FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE February 27, 2007
CONTACT: Whitney Potter (505) 266 5915 ext. 1003 Cell (505) 507 9898
Rio Rancho, NM—The ACLU raised objections on Tuesday to the participation of Rio Rancho School Board member Kathy Jackson in a January 22 vote not to offer alternatives to the district’s abstinence-only sex ed curriculum.  According to the NM Secretary of State Office Website, Jackson currently is a registered lobbyist for Best Choices Educational Services, Inc., the organization that contracts with the district to provide abstinence-only teaching.  Jackson’s husband and Rio Rancho Mayor Kevin Jackson also lobbies for Best Choices.
“There is an appearance of impropriety when a school board member votes for a policy that is going to benefit the corporation for which she works,” said ACLU Executive Director Peter Simonson.  “When Jackson cast that vote, was she thinking like a school board member or like a lobbyist?  Whose interests was she intending to serve?”
“The citizens of Rio Rancho deserve to know when factors like this might be motivating the vote of a school board member, especially on such a sensitive issue as sex ed.”
The school board decision is especially momentous because it rejects a requirement by the NM Department of Public Education to offer comprehensive curriculum when teaching secondary students about sex education.
The board’s vote also rejected recommendations by the district’s School Health Advisory Council, made up of 25 to 30 principals, nurses, counselors, parents, and teachers.  The ACLU is investigating legal strategies to challenge the board decision.
Simonson said, “The school board could have voted to give families options about the kind of sex education their children receive.  Instead they voted to prescribe certain teachings based on a narrow set of moral assumptions that not all of the families in Rio Rancho share.  Now we see that their vote may have been imprudent as well as dismissive of the diversity in Rio Rancho.”

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Tuesday, February 13, 2007

CONTACT: Whitney Potter (505) 266 5915 ext. 1003 Cell (505) 507 9898; or James Scarantino (505) 366-7873

Albuquerque—A federal judge struck down Albuquerque’s Voter ID law yesterday “because it imposes a significant burden on the fundamental right to vote, and because that burden is not narrowly tailored to meet the City’s interest in preventing voter impersonation at the polls.”  The ruling results from a lawsuit that the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of New Mexico filed in October, 2005 on behalf of the League of Woman Voters and Bernalillo County, Inc., among other plaintiffs.

“The law created an unfair, unequal system of voting,” said ACLU Executive Director, Peter Simonson.  “It treated people who voted in person as suspicious, but exempted people who voted absentee from any ID requirements at all.  Ironically, it gave a pass to the very type of vote that is most susceptible to fraud.”

In her ruling, Judge Christina Armijo noted that the City of Albuquerque failed to present “evidence of voter fraud or voting irregularities among Albuquerque voters who vote in person at their precinct polling place on election day.”  Indeed, the most convincing evidence of voter fraud lay with absentee voting.  Testimony by former NM State Election Director Denise Lamb “cite[d] several examples of schemes or ploys that reportedly were used to defraud or disenfranchise voters using absentee voting procedures.”

ACLU attorney James Scarantino said, “The judge underscored the truly cynical nature of this law.  The people of Albuquerque were sold voter ID as a preventive measure for voter impersonation, when in fact the law fixed what didn’t need fixing.  And it left the only real source of fraud—absentee voting--unchecked.”

Scarantino noted that the Albuquerque City Council was warned in June 2005 by City Councilor Michael Cadigan that the disparate treatment of in-person and absentee voters would prove to be unconstitutional.

“They should not have blocked Cadigan’s efforts to plug the loop-hole for absentee voters,” Scarantino said.

ACLU Director Simonson said, “With this decision I think we’ve started a trend in which the courts are looking with much greater skepticism on laws that impose burdensome ID requirements on voters.  Hopefully our state legislators will take this into account in the next several weeks as they consider bills proposing new voter ID requirements.”

The ACLU recognized Scarantino in 2006 as its “Cooperating Attorney of the Year” for his outstanding work on the voter ID lawsuit.

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE DATE: Monday, February 5, 2007 CONTACT: Whitney Potter (505) 266 5915 ext. 1003 Cell (505) 507 9898 or Paul Cates (212) 549-2568 Cell (917) 566-1294
ALBUQUERQUE – The American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit today against the state of New Mexico on behalf of three lesbian couples seeking retirement health insurance for the domestic partners of lesbian and gay state employees.
“After serving the state for 25 years, I hoped to retire with the same peace of mind as my straight colleagues,” said Ellen Novak.   “But retirement has meant that my partner has had to switch to costly private health insurance with inferior coverage at the point in our lives when we are most likely to face health problems.  I worked just as hard as my colleagues, so it doesn’t seem fair that my family has been saddled with this burden.”
Novak, who has been with her partner Linda McCreary for 15 years, was forced to retire in 2004 after being diagnosed with a chronic lung condition.  When she was still working for the state, she was able to provide McCreary health insurance as her domestic partner, but because of the state’s unfair policy of denying retirees domestic partner coverage, McCreary’s domestic partner coverage was terminated when Novak was forced to retire.  Married couples in the same situation are permitted to continue to provide health insurance to their spouses after retirement.
The lawsuit filed today charges that the state’s policy of denying lesbian and gay state retirees equal health insurance for their partners violates the state constitution’s equality guarantees.  Unlike their straight colleagues, lesbian and gay employees are barred from marrying in the state and therefore, in the absence of domestic partner benefits, are denied equal compensation.
“Lesbian and gay employees make commitments and form families just like straight employees, and their families have the same needs,” said Peter Simonson, Executive Director of the ACLU of New Mexico.  “Health insurance is an important portion of how employees are compensated.  It’s not right for the state to take care of straight families, but to force gay and lesbian families to bear the significant expense and suffer the inferior coverage of private health insurance at the point in their lives when they need health care most.”
In 2003, Governor Bill Richardson issued an executive order providing state employees, both gay and straight, with the option of providing their partners health insurance through domestic partner coverage.  Under the order, domestic partner coverage is not available to employees after they retire, while spousal coverage is provided.
Proposed legislation, SB 502, which was introduced by Senator John Grubesic and will be the subject of a committee hearing this Wednesday, would close the loophole and provide benefits to the domestic partners of retired employees.
“The state legislature has the opportunity to spare taxpayers the needless expense of defending this lawsuit by passing this bill,” said Simonson.  “The cost of providing the domestic partners of state employees with access to retirement health insurance would only result in less than a one percent increase in claims dollars paid out by the authority.  And this nominal cost would likely be offset by the savings to the state on account of having more people insured.”
The other two couples involved in the lawsuit are:
Havens Levitt and Rebecca Dakota -- This Albuquerque couple has been together for 11 years, but have know each other for 25.  Levitt, 54, has been a teacher for more than 23 years with the Albuquerque public school system.  Dakota, 52, works for an anti-smoking campaign and as the part-time director of the Albuquerque Independent Business Alliance.  Because her jobs are both part-time, she relies on Levitt to provide her health insurance.  When Levitt retires, Dakota will no longer have access to health insurance and will be forced to pay for private insurance, which is especially expensive for someone of her age.
Mary Meyer and Hope Miner -- This Sandoval County couple has been together for 13 years and is raising two children together.  Meyer, who manages the WIC Nutrition Program for Bernalillo and Sandoval Counties, has worked for the New Mexico Department of Health for 22 years.  Miner retired from the Albuquerque school system in 2003 after serving as an elementary teacher for 25 years.  When domestic partner benefits became available, the couple decided to have Meyer cover Miner as a domestic partner in order to avoid the double fees the couple had to pay towards their separate health plans.  After Miner retired, the couple learned that the domestic partner coverage would no longer be available once Meyer retired.  When Meyer retires, the couple’s monthly expenses will increase because they will both be required to contribute to their own health plans.
The legal team for the ACLU in Novak and McCreary v. New Mexico is George Bach, staff attorney with the ACLU of New Mexico, Ken Choe, a senior staff attorney with the Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Project of the ACLU, and cooperating attorney Maureen Sanders of Sanders & Westbrook, P.C.
Biographical information for all of the couples, a Q&A about the lawsuit and the legal papers filed today are available at www.aclu.org/caseprofiles.

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Related Documents

DP Retiree Benefits Complaint

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Q & A

Memo: Cost of domestic partnerships for retirees in New Mexico