years after narrowly losing to Stiens' predecessor. West strongly supports abortion rights and residents in her home of Johnson County voted by nearly 69% in favor of abortion rights during a decisive 2022 statewide vote.
"This is why we need parity, right?" West said as she walked from home to home talking to prospective voters. "And this is why we need support for what I would call the voice of the people — making sure that when the people vote on things like that, that we as legislators reinforce those sentiments with our votes."
Though still leaning Republican and largely white, the Kansas City suburbs have become more racially diverse and friendlier to Democrats since former President Donald Trump's victory in 2016. But national Democrats also are targeting a portion of southwestern Topeka, a longtime Republican area where GOP state Rep. Jesse Borjon is seeking a third term against Democrat Jacquie Lightcap, a local school board member.
Campaigning door-to-door recently in a neighborhood of late-1980s homes with three-car garages, Borjon emphasized his support for public schools and tax cuts enacted this year. His vote for eliminating the state income tax on Social Security benefits resonated with Bob Schmidt, a retired computer company executive who chatted with Borjon about rising property taxes.
Regardless of party label, Schmidt said he wants a representative who will "maintain conservative values."
A CHANGE OF ONE SEAT COULD AFFECT NORTH CAROLINA LAWS
North Carolina provides a clear example of how legislative supermajorities can affect laws.
When North Carolina state Rep. Tricia Cotham switched from the Democratic to Republican party in 2023, it gave Republicans the final seat they needed to obtain a veto-proof majority in both legislative chambers. Republicans quickly flexed their new powers to override Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper's veto of legislation barring most abortions after 12 weeks of pregnancy.
Republicans have since enacted two dozen additional laws by overriding Cooper's vetoes, including ones weakening the governor's election oversight, restricting medical treatments and sports activities for transgender youths and limiting school lessons about gender identity in early grades.
"Republicans have been easily overriding his vetoes and basically putting their stamp on the state in terms of public policies," said Michael Bitzer, a political science professor at Catawba College in Salisbury, North Carolina.
Though Cooper is term-limited, Democratic Attorney General Josh Stein is leading in the race to replace him. That makes it critical for Republicans to retain a supermajority, "or else they have to deal with the governor," Bitzer said.
SUPERMAJORITIES ARE AT THEIR HIGHEST POINT IN DECADES
The number of states with legislative supermajorities is at its highest level since at least 1982, according to research by Saint Louis University political scientist Steven Rogers. Democrats hold nine veto-proof majorities. But Republicans hold 20, including in Nebraska, where the single-chamber Legislature is officially nonpartisan but two-thirds of members identify as Republicans.
Democrats need a gain of three or fewer seats this election to break Republican supermajorities in Florida, Kansas, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska and North Carolina while a similar flip for Republicans could end Democratic supermajorities in Delaware and New York.
Meanwhile, a gain of three or fewer seats could create new supermajorities for Republicans in Iowa and South Carolina and for Democrats in Colorado, Connecticut, Nevada and New Mexico.
But gaining a supermajority is no guarantee legislative leaders will always get their way.
Democrats dominate in California. Yet Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom has vetoed numerous bills, none of which have been overridden by the Democratic legislative supermajority. The legislature also has at times failed to achieve the two-thirds majority needed to pass tax increases.
In Missouri, where Republicans hold a supermajority, a conservative Senate faction has repeatedly clashed with GOP leadership. Ultimately, Republicans mired in tensions have failed to pass some of their own priority measures.
"Having a veto-proof majority can matter," said Ben Williams, associate director of elections and redistricting at the National Conference of State Legislatures. But "the larger a legislative majority gets, the more factions you get within that majority, and sometimes they don't necessarily agree."