5-18-13 Central NM Move to Amend Meeting

[TomLeslie Dent]

Greetings! Our next meeting should be a pretty big one--yes it's this Saturday at 11AM (5-18-13) at the Albuquerque Center for Peace & Justice 202 Harvard Dr. SE -contact Tom 450-1268

4 major things will be on our Agenda
1. Planning our second candidate forum to Get Money o/o Politics:
I've had initial contacts with Pete Dinelli, in person, Eloise Gift, on facebook and Diane Gibson (who again sends her sincere apologizes for being sick during our last forum), on the phone already about attending and I've reserved the Peace & Justice Center for a perspective forum from 11:30 to 2:30 on Saturday, June 29th. Once again Mike Swick said he would film and provide sound (the previous forum can be seen here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7p_6TtJfESc ).  The [second] forum itself being scheduled from 12-2 with the other times reserved for set-up and clean up. Here are the list of Democratic candidates we'll (I'll) be in the process of inviting:

Pete Dinelli	Mayor	377-2427
Ken Sanchez	Dist. 1	730-0967
Issac Benton	Dist. 2	319-9681
Klarissa Pena	Dist. 3	918-7373
R. Carlos Caballero	Dist. 3	710-5598
Ron Garcia	Dist. 3	573-7448
Eloise Gift	Dist. 5	898-7143
Diane Gibson	Dist. 7	720-6415
Matt Biggs	Dist. 7	227-7001
Lovie McGee	Dist. 9	280-1579

Yes the field is expanding, and please feel free to introduce candidates (of any party) to us that we may not be aware of.
2. I have just heard that Debbie O'Malley thinks that the time is right for reintroducing our resolution to the Bernalillo County Commission and Roxanne Allen is in the process of following up with her on our behalf!!! Very good news! (of course, as you may know, the OTHER good news is that Maine passed their own resolutions to overturn Citizens United in both houses thus becoming the 13th state with a resolution or a memorial)
3. I have paid $25 for a Central NM Move to Amend sponsorship ad in the Albuquerque Center for Peace and Justice 30th anniversary program and the Center is inviting us to share a table at the 30th celebration which is:
Saturday, June 22nd from 6-10PM at the
Bosque School
4000 Learning Rd. NW (off Coors, just South of Montano)
Rey Garduno will be the keynote speaker and WAGOGO will provide dance music from 8-10
Dinner provided by the Olympia Cafe full price ticket: $25 10 to a table--so either come to the meeting for RSVP invitations or come by the P & J center anytime, of call me (Tom 450-1268) and I'll hook you up. but we'll need to reserve a table ASAP, if we're going to do that (sliding scale tickets also available). I have bought 3 tickets already for myself, my wife and my daughter so 7 more and we have a table!
4. http://www.scribd.com/doc/140047037/Corporate-interests-sue-to-end-ABQ-ban-on-contributions-by-city-contractors-to-Mayor please go to this link and please be aware of how dangerous this suit is to the preservation of the citizen's ban on contractor $ in City Hall election campaigns-Lemoyne writes: "We definitely need to push back on this one although there are limits on what we can do under the Move To Amend banner. I pin this to the top of the page (on the Albq.MTA facebook page) to keep it above any off topic posts. The majority on the City Council that could not see the relevance of our Move To Amend resolution is almost certainly the unnamed recipients of the donations mentioned in this suit. Donations that fly in the face of the Election Code in the City Charter - prohibited donations claimed as the injury at the core of a suit that claims a noun is a verb [money is speech] and continues to claim that property is not only speech, property also has a right to speak [corporations are people].
There are easily five to ten good angles to [not so] kindly inform the Council that the rotten ice has given way on their specious hand-wringing over the issue of money and corporations in politics. If they can't see what it has to do with them - in this election year with their campaign finances tangled up in this suit to overturn the Charter when they have the votes to just repeal the Election Code entirely - the voters deserve to hear their response to being called out on the issue. Will they defend the Charter or do nothing and let right-wing 'judicial activism' overturn the limits designed to keep the playing field level, free from graft/bribery/extortion and accessible to all? Or do they have the ganas to stand on their convictions and repeal the Election Code? Inquiring minds want to know.
This suit is rank with Orwellian Newspeak - treating money as speech creates a situation where we all have different amount of speech, and *that* inherently violates equal protection ... yet this suit claims the exact opposite [that money must be speech or equal protection is violated]. It's big money rules or we the people rule - the time has come around to call the rascals out so the people can vote them out."

See you Saturday!!!