Featured Articles

ACLU-NM Files Motion for Summary Judgment in NM District Court

Today, the American Civil Liberties Union (ALCU) of New Mexico filed a motion for summary judgment in New Mexico State Court, Second District, demanding that Secretary of State Dianna Duran stop withholding public information in violation of the Inspection of Public Records Act. The motion claims that Duran wrongfully refused to produce documentation related to her March 15, 2011 allegations that foreign nationals have illegally voted in New Mexico elections. ACLU-NM asks the court to instruct Duran to disclose the list of 117 foreign nationals  who are allegedly registered to vote and the list of 37 foreign nationals who have allegedly cast ballots in previous elections. For nine months, Duran has refused to disclose these public records, which are the basis for her claims of a “culture of corruption” in New Mexico’s elections.

“Secretary of State Duran undermined the public’s confidence in our elections when she alleged fraud, then refused to substantiate those claims,” said ACLU-NM Executive Director Peter Simonson. “Making unfounded allegations that cast doubt on the integrity of our entire system of government is reckless. This is not how a transparent and accountable government should behave.”

Immediately following Duran’s announcement in March, the ACLU of New Mexico filed a public records request to verify her allegations of voting irregularities. Her office refused, incorrectly claiming that the information was protected under executive privilege. Duran’s office rendered useless the little information they did relinquish through heavy redaction. In response, ACLU-NM filed a lawsuit, claiming that Duran violated the Inspection of Public Records Act by withholding important information the public has the right to access.

In the discovery process of the lawsuit, the ACLU of New Mexico forced the Secretary of State to relinquish more than 100 pages of documentation that the Secretary of State falsely claimed was protected by executive privilege and the New Mexico Driver Privacy Protection Act. However, the Office of the Secretary of State still denies the public access to the lists of alleged foreign national voters and the signature rosters/checklists that would prove they cast ballots in an election.

“New Mexicans shouldn’t have to sue their government to access the public records they are entitled to under law,” said ACLU-NM Managing Attorney Laura Schauer Ives. “Unfortunately, it seems that the Secretary of State would rather fight lawsuits on the taxpayers’ dime than allow the public to hold her official statements up to the light.”

Read the motion for summary judgment: Motion for Summary Judgment.

Plaintiff’s Motion for SJ Exhibits A-I

Plaintiff’s Motion for SJ – Exhibit J pt. 1

Plaintiff’s Motion for SJ – Exhibit J pt. 2

Plaintiff’s Motion for SJ – Exhibit J pt. 3

Plaintiff’s Motion for SJ Exhibits K-Q

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

January 10, 2012

CONTACT: Micah McCoy, (505) 266-5915 x1003 or mmccoy@aclu-nm.org

###

Micah McCoy, Communications Specialist

Most people know the American Civil Liberties Union as one of the oldest and fiercest defenders of religious liberty in the nation. However, Steve Smothermon, the pastor of Legacy Church in Albuquerque, was recently quoted in the Journal accusing the ACLU of attacking his religious beliefs. If Smothermon examined the situation more closely, he’d see that the ACLU’s concerns have nothing to do with his faith, but with defending the freedom of all people to practice their faith – or no faith at all – without governmental interference.

Today the national ACLU released a video featuring Ruthell Frank, an 81 year-old woman living in Brokaw, Wisconsin, a tiny hamlet of just over 100 people. Ruthelle has been voting in elections since 1948 and serves on the village board. But since the Republican controlled Wisconsin legislature passed a law requiring a photo ID to vote earlier this year, Ruthelle may for the first time in over 60 years be unable to vote. Watch the video to learn why:

Politicians all over the United States are attempting to ram these Voter ID laws through the legislature ostensibly to prevent voter fraud. Of course investigation after investigation shows that there is no widespread voter fraud anywhere in the United States-and that includes New Mexico. Essentially, these vote-suppressing “Voter ID” laws are a solution in search of a problem.

Here in New Mexico we can be sure that legislators will once again attempt to foist the stale and debunked specter of fraud on us in an attempt to pass a Voter ID restriction in the upcoming 2012 legislative session. Secretary of State Dianna Duran’s well-publicized but opaque (and ultimately empty handed) fishing expedition through the voter rolls these past nine months is a clear preamble to the bill’s introduction. So when the session rolls around this coming January, we need to be prepared to ask our legislators why they want to make it harder for New Mexicans to vote?

As we saw in the video, Voter ID bills disenfranchise the elderly, the poor, the homeless, Native Americans and other minority groups who may not have valid photo IDs. Many people, like Ruthelle, may not even have access to or are unable to afford the documents that are needed to obtain a valid photo ID. Obtaining copies of birth certificates, passports or other documents required can be expensive-sometimes hundreds of dollars-and acts as a de facto poll tax on those who are least able to afford it. Voting is not a privilege, it is a constitutional right, and no eligible citizen should have to pay to vote.

Even though there is no evidence that photo IDs would be effective in preventing fraud, Voter ID apologists often use the line, “Even one instance of voter fraud is too many” to justify their crusade to impose roadblocks to the poll booth. But how many cases of voter disenfranchisement are too many? One? Two? Ten? Demographically, thousands of eligible New Mexicans stand to be disenfranchised by Voter ID legislation.

There are already hefty federal criminal penalties to deter people from committing voter fraud-and it works. There has never been a documented case of voter fraud in the state of New Mexico that would have been prevented by photo IDs. This coming January, let’s ask our representatives to focus their energy on coming up with real solutions to the real problems we face-not ginned up issues designed to disenfranchise large swaths of the electorate.

Dear Friend of Liberty,
I’m writing you today to ask you to stand up to an organization that is willing to go to any length to take away a woman’s right to safe, legal abortion care here in New Mexico. I’m talking about Kansas-based “Operation Rescue,” a group of extremists with a track record of violence, harassment and intimidation towards abortion providers and women seeking abortions.Dear friend of liberty,

Their main target was once Kansas late-term abortion provider Dr. George Tiller. Dr. Tiller is now dead, murdered as he ushered Sunday worship at his church, and Operation Rescue followed Tiller’s surviving associates to Albuquerque where they relocated to continue providing late-term abortion care to women in need.

Stand up for women’s right to access reproductive health care and keep Operation Rescue’s extremist agenda out of New Mexico.

Operation Rescue recently made headlines in Albuquerque when they released recordings of 9-1-1 calls made from two health clinics where abortions are performed and demanded that the New Mexico Medical Board investigate several local physicians for alleged “unsafe” practices.

This is not a new tactic for Operation Rescue. The organization has used bogus complaints to medical boards in several other states in an attempt to harass and intimidate doctors. The person responsible for most of these complaints is Cheryl Sullenger, Operation Rescue’s Senior Policy Advisor, who served two years in U.S. federal prison for conspiring to bomb an abortion clinic in 1987.

In 2009, Sullenger lied about and then later admitted to feeding information regarding the whereabouts of Dr. Tiller to an anti-choice extremist named Scott Roeder. On Sunday, May 31, 2009, Roeder walked into the Reformation Lutheran Church in Wichita, Kansas and shot and killed Dr. Tiller.

Making repeated complaints to the medical board and demanding endless investigations of abortion providers is the same strategy Operation Rescue used in Kansas to harass Dr. Tiller before he was murdered. Now Operation Rescue is using the same strategy here in New Mexico.

This has a serious chilling effect on abortion providers because time and expense required to hire attorneys, respond to an unending stream of subpoenas, and repeatedly appear before the medical board makes it extremely difficult to run a medical practice. And that is exactly what Operation Rescue is counting on.

Help keep our medical board from being hijacked by anti-choice extremists. Remind the Executive Director of the NM Medical Board that they should make decisions based on medicine – not the political agendas of out-of-state extremists.

Sincerely,

Peter Simonson

Executive Director

On October 22, the ACLU of New Mexico premiered it’s new video, When Freedom Can’t Defend Itself, at the 49th Annual Bill of Rights Celebration. The video follows the stories of four New Mexicans, a Sikh paramedic, a National Guardsman, a Border Patrol agent and a high school student who all turned to the ACLU of New Mexico when their civil liberties were violated.