Doomed Referenda Aimed at Overturning Widely-Supported State Laws

 

Rightwingers want you to sign petitions requesting referenda challenging five measures adopted during this years’s New Mexico Legislature session.

The “Referendum Project is working to stop these horrible laws from going into effect.” The “horrible laws” make it easier for folks to vote and to obtain health care the governors of Texas and Florida don’t approve of.

Republicans, the party of individuals' gun rights, aren’t keen on other individual rights. Having eviscerated national constitutional protection of women’s choice, they want all states to follow suit. New Mexico opinion polls and voting histories, and choice-related referendum results in surprising states such as Kansas, suggest how out-of-touch these folks are.

The “horrible laws?” HB 7 prohibits cities and counties from “denying, restricting or discriminating against an individual’s right to use or refuse reproductive health care or health care related to gender.” The law reflects majority views of New Mexicans, and follows New Mexico’s law and constitution. (Draconian laws elsewhere mean refugees from those states seek health care here.)

Similarly, SB 13 aims to protect both providers and patients seeking abortion care and gender-affirming healthcare from punishments other states have legislated. For example, someone who provides an abortion could be sentenced to up to 99 years in prison, $100,000 fine, and loss of professional license. Trying to protect citizens, healthcare providers, and visitors seeking care from such barbaric laws sounds to me like basic decency.

HB 4 (Voting Rights Protections) extends the early voting period, creates a permanent absentee ballot list, and facilitates voting by extending deadlines and timelines and making Election Day a state holiday. This and SB 180 (election changes) are battles in the lengthy war over whether we should make voting harder (particularly for minorities and poor folks) and excuse that by screaming “election security!” Consider the sorry history of conservatives’ efforts here and elsewhere to prove “election fraud,” including but long preceding Mr. Trump’s .000 batting average.

Referendum is a progressive measure, invented to protect the people from legislatures beholden to banks, railroads, and corporations. These folks are free to use it. But there are laws against misleading anyone into signing. With criminal penalties. (In the last big conservative effort here, folks opposing the city’s minimum wage ordinance made crazy claims to procure signatures, such as saying the petition was to save a popular boxing program!)

A leader of The Referendum Project” is Carla Sonntag, who writes a lot of “op-eds” favoring oil and gas and against environmental protections, but also writes a lot about culture-war issues. She’s founder/co-founder and CEO/executive-director of a host of great-sounding front groups (listed in my blog) that amount to colorful clothing in which to dress up unpopular ideas. Sonntag has opposed HB 218 (Low Income Public Utility Rates) as “socialized utility rates;” opposed legalizing marijuana, which seems a popular measure here.

This use of Referendum by small right-wing groups will waste time.  They have the right; but they’re attacking policies and protections most New Mexicans approve of. They haven’t yet gotten even one target law on the ballot, but have filed suit to challenge the Secretary of State’s ruling that these bills don’t qualify for the referendum process under the state constitution’s exemption of laws “providing for the preservation of the public peace, health or safety.” If they clear that hurdle, I’d sure urge folks to avoid waste and unnecessary conflict by courteously declining to sign!

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[The above column appeared in the Las Cruces Sun-News and on the newspaper’s website on Sunday, 9 July. as well as on the KRWG website. A related radio commentary aired on KTAL-LP (101.5 FM / http://www.lccommunityradio.org/) and on KRWG Radio. ]

[I think the column states my views. One proponent objected to being classed as a “rightwinger.” We’ve arranged to devote a half-hour of our Wednesday morning radio show [“Speak Up, Las Cruces1” / Wednesdays 8- 10 a.m. on KTAL} on __ August to a discussion with two proponents of these refertenda, and possibly a state legislator as well. ]

[Apologies for not posting this on my blog the Sunday it came out. I had planned to include a list of groups Carla J. Sonntag [and/or her husband] seems to run. Haven’t had time for a full list, but Ms. Sonntag is the founder and CEO of Better Together New Mexico (BTNM), the Founder and Executive Director of the NM Business Coalition, the President and co-founder of Rebound New Mexico (RNM) and RNM’s sister organization, New Mexico Business Coalition (NMBC), etc. ]