It is time to seek answers from Rep. Ben Ray Lujan, after evidence of DCCC stymying candidate comments on gun control. If this were the only problem….but this post points to many. Post also includes the Santa Fe City Council Voters Guide and our new approach to a Town Hall: You talk, we listen.A few brief announcements before yet another report on the DCCC that appears at the bottom of this post.
Ten Reasons to Donate.
- Mayoral Voters Guide
- City Council Voters Guide
- Roundhouse Advocacy defeats SB 47, billion dollar PNM giveaway
- Retake submits amicus brief in support of suit to force Ranked Choice Voting, packs City Council
- Retake advocacy causes city to backtrack on plans to sole source solarization with PNM
- Retake and Common Cause succeed in pushing the City to defend itself against Rio Grande Foundation threats to sue City for maintaining its election disclosure law.
- Retake develops 2018-2019 Statewide Election & Legislative Strategy and develops Priority Bill List for 2019 Legislature
- Retake supports Somos Un Pueblo Unido, packs City Hall and City strengthens sanctuary policy.
- Retake supports Chainbreaker Equity Summer, hosts house parties and raises over $10,000 that is match dollar for dollar
- Retake packs the Center for Progress & Justice with over 450 people at a Town Hall following Trump election
- A bonus reason: Our ongoing coverage of Rep. Ben Ray Lujan, the DNC and the DCCC….see below for today’s update.
This is just a sampling of successful advocacy efforts over the last year. It didn’t happen without thousands of volunteer hours and expenses for flyers, website hosting costs, facility costs, printing, etc. To continue to achieve the kind of success listed above, we need your support. We don’t like the “PayPal” interface either and it will be revised in the next week, but please overlook PayPal’s suggested donations and just make a donation at whatever level is comfortable for you. And thank you for your support.
City Council and Mayors Voter Guides. It is almost election day here in Santa Fe. Two weeks ago we published a Voters Guide for the Mayoral Election, click here to review that Guide. The Guide asked Mayoral candidates to report their level of support for 24 progressive city-level policies. We asked all of the City Council candidates to take the survey and so today, we publish the City Council Voters Guide with responses from all candidates in the three contested races. Click here to review the City Council Voters Guide. Using the Guides allows you to base your vote on candidate positions to policies that you should care about.
If you haven’t taken the Speak Up New Mexico! Legislative Priorities survey, please do so today to tell your legislators what bills you want to see become law. Click the blue button at left to take the survey. And if you want to get involved with our 2018-2018 Roundhouse Advocacy Team, we meet on Thursday from 4:30-6:30pm at New Energy Economy, 343 E. Alameda. To RSVP, just write to me at paul@RetakeOurDemocracy.org. If you want to read about our 2018-2019 Election and Legislative Strategy, click here.
Town Hall, Sunday, March 4, 2-4pm. Center for Progress and Justice, 1420 Cerrillos Rd. Santa Fe, NM. Now that the holidays, the Roundhouse session and (soon) the local election are behind us, we will begin having more regular Town Halls again. Retake leadership will take ten minutes to lay out plans to support progressive Roundhouse and PRC candidates in 2018 and then, with a Democratic Governor and stronger Roundhouse, advocate to turn good ideas into strong bills that become LAW! We have been told many times that our Town Halls are too much of experts and leaders speaking ‘at” you and not enough conversation among ourselves. so we are postponing having candidates speak “at” you so that we can hear from you. We will test a Town Hall model employed in Las Cruces every month for the past 14 years. Each person will get 2 minutes to speak to the very general theme of: How can Retake better advance social, economic, racial and environmental justice in New Mexico? Within that context is a good deal of latitude in which you can speak up and raise your voice. Out of this conversation, we hope to identify some threads that can be woven into a future strategy. Your strategy. Please join us and bring friends. For more on the Town Hall and to RSVP, please click here.
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Once Again Fails to Advocate for Us
Since July, Retake has been covering the DCCC very undemocratic practices under Rep. Ben Ray Lujan’s leadership
- July 23 report on DCCC all too cozy relationship with Wall St and its corporate fundraising practices, click here.
- Aug 15 report on a meeting with Rep. Lujan where he outlined how the DCCC was keeping impartial in identifying House candidates and how the DCCC was stressing small donations over corporate support. Click here to review this report.
- Sept 13 report on how Rep. Lujan fared in terms of his support (or lack of support) of Our Revolutions 8 point People’s Platform. Click here to review that report.
- Feb 4 report on how the DCCC is systematically tilting the scale in dozens of 2018 House races and how the election of centrist Democrats with tight corporate ties leads to a Congress incapable of advancing progressive legislation. Click here.
- A Feb 24 report that focuses on a single race in Houston with the DCCC overtly undermining the campaign of a solid progressive candidate. Click here.
- On March 1, a post about the DCCC undermining single payer healthcare by telling candidates not to discuss it AND by working with a health insurance think tank to generate an alternative to single payer, Medicare Extra for All, a bogus bill that protests pharma and insurers. Click here.
As in prior reports, I want to be clear: we could do way worse than having Rep. Ben Ray Lujan as our representative. But when you are elected from a highly progressive district “you could do worse” is faint praise. We are looking for leadership from Rep. Lujan and we are not getting it. Yes, the Democrats are winning special election races, but analysis of the October sweep where dozens of progressive Democrats were swept into office, was not driven by centrists with corporate ties. It is my fear that the Democrats focus on caution, centrist policies and corporate ties (another form of triple C) is not going to maximize our 2018 election opportunity.
And now, Huffington Post has published emails to Democratic candidates across the country from the DCCC immediately after the Las Vegas bump stock slaughter: “You and your candidate will be understandably outraged and upset, as will your community. However, DO NOT POLITICIZE IT TODAY,” DCCC regional press secretary Evan Lukaske wrote to candidates in the Northeast. “There will be time for politics and policy discussion, but any message today should be on offering thoughts/prayers for victims and their families, and thanking 1st responders who saved lives.” This is the kind of caution that fails to advance policy debate that might actually move the needle on gun control. While the DCCC remains cautious, we find 15, 16, and 17 year olds showing courage that is lacking within DCCC leadership. Click here to read the full Huffington Post report.
I would give you Rep. Lujan’s email address, but a Retake supporter told me that upon calling his office, she was told that emails to his Congressional office related to DCCC activities would not be accepted. She contacted the DCCC and was told that messages to Lujan could not be directed to the DCCC. I have not been able to confirm either of these reports, but have sent emails to Rep Lujan’s top campaign aide asking for an email address. I have not gotten one yet. Something tells me that when I forward this email to Lujan’s aide, we will get an email address for the Representative where he will hear our concerns about DCCC policies. If not, Plan B will be revealed next week.
In solidarity,
Paul & Roxanne
Categories: Election, Political Reform & National Politics, Local-State Government & Legislation
Rep. Lujan seems to be a ‘status quo’ democrat, like most of them. However, status quo in today’s America, does not equal centrism but pure right wing politics. According to your description above he likes to sleep with the corporate elites, again, like most democrats. Maybe he is very much like the Clintons, center right in a continuum where the center falls far to the right of true center!
The Democrats’ culture is one seeking self serving political and economic ‘status quo’ which essentially benefits the Kleptocracy of Washington DC. Lujan seeks to preserve an illusory status quo (and they should know it is an illusion) because our sociopolitical model of government is anything but static or in equilibrium. Actually it has been moving consistently and continuously to the right, that is, towards a Fascist form of government. We should seek to understand what Fascist governments look like. There are several definitions, some short, like Fascism is when a government is at the service of male supremacy, enhancing its power and wealth. Only by learning about fascism we can understand America’s movement towards this type of social engineering, how far we are from a democratic form of government and how close we are to a fullfledged plutocratic dictatorship, in short Fascism.