Our Free Speech

Since 1980, the mission of the SouthWest Organizing Project has been to empower the disenfranchised to realize equality and justice. These aren’t just nice words on paper meant to make us feel good, we actually believe this is possible.

Our primary purpose is to help low-income, communities of color organize themselves to build healthy, pollution free communities. One of the primary ways we do this is through public education so that New Mexicans have the information they need to urge action by their elected representatives.

Invariably, in the course of trying to achieve our mission, we face tremendous opposition from those maintaining the status quo – a status quo that has left New Mexicans ranked at the bottom of practically every social indicator from education to healthcare.

For us, it is not enough that the nonprofit sector simply work to alleviate the symptoms of poverty and racism. In addition to organizing, it is our duty to question the actions of decision makers that perpetuate relentless poverty and growing inequality.

Our theory of action is that we create opportunity for disenfranchised communities to insert their own voices into the crucial public debates that profoundly affect their lives. These opportunities derive from direct campaigns developed with communities of people to affect change. Making our voices heard, for us, has happened in a number of ways over our 30-year history. Sometimes it’s with a bullhorn in the street, other times it's sitting at the table with policy makers, and at other times it’s through direct communication via mail, telephone or radio to decision makers.

Along the way, we have consistently communicated to our constituents the voting records and campaign contributors of elected officials, urging them to communicate with their elected officials directly. We call this accountability and speaking truth to power.

Too often, electoral politics embodies a mode of operation that we disagree with: big money gets pumped into campaign coffers to elect people who will be surrogates for corporations and other powerful entities. It makes a mockery of our political system.

Just this week, Steve Terrell of the Santa Fe New Mexican, highlighted a Common Cause report that breaks down the money of the health care industry in New Mexico politics:

“According to a study by New Mexico Common Cause, "Over the past five election cycles, the health care industry, including pharmaceutical companies, health maintenance organizations (HMOs), and hospitals contributed over $1.6 million in campaign donations to candidates for New Mexico state office."

"The effect of the contributions, the study says, is "state government has been extremely inclusive of the health care industry in the decision-making process with regard to health care policy."

A fundamental question for us is, when do low-income, communities of color become included in the debate?

It is abundantly clear that the citizenry of this state, not to mention the country, has demanded that our health care crisis be fixed. To No Avail.

We believe Democracy doesn't end on Election Day. As such it is our serious duty to expose such mockeries of the populace by elected officials.

For this reason we have long prioritized non-partisan voter engagement as a core part of fulfilling our mission. It can be a hard sell in communities long neglected by powerful people and institutions. And the truth of this can be found just by looking at the low voter registration rolls in lower income communities of color.

Recently there has been controversy over direct communication from non-profits to the public about elected officials’ campaign contributions and voting records. This mail was not political. It stated the facts that we see as critical information as to why policies that are crucial to fulfilling our mission are not implemented, time and time again. None of the officials have denied the information printed on our mail pieces. Nor, to our knowledge, have any in the media asked them to respond to the information that was presented directly about them to the public.

Instead, the media would rather focus on a red herring called funding disclosure.

Let’s be clear: this is not about funding disclosure. We are very transparent and willingly share our sources of funding to anyone who asks up to the minute, as we have throughout our three decades as a 501c3.

This is about our right to free speech, and powerful interests who don’t like what we are saying.

We know the rules and we follow the rules. As a non-partisan organization we have been diligent and careful about our advocacy efforts. We are confident that in nearly 30 years of existence we have never crossed the line.

If the Attorney General, the Secretary of State, the media, and the public wish to have a genuine conversation about how to improve the ethics of political actors in this state, they will find us where we have always been: leading the charge.