To get notices and agendas of upcoming meetings and events, minutes of past meetings and other timely info, please join our mailing list by contacting:

David McGuffie, Communications Director & Recruitment Chair,
Democrats for Change, at david.r.mcguffie@gmail.com

       
         First I would like to say thank you to all that attended the meeting. Secondly, I would like to welcome Doris, Lynn, Carla, Alfred, Joann, Mary Anne, and Tom DeFayo and his wife and thank you for making it to your first meeting. As you saw, Thursday night, our group is a melting pot of passionate, diverse, free-thinking members who come together to try and make our community, our state, and our country a better place for everyone to live. Also, you may have noticed that more important than our own individual ideas is a thoughtful process that allows us to come together for the greater good of the group and meet at a compromise that allows us to go forward as one. I hope this is a kind of group that you will want to become a part of and join us for our regular monthly meetings.
        I would be remiss if I forgot to thank our hostess. Thank you, Jill Boland, for opening your beautiful home to us and allowing us the opportunity to hold the meeting there.

We are going to go out of the meeting order and talk about our historic conversation and vote on the direction the group will go in the health care debate.

         Health Care Reform: Let me say this was a very passionate debate by two very strong opposing sides that spoke with an enormous amount of clarity and distinction between the two plans. Some people were so passionate they couldn't wait to be called upon to speak, so they blurted out their thoughts. This was a rare instance of seeing the process at work. Multiply the intensity and the heated discussions by ten and you could imagine that is what it must look like in our nation's capital each time a subject so divisive comes up for a vote. Ray and Linda spoke very eloquently and knowledgeably about each point of view. I will say that good reasoning and a heartfelt passion for getting some form of health care reform won out. As a group, we came to the following agreement:

        We want to support the President, in so much, that we get Universal Healthcare for ALL, with no discrimination for pre-existing conditions, no discrimination against gender and that we will actively seek for a state’s rights wavier which will allows us to lobby, here in New Mexico,  for extended coverage and better benefits then the federal plan at the state level. Without such a waiver, states would be prohibited from coming up with state health reforms.

Linda has been asked to collect volunteers to help coordinate the group’s Health Care Reform efforts with our counterparts. To recap, in part, Linda’s email asked for volunteers for the following activities:

• Phone banking will be run from the AFT's office and coordinated by Deema with Health Action New Mexico.  
• Canvassing Efforts will be coordinated by ACORN.
• Letters to Editors, Op-eds.  
• Town Halls, Office Visits and other events with members of congress.
• Calendar of Events will be coordinated by Health Action New Mexico
• Rally/Mass Mobilization

For those interested in participating, time is of the essence, so  please send your direct response to Linda Allison  - lalallison7@gmail.com and please cc: david.r.mcguffie@gmail.com.

List your name, email address, and phone number on the activity you will participate.  At this time, I do not have the contact addresses/phone #, I will send them to you as soon as possible.

         Fundraising: As you all know, Democrats for Change & Citizens for Change are trying our best not to implement dues. Please put your thinking caps on and think of ways we can raise money to ensure dues does not become a part of either factions process. If you can think of any fundraising ideas, please email them directly to me, David at david.r.mcguffie@gmail.com. It would be greatly appreciated!


         Wishlist: Democrats & Citizens for Change are putting together a wishlist of items we could use to help our meetings be better, run smoother, and more efficient. If you can think of any supplies that we could use, whether it be office supplies, ink for printers, paper, pens, a pa system, notebooks for people to take notes during the meeting so when we have a question and answer period they can remember the question they wanted to ask. If you can think of any wishlist ideas, please email them directly to Samantha Hamilton, at webmaster.nmdfc@gmail.com. It would be greatly appreciated!

         
         Citizens for Change: Jill Boland, the chair for the outreach portion of the group spoke about the 2 projects that have started, Rebuilding Together & Read West.

She encouraged anyone interested in helping:

       Rebuilding Together- a group that fixes up homes to help low-income families stay in their home. it helps to prevent homelessness in Sandoval County. Contact Jill Boland, Jerry and/or Janice Saxton to volunteer.

                                                    -Or-
     
       Read West- Tutoring English as a second language to non-English speaking citizens. She suggested using the New Mexico Coalition of Literacy to assist. Read West has a 2 day training workshop for this group. Contact Jill Boland or Bobbie Weinbaum to volunteer.


       Clothing Swap-Jill went on to mention that with autumn nearby, we would really like to have a clothes swap where people could come and trade clothes. It was suggested that we try to have sodas and bottled water for sale as well as some baked goods to help make money for the group while we are doing the clothes swap. We are looking for a good free location and some free advertising for the event. Several locations were mentioned, Arco Hall, see Deacon Smith; vets at Central & San Pedro or Broadway and Avenida Chavez. Please contact Jill Boland at jboland5@comcast.net.

          Ray followed Jill, by adding, as we are moving into the cooler months and the end of a non-election year, we really need to pull together to have some successful community events. It would speak greatly of Citizens for Change to step up with Rebuilding Together, Read West and the Clothing Swap as those less fortunate are going to really need these items done in time for the winter. Also, he noted that next year, being a mid-term election year, we all have candidates that we need to help get elected or get re-elected and our focus will tend to lean more to the political side.


         Arman Salehian talked about Young Democrats and the various things he is working on to assist with Health Care Reform. He mentioned the next town hall meeting with Congressman Heinrich needs to be packed to capacity in order to prevent the oppositions team of protagonists from being allowed to enter the meeting and being disruptive. He encourage everyone to arrive between 12:30 and 1pm as the protagonists should arrive around 1:30pm.

Health Care Town Hall - Saturday, August 22, 2009, 3:00 to 4:30 p.m.
U.S. Representative Martin Heinrich will host another town hall meeting on the critical issue of health care reform with constituents in the First Congressional District.  The panel will bring together New Mexicans from across the district to ask questions as Representative Heinrich works to address the health care crisis in our country. 

Where: UNM Continuing Education Building, 1634 University Blvd. NE, Albuquerque, NM 87102

Next Meeting:  Democrats for Change will hold it's next meeting September 17th at 6pm at Linda Allison's home. Closer to the date, I will send an email with directions to Linda's home.

My own personal final note: it is always a great thing when you see a group as passionate and diverse as ours come together for the greater good of the group and the country. I applaud all of you for coming to such a spirited and worthwhile compromise that satisfies both the single payer and the public option supporters!!!

Announcements:      There are two events that I need to mention:

It was great to see the Single Payer and Public Option supporters turn out at Martin Heinrich's Town Hall today.

As a reporter, I of course simply want to report facts. As a partisan, of course I can select the facts I report. I will compromise by saying this: while it's tough to get an entire political agenda into the 8 or 9 words you can get on your average sign, I must say the Opposition did a nice job with a 3-person banner, professionally printed, that read, in part:

:"We misinformed? Reactionary? Naive?...We don't think so! You are the pathetic unAmerican losers who can't get good jobs and are subverting our economy...etc."  Ummm...really nice printing job. Lotsa words on a well-designed banner. A pity it was all name-calling with no facts.

I gave up my seat to someone I figured deserved to be in the meeting more than I did, and would be a better spokesperson, so I missed the main event. I hope to be able to publish eyewitness accounts in the next couple of days.

However, from my seat near the side exit, I got a good spread of reviews: An SP supporter seated next to a Republican couple said it had just gotten "too tense" for her to stay in the building; several people wearing Health Reform Now stickers said it was pretty much what you'd expect. One woman said neither the left nor the right was arguing logically, and she was sick of the whole thing.

A father hustling his kid out was indignant that "they tried to stack the deck against us," and demanded to know how all us socialists were recruited anyway. Another father who arrived with his daughter too late to get in tried to convince Security that he'd taken his kid out of school to see "democracy in action."

I spoke to three security people: one event security, one Campus Police, and one ABQ police, who, to a man, described the event as "boring." When I ventured to suggest that, at an event like this, "boring" was good, the Campus and ABQ cops both said, "Yes, ma'am, you're right about that! Look, they just offered us cold sodas in there, can I bring you one?"

The women I rode with -- mostly a committee appointed some months ago to study the health care issue, most with more than one degree, and thus WAY better informed than the average American, agreed that the questions were fairly lame, but Heinrich came out well for public option.

That's it from the sidelines, sportsfans. Stay tuned for the Bingaman meeting.

-- Samantha Hamilton, Webmaster