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September 18, 2006

Put Your Voting Shoes On

Tomorrow is election day for residents of Bernalillo County. Tuesday’s special election will decide whether Albuquerque Public Schools (APS) gets the $351 million it has requested in general obligation bonds. These are bricks-and-mortar bonds, meaning the money will only be used for building, upgrading or maintaining school facilities. Turnout is generally very low at single-issue special elections such as this one – so your vote really counts!

What you can do:

• Read up on the bond measure. For specific information go to: http://www.voteaps.com/
• Vote! To find out where you vote go to: http://www.bernco.gov/live/departments.asp?dept=2315&submenuid=4051
• The polls will be open on Tuesday, Sept. 19, from 7am to 7pm. Absentee ballots will be accepted at the Bernalillo County Clerk’s Office until 7pm.
  

A Budget Behind

The current congressional session is scheduled to end Sept. 29. While the federal government’s fiscal year begins on Oct. 1, the annual appropriations bill is not expected to be completed by then. Instead, Congress will likely pass a short-term funding measure to keep the government functioning until members take up the budget again on Nov. 13 – well after the mid-term elections.

Whether or not this is a political ploy, the result is the same – we will be unable to hold our congressional representatives accountable for the FY 07 budget until after we’ve cast our own votes. But that doesn’t mean we can’t tell them how we’d like our money spent.

As you know, tax cuts that benefit primarily the wealthy have led to both overwhelming national debt as well as cutbacks in spending. Not only will this debt one day weigh on the shoulders of our children, but many of the spending cuts were to programs that help them today. Either scenario is egregious. Both together are just short of criminal.

What you can do:

• Email your congressperson and tell them to restore funding for services that help our most vulnerable children. While you’re at it, tell them you don’t want any more tax cuts for the wealthy.
• Email Senator Jeff Bingaman at senator_bingaman@bingaman.senate.gov
• Email Senator Pete Domenici via a form at http://www.domenici.senate.gov
• Email Rep. Steve Pearce (Dist. 2) via a form at http://www.pearce.house.gov
• Email Rep. Tom Udall (Dist. 3) via a form at http://www.tomudall.house.gov
• Email Rep. Heather Wilson (Dist. 1) via a form at http://www.wilson.house.gov
  

Cleaning House?

Often when Congress spends our money, specific amounts are “earmarked” for pet projects. Tax breaks that are targeted to special-interest groups also can be earmarked. As it stands now, a committee can include an earmark within legislation without reporting the name of the member who sponsored it. In an effort to appear more transparent, the House passed a bill last week to require earmarks and their sponsors be identified. To a point. The new rule only applies to earmarked funding. Representatives who sponsor earmarks for special-interest tax breaks can still do so anonymously if this bill becomes law.

This has a ring of familiarity, doesn’t it? When Congress considered line-item veto legislation the rules were different (i.e., more stringent) for vetoing funding than for vetoing tax cuts.

New Mexico Representatives Pearce and Wilson voted for the earmark rule, Rep. Udall voted against.

What you can do:

• Read a report on the legislation by the Center on Budget Policies and Priorities here: http://www.cbpp.org/9-14-06bud.htm

Race Matters Task Force

Please join us on Wednesday, Oct. 4, at 2pm, to continue work on the policy recommendations that resulted from the Race Matters conference. Visit http://www.nmvoices.org/racematters.htm for more information and to register.

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