U.S. Sen. Luján town hall attendees worry about education, social security, democracy
Education. Social Security. Health care. Attendees at a town hall hosted by U.S. Sen. Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.) Tuesday night at Santa Fe Community College brought questions and concerns on a variety of topics, but the Trump administration served as the unifying thread.
'We have a lawless administration,' attendee Gary Lasswell said when he was called upon (organizers used a raffle system to take questions from the approximate 200 attendees). 'We hear talk about that we haven't technically gotten ourselves into a constitutional crisis. This administration is already disobeying laws. They're disobeying judges. They're gas lighting, they're stonewalling. They are not obeying judges orders. The resistance that we're starting to see a spark of, especially in the last month or so all across the country, is a good start, but we also need leaders within our party, within the Democratic Party, to be out there, like Bernie [Sanders] and AOC [Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez].'
Said Judy Trimarchi: 'We are in the midst of a fascist coup. It's nothing less than that. We can't expect to reason for what they're doing. There is no explanation. There's no going back and looking at what they used to do or what they used to be like, or how we used to work together, or what we used to stand for, or what we pushed for, that's moot. It means nothing anymore. We are in a war for our democracy and nothing less.'
Folks in the room —attendees included several local and state officials — also had suggestions for Luján and the Democratic Party in general: Use simpler language to discuss what's happening. Go on tour with Sanders and talk about universal health care. And requests: Talk to the military and secure commitments to serve the Constitution versus the Commander in Chief; back a special election or an impeachment trial.
Luján took it all in stride. 'I agree with the question about the crisis that we're in today,' he told the room. 'I'm not the only senator that has been abundantly clear that I believe that we are in a crisis.'
As for touring nationally: 'I appreciate you suggesting that I should hold something like Bernie,' Luján said. 'Mine would be very small, but I know that.'
Regarding a special election: A non-starter, he noted. Not possible under the law. Impeachment also not possible given the Republican majorities in Congress.
That being said, Luján did discuss in detail how he and the rest of the state's delegation and other Democrats are working to push back at the Trump administration and fellow Republicans.
'Here's the legislative tool,' Luján said, ' it's forcing my Republican colleagues to hold these votes where they don't want to take a vote on something. You can't stop the Republicans because of the sheer spread that they have right now…We need four in any one of these votes. And over the last three weeks — which seems like an eternity —…we've got three Republicans who have the courage to push back against this administration, but we've not seen a fourth.'
Luján, however, expressed optimism about the impact constituents across the country could have on that equation, particularly when his colleagues encounter them at home. 'There's something magical that happens when people come back [to Congress] after being home for a week or for two weeks with their constituents,' he said. 'They go to grocery store, maybe they'll go to a church service, maybe they'll go somewhere else and see constituents. They're talking to them.'
Democrats, he added, 'need to keep turning up the volume in all of these committees on the floor as much as we possibly can.' That means, he added, calling out falsehoods. 'Like I told my mom: I'm done saying, 'Oh, well, that's not completely true,' or, 'You may have misstated that. A lie is a lie, and the way that I was raised, a cover up is worse than a lie.' And so: 'We need to call out a lie everywhere it's a lie,' he said.
Luján encouraged everyone in the room to also continue raising their voices. 'When these personal stories are being shared about someone that's been personally negative impacted, and I can engage my colleagues in those spaces, in that debate, that's one of the most powerful tools that we have right now,' he said.
Following the close to two-hour town hall, Luján told Source he agreed with sentiments from attendees that 'everyone needs to do more…if one of my colleagues is holding a gathering where 30,000 people are there, we're all supporting each other, and everyone needs to do everything that they can and use all the tools and talents that they have to be able to connect with the American people.'
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The Attorney General's Office last week released 390 pages of documents – many of which were requested in April – after the Herald/Times threatened to sue. Reporters also obtained hundreds of pages of emails and draft settlements from sources. Redfern did not answer questions about the settlement or why the state first gave the records to Politico. He also said Uthmeier 'never participated in any settlement negotiations and doesn't know anything about' the scheduled September 10 meeting last year regarding the draft agreement. 'Your questions demonstrate that you are deliberately misreading the public records our office provided you on a very expedited basis,' Redfern wrote in an email. Medicaid statutes allow states to recover as much as three times damages. Centene's records show that other states received settlements based on the same formula. Part of that formula also included a baseline of $10.8 million to encourage states to settle with the company and not litigate their claims. Regardless, that doesn't mean the money can be divided for purposes that aren't related to Medicaid, Andrade said, pointing to 2008 federal guidance. 'It looks very much like red flags were raised by the attorney general's office and by Centene,' Andrade said after reviewing the records himself. 'They were at the 10-yard line. And while they had some heartburn about it, it wasn't sufficient to blow the whole thing up.' He added: 'The CYAs [Cover Your Asses] were evident.' Andrade said it was also clear the state understood the money transferred to the foundation belonged to Medicaid, which would restrict how it could be spent. When the agency's lawyers inserted the donation into the agreement, they also justified it by referencing how the Hope Florida program was expanding into Medicaid. The justification that remained in the final agreement was crafted by one of Centene's lawyers: the state Agency for Health Care Administration 'desires an expanded role for Hope Florida in the Medicaid program.' 'That says it all,' Andrade said.
