27 January 2012
by Alex Curtas
Santa Fe -- While the actions of Occupy protesters who briefly disrupted the ALEC lobbying dinner on Wednesday of this week were inappropriate, the descriptions of and reactions to the attempted display of speech have been ill informed. ProgressNow New Mexico attended the ALEC event on Wednesday and we had a ringside seat from which to view the Occupy outburst and subsequent expulsion.
As you might imagine, there was much hob-knobbing and elbow rubbing between legislators, lobbyists, and business people. Lots of old white men in starched white shirts.
Here's a brief ALEC attendance list of some of your public officials and the lobbyists they love: Rep. Bill Rehm, Rep. Nora Espinoza, former State Senator and current oil lobbyist Kent Cravens, Rep. Paul Bandy, Rep. James Smith, Rep. Dennis Kintigh, Democrat Sen. John Sapien, and 100% corporate funded Sen. Bill Payne. And those were just the ones we recognized.
We think it's important to note that, contrary to what some reports relayed, the dinner was not held in a private dining room that was then violently ransacked by Occupy protesters. The corporate-funded dinner was held in an open dining room of the Old House restaurant that is connected to the Agave Lounge. We observed the 6 protesters enjoying a peaceful meal in the Lounge for about 45 minutes while the lobbying dinner took place.
When the protesters were finished with their meal they walked into the adjoining dinner space and began a "mic-check" before being immediately (and violently) removed by hotel security. One protester was heard yelling "Get a soul!" as he was aggressively pushed out the front entrance. Photographer Lisa Law, who we observed sitting peacefully in the lounge the entire night and who was not a part of the protester's interruption, was inexplicably "roughed up by hotel security and ALEC members who sought to grab her camera," according to Occupy spokesperson James Haas. We, too, saw Ms. Law removed from the Lounge for no apparent reason.
On Thursday, Rep. Bill Payne mischaracterized the brief disruption as "very ugly" and called for the protestors be prosecuted merely for exercising their First Amendment rights as United States citizens. Sen. Clint Harden also made a wild leap of imagination when he said that the protestors "were interested in doing harm." The only harm the protesters wished to inflict was upon the intimate and inappropriate relationship between our public officials and their corporate backers. (Both of the above quotes can be found in this account.)
Haas also issued a statement about the ALEC dinner demonstration: "While Occupy believes that confrontation and civil disobedience are often effective, as demonstrated by Dr. King and Rosa Parks, we regret that anyone was injured last night by either flying paper or rough treatment by hotel security or ALEC members. Fortunately the injuries were minor compared to the devastation to people and the environment caused by ALEC legislation."
When the amount of money you have and wield determines how much free speech you're granted under the law, it comes as no surprise that those people (the 99%) who have the least must resort to colorful displays in order to have their voices heard.
ProgressNow New Mexico is in possession of audio and video recordings of the ALEC dinner and Occupy protest. We are in the process of identifying the lobbyists and legislators who were present at the event and we will be looking into their finance reports to see just how deep the ALEC lobbyist-legislator relationship goes.
In the coming weeks, look for an in-depth report about ALEC's involvement in New Mexico politics from us here at ProgressNow New Mexico.
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