ADVOCACY IN THE NEW YEAR
“The righteous know the rights of the poor. . . ,” Proverbs 29:7.
SAVE THE DATE for the Lutheran Advocacy Ministry-NM (LAM-NM) Bishop’s Luncheon and Issues Briefing in Santa Fe on February 20. Registration begins at 8:30 a.m.
On Thursday, February 20, we start the day with the Issues Briefing at Santa Fe’s First Presbyterian, the oldest Protestant church in New Mexico. Then, we will move to historic La Fonda for the Bishop’s Luncheon. For many of us, this will be our first opportunity to meet the Rev. Meghan Johnston Aelabouni, our new bishop of the Rocky Mountain Synod of the ELCA. Registration information will be available soon.
The NM Legislature’s 57th session begins this month, and once again, Lutheran Advocacy Ministry–NM will have a strong presence in our state capitol. We will follow bills in the areas of
- Hunger
- Affordable Housing and Homelessness
- Family-Sustaining Income
- Health Care
- Tax Policy
- Criminal Justice
- Care of Creation
- Good Governance
LAM-NM Director Kurt Rager is the person who tracks the plethora of bills and alerts us to contact our legislators about key ones. Kurt works with ecumenical and secular partners to help develop policies we hope to see enacted into law. Together, the advocates strategize on how to establish and fund programs to make housing more affordable, incomes more sustainable, etc. They meet with individual legislators and testify when the bills are heard in committee. This collaboration between legislators and advocates is precisely how programs such as Universal Healthy School Meals and the New Mexico Child Tax Credit come into being.
If you would like to see the process in action, Kurt Rager invites you to join him on Lutheran Advocacy Days at the Roundhouse. (The schedule will be announced.) One of the delights of shadowing the LAM-NM director at the Roundhouse is to see that we are appreciated. “The Lutherans,” as we are known, have a good reputation going back forty years—a reputation for trustworthiness, compassion, perseverance, and excellent policy analysis. Thank you, All Saints, for your decades of support for this ministry, rooted in the scriptural call to do justice.
Judy Messal