VOTER GUIDE

So much depends upon the sacred act of voting!

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At NM IPL there are several prongs to our work. Many of you are involved in one or more of these prongs.

*Education and Inspiration or prayer, meditation and rituals

*Hands on actions for energy efficiency, solar installation, food production, tree planting, supporting local agriculture

*Public policy Advocacy

Regarding the third prong we are so grateful for more and more people of faith and or conscience stepping up in so many ways. Here are a few.
  • Meetings this month with Congressional delegates as part of national IPL effort to discuss the For the People Act, HR1 and S1 getting “dark money” out of voting and supporting voting rights. We also addressed Building Sustainable and Resilient Infrastructures with the American Jobs Plan and the THRIVE Act. NM IPL folks from Gallup, Jemez, Carlsbad, and Albuquerque attended zoom meetings with leaders.
  • Thank you to a number of folks who have signed up to speak in support of EPA methane rules at a federal online EPA hearing!! We have folks from Albuquerque, Santa Fe, Taos, and Carlsbad.
  • The Policy Advocacy Group meets monthly. The next meeting is June 2 at 9 am on zoom. Everyone is invited to be on the list to get notes and invitations for actions or attend the meetings. Just send a note to joan@nm-ipl.org.

Finally, there is a special election in Congressional District 1 now until June 1. VOTING IS A SACRED ACT. If you are in this district, or have friends and family in this district, PLEASE VOTE for the candidate of your choice because voting is a sacred responsibility for the Common Good, our neighbors and Sacred Creation!!!

Here is VOTING INFO where you can find voting locations and times:

 

Much peace and gratefulness,
Joan Brown,osf, Executive Director

 

Congress Must Act to Pass Infrastructure Legislation With Climate and Clean Energy Investments

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(Reprinted from the National IPL Blog)

By Tiffany Hartung, Field Director

It is the moral responsibility of our nation, and our sacred task as people of faith, to care for our neighbors, our common home, and protect our children’s future. We must work for environmental justice and public health while addressing the climate crisis.

From historic wildfires to record-breaking extreme weather, climate change is devastating our health and destroying our environment. Links between pollution and the pandemic have put low wealth communities and communities of color at far greater health risks than other communities. COVID-19 has also exposed hidden health care disparities, environmental injustices, and economic inequities in the United States.

These competing crises have ignited an urgent call to action to address climate change and environmental injustice together. We need Congress to pass recovery and infrastructure legislation that includes critical investments in environmental justice communities as we seek to rebuild the economy in a resilient, sustainable, and equitable way.

Congress is putting together economic recovery and infrastructure legislation this spring and summer that gives us a historic opportunity to invest in safeguarding Creation; to address the harms of climate change and pollution caused by fossil fuel extraction and related industries; and to fulfill our moral obligation to leave a thriving world for future generations.

Rebuilding America will take a transformational investment plan that delivers jobs, justice, and clean energy to communities across the country and curbs the carbon pollution that is driving the climate crisis. We need Congress to approve these investments to create new jobs and a just, equitable, and sustainable economy.

If you haven’t already, urge your members of Congress to support a plan that truly tackles climate change.

If you are a faith leader or leader of a religious community, please add your name to this faith leaders’ letter to Congress.

IPL President Rev. Susan Hendershot wrote in a recent op-ed to Sojourners, “In many places, it is not possible to support a family with the jobs that are available. This is a spiritual issue; one that the American Jobs Plan has the opportunity to address by creating new jobs that will renew people’s hope as well as the life of our planet. What we need today is a visionary investment in new, sustainable, and equitable infrastructure that prioritizes clean energy jobs and renewable energy.”

This is an extraordinary, historic opportunity to invest in the future with a safer climate, a fairer, more inclusive economy, and modern clean energy infrastructure that improves our daily lives.

 

NM-IPL Supports the ‘For the People Act’ (H.R. 1/S.1)

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Our democracy is sacred, and voting is a sacred act. In a democracy, it is the people who should have a voice, not corporate polluters. When fossil fuel polluters can buy the influence of policymakers through their campaign contributions, we the people lose our voice.

That’s why IPL is supporting the For The People Act, H.R.1 / S.1. The For The People Act will rein in corporate polluters’ destructive influence in political decision-making and give power back to the people. It is a chance to take money out of politics and focus on things that affect real people, like securing access to clean air and water.

This bill will:

  • Stop “dark money” from fossil fuels. The oil and gas industry spent about $140 million last year trying to get their preferred candidates elected, much of it through super PACs that disguise the identity of the giver. The For the People Act would bring this money into the light of day by requiring those PACs disclose the names of individuals giving more than $10,000. It would also set up a new system for public matching of grassroots donations, leveling the playing field for candidates funded by their constituents rather than fossil fuel CEOs.
  • Protect the rights of Black voters and Black churches. Over 40 states have introduced voter suppression laws already this year, but perhaps the most prominent example has come from Georgia. A new law there aims to limit voting access, including making it illegal for counties to allow early voting on Sundays—the day many Black churches hold “souls to the polls” drives. Many other proposed restrictions in Georgia and beyond target Black, Indigenous, and people of color voters, through discriminatory voter identification laws. The For the People Act would protect and expand early voting and vote by mail, and require states to have fair and equitable access to the ballot.

Make sure everyone’s vote counts. Valuing all people, not just the powerful, is a basic tenet of both our faith traditions and any functioning democracy. Gerrymandering, the process by which politicians draw district boundaries for unfair political advantage, is used by lawmakers to ensure that some communities have more political power than others. This For the People Act would prevent our neighbors having their votes diluted by ending partisan gerrymandering. A democracy is where voters choose their representatives, not the other way around!

On Tuesday, June 30, Faith in Public Life and Interfaith Power & Light released a voter reflection guide endorsed by prominent national faith groups and religious leaders. The guide, Democracy, Values & the 2020 Election, addresses urgent issues in the election, including voting rights, climate change, systemic racism in the criminal justice system, healthcare and immigration. The guide, which will be distributed across the country for discussion in diverse faith communities, includes topics for reflection and sample questions to ask candidates  Download Full Guide Here

Download Spanish-language version of the guide, Democracia, Valores y las Elecciones de 2020

Issues and Questions

Democracy and Voting Rights (Page 1)

This election is more than a choice between parties and ideologies. An even more fundamental question is at stake: Can we preserve democracy in the face of serious threats to fair elections and fundamental rights?

Questions for Reflection and Candidates

  1. How do you see democratic values at risk today?
  2. How do systemic barriers to voting undermine our most sacred democratic values?
  3. How can your faith community better advocate for stronger voter protections at the state and local level?
  4. As a candidate, what are your specific plans for protecting and strengthening voting rights?

Protecting God’s Creation Climate Justice for our Children and World (Page 2)

As people of faith, we believe that responding to the urgent threat of climate change is essential to caring for God’s creation and loving our neighbors. Human activity, primarily the burning of fossil fuels for energy, has thrown
nature out of balance, polluted the air, driven thousands of species of God’s creatures to extinction, intensified catastrophic events such as wildfires and hurricanes, and threatened the lives and livelihoods of our most vulnerable brothers, sisters and neighbors around the world. Scientists tell us we have less than a decade to avoid even more catastrophic consequences.

The United States has a unique responsibility to show moral and political leadership:

  • Transitioning our economy away from polluting fossil fuels toward 100% clean energy.
  • Honoring the emissions-reduction commitments our nation made at the UN Conference on Climate Change in Paris in 2015, and taking additional actions needed to avert catastrophic global warming.
  • Assisting developing nations— who are least responsible for climate change but most impacted by it — in coping with threats such as increased droughts, disease, and sea-level rise by sharing technology and financial support.

Questions for Reflection and Candidates

  1. What does your faith teach about our responsibilities for the Earth and to others? How are they interdependent?
  2. Has your faith community made an effort to cut emissions, save energy, or practice environmental stewardship?
  3. As a candidate, what specific policies do you support to protect God’s Creation and secure a safe climate for our children and future generations?

Loving Our Immigrant Neighbors (Page 4)

Scripture repeatedly makes clear that immigrants must be treated with dignity. Policies that rip children from their parents’ arms, lock people away in inhumane conditions, and ban desperate families from entering the country
should keep us awake at night. As people of faith, we believe that the way we treat our immigrant neighbors is a sign of how we treat God.

Questions for Reflection and Candidates

  1. How can we replace immoral immigration policies that tear families apart and cause trauma with an immigration system that values families and affirms the dignity of allv people?
  2. What can we do to heal the wounds inflicted on immigrant communities by political rhetoric that portrays them as a dangerous “other?”
  3. If there are immigrants in our community who are feeling isolated and under threat, how can we show support and build connections?
  4. As a candidate, what will you do to defend the dignity of all immigrants, and how will you further policies that keep families together?

The Last Shall Be First An Economy of Inclusion (Page 5)

Our economic systems should work for all Americans, not only the wealthiest few. This is a matter of justice and
human dignity. All religious traditions recognize that charity is essential to care for the most vulnerable, but helping our neighbors in poverty also compels us to address its root causes. “Charity is no substitute for justice withheld,” St. Augustine observed centuries ago.

Questions for Reflection and Candidates

  1. What can we do to ensure that all Americans are able to provide for their families and live with security and dignity?
  2. How do we create a just tax system that is fair to all Americans, including working families who are trapped in poverty?
  3. Why does the United States lag behind most developed countries when it comes to providing paid sick leave and paid family leave?
  4. As a candidate, what are your specific plans to ensure workers have living wages and economic security while the coronavirus pandemic continues, as well as for the long term?

More Health Policies in a Time of a Pandemic  (Page 7)

Despite our nation’s stated values of life and equality, the United States is the only industrialized country in the world that does not guarantee its residents universal access to health care. This is a failure of political and moral imagination – especially in a time of pandemic.

Questions for Reflection and Candidates

  1. How can people of faith be most effective in using our stories, congregations and power to advocate for health care reform?
  2. What do you struggle with the most when it comes to our healthcare system?
  3. How has the COVID-19 crisis impacted your community? What policy solutions can keep us all safe and remedy racial and economic inequalities in your community?
  4. As a candidate, what are your specific plans for making sure that quality,
    affordable health care is available for all?

Restorative Racial Justice (Page 9)

Justice and redemption are at the very heart of faith. Restorative justice begins with listening to and empowering communities that have been exploited, excluded and denied equal representation and freedom. The evil ideology of
white supremacy shaped our nation from its founding and continues to impact policies and communities today, especially in the criminal justice system. The killings of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, George Floyd and so many other Black people, Indigenous people, and other people of color, has provoked a growing, multi-racial moral movement for accountability and systemic reforms for racial justice.

Questions for Reflection and Candidates

  1. How can we dismantle the evil ideology of white supremacy in our culture and political systems?
  2. What can be done to end racial profiling and police violence against people of color?
  3. What steps can be taken to ensure formerly incarcerated people have voting rights and fair access to employment?
  4. As a candidate, what will you do to ensure racial justice is prioritized in the criminal justice system?
  5. How do we build safe communities for everyone, particularly people of color?

Made in the Image of God: Respecting the Dignity of LGBTQ People (Page 11)

All people have inherent dignity because everyone is created in the image of God. Our gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender family members, neighbors and co-workers deserve equal rights, and to live without fear or discrimination.

Questions for Reflection and Candidates

  1. How can your faith community more fully support the equal dignity of LGBTQ people in your state and local area?
  2. What are the greatest threats to LGBTQ people in your community and the nation?
  3. As a candidate, what are your specific plans to ensure that LGBTQ people have equal rights and are treated with dignity

The Global Common Good:  We’re All in This Together (Page 12)

What does it mean to love our neighbors as ourselves in a globalized world? The health and future of our country and
communities are interconnected to the health and security of other nations. Our  fates are bound up in what Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., called “an inescapable network of mutuality.”

Questions for Reflection and Candidates

  1. What policies do you think are most important for creating security for your family and community?
  2. What role should the United States play in the world to help build global peace and security?
  3. How can your faith community advocate for policies to create a more peaceful world?
  4. As a candidate, what programs and policies would you prioritize to help build secure communities and a peaceful world?