Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Ready . . . Set . . . Wait

We now have version 4 of the bill in our possession, and, as far as we can tell, it is complete. Now we are just waiting for it to be pre-filed. Pre-filing closes on Friday. I will post the bill number as soon as we actually know what it is.

A couple of things:

We are hoping to get Rep. Mimi Stewart to agree to co-sponsor the bill. She still needs to look over the final draft before making that decision. We hope to have an answer to this issue next week. We are looking for a woman who is a democrat to co-sponsor so that we can make this a non-partisan (or at least bi-partisan) bill.

We had a meeting today with Jane Wishner of the Southwest Women's Law Center and Martha Edmonds of Planned Parenthood. They have both agreed to a neutral stance on the bill in its current form. Neutral is good. Support is something we would not expect; opposition is bad. Obviously, these are not the only women's rights groups in the state, but they are the ones we have been in contact with. We hope their opinion will carry over to the other groups. "If they don't object, I guess we have no objection either" kind of thing.

And most imporantly, the 2009 Regular Session opens Tuesday, Jan. 20. If you do not already know who your representative and senator are, please go to the New Mexico Legislature site (nmlegis.gov) and find out that information. We are hoping to have oodles of people calling, faxing, emailing their legislators during the session to support this bill. If you are reading this and live in NM, get your dialing fingers ready.

If you are interested in coming to any committee meetings, keep checking back here and the NM Legislature site to see where the bill is in the process and where it is headed next. I will do my best to get meeting information out so that others might join us in the process. We would absolutely love to have some supporters with us this year! Please join us if you can.

Please remember, the legislative session is crazy. Some committees don't publish their schedules or agendas until the very last minute (like the actual day of the meeting--within hours of the actual meeting). If our bill appears at the bottom of the agenda, be prepared for the fact that it may not actually get heard that day, but be pushed to the next meeting. Then again, it might get heard that day! Some topics run long, others run short. If you are interested in attending committee meetings, please email me now so we can arrange for a more direct form of contact. halo.golden@gmail.com

Thanks for all of your support. Here we go!

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