Hello friend,
How are you doing?
Election week is finally over. Whewwww, it's been a long one. Good news, Trump got the boot thanks to record turnout & magnificent organizing efforts in Black, Indigenous and Latinx communities around the country. Native voters helped swing Arizona, record Latinx turnout, and deep & expansive community organizing in states like Georgia turned the tide for our federal leadership. The election also made clear how much work remains to be done. We are rolling up our sleeves and are excited to work with you and all of our community to push for real progressive policy gains and address systemic injustice, bigotry, and ignorance.
We want to make sure that our national election doesn't eclipse the results of our down ballot raises. We are celebrating local wins 🎉in our State Legislature, Congress and the Public Regulation Commission!
YOU helped these candidates secure their winning elections! The last couple of weeks we have phone banked for Roger Montoya who was elected with 57% of the vote! We also helped phone bank for Harold Pope Jr., who flipped the seat from the incumbent Sander Rue. Sander Rue has a history of receiving campaign contributions from Chevron Corp, Concho Resources, Devon Energy, and GEO Group Inc aka Private Prisons.
Teresa Leger de Fernandez and Representative Deb Haaland came ahead in their races, securing two progressive champions (of 3) in Congress.
With this election, it's important to stay focused and moving along together as we fight for environmental, economic and social justice. We are shifting now to the 2021 NM State Legislative session and we're going to need your help to win community solar, comprehensive climate legislation, real investment in cracking the puzzle of how to shift our state's economy and end our dependence on oil and gas revenues through a truly just transition.
CONGRATULATION TO OUR ENDORSED CANDIDATES
We are so glad that Maestas was elected and look forward to working with him to strengthen energy regulation in our state.
It is very unfortunate that the back of ballot Constitutional Amendment #1 was passed with 56% of the vote. The ballot language did not tell voters that the amendment was changing the current 5 person elected commission to a commission that is appointed by the Governor and a nominating commission.
This Amendment takes the power away from voters and puts it back into a nominating commission and is scarily dependent on the type of leadership we have in the Governor's office. Voters were not only misled by the language on the ballot but also with shiny mailers. Dark-monied PACs spend 100s of thousands of dollars. Unfortunately, since Constitutional Amendment 1 was passed on this ballot, Joseph Maestas will only serve a 2 year elected term instead of a normal 4 year term. But we know he's going to do a ton to protect our communities and the environment in that time. We hope that he will be appointed for additional time following his now shortened elected term. For more information about the Amendment, check out Ballotpedia or check out this post on Retake Our Democracy.
