{"id":299094,"date":"2017-03-03T12:16:45","date_gmt":"2017-03-03T19:16:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=299094"},"modified":"2017-03-05T15:13:01","modified_gmt":"2017-03-05T22:13:01","slug":"big-money-stands-in-the-way-of-dismantling-oppressive-systems","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2017\/03\/big-money-stands-in-the-way-of-dismantling-oppressive-systems\/","title":{"rendered":"Big money stands in the way of dismantling oppressive systems"},"content":{"rendered":"

COMMENTARY:<\/strong>\u00a0The images<\/a> were a stark reminder of the cancer in our political system: Three state lawmakers \u2013 two Democrats, one Republican — stood with a bail bondsman at a news conference in early 2016 to announce a compromise on bail reform.<\/p>\n

The proposed constitutional amendment allowed the release, while awaiting trial, of some non-violent indigent defendants. The idea was that holding people charged with non-violent crimes in jail only because they can\u2019t afford bond hurts society: It separates children from parents. It incarcerates breadwinners, which exacerbates poverty and dependence on welfare. It harms businesses that lose employees. It burdens taxpayers with unnecessary jail costs.<\/p>\n

\"Heath

Heath Haussamen<\/p><\/div>\n

The legislation would have stopped some businesses from profiting off the troubles of the poor. So, naturally, the bail bond industry organized opposition.<\/p>\n

The corrupting influence of money overtook a bipartisan proposal to dismantle an oppressive system. Compromise became the only way to salvage the proposal.<\/p>\n

What eventually became law in New Mexico requires indigent defendants charged with non-violent crimes to petition a judge for their release. It\u2019s an extra step that assumes an understaffed public defender\u2019s office and an overworked court system will function as intended \u2013 which is too often not what happens.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s another layer of ineffective bureaucracy the poor have to navigate. So it\u2019s inevitable that some will instead choose to make a financial sacrifice to pay a bondsman, like taking out a short-term loan with an interest rate of several hundred percent. In exchange for help out of a crisis, poor folks often become saddled with even more debt that exacerbates their poverty.<\/p>\n

The debate over capping interest rates on those short-term loans is another example of the influence of special interests on our system. Since 2010, at least 11 bills to cap interest rates in New Mexico died without making it out of a single committee. The votes against these bills have been bipartisan. That\u2019s largely because the industry donated at least $866,000<\/a> to both Republican and Democratic politicians during that time.<\/p>\n

A bill to cap interest rates at 36 percent already died in the current session of the N.M. Legislature. A possible compromise would cap interest rates at 175 percent<\/a>.<\/p>\n

You read that correctly. 175 percent.<\/p>\n

During a recent Facebook<\/a> discussion<\/a>, Chris O\u2019Donnell of Albuquerque called that interest rate \u201cunethical, predatory and simply beyond any shred of decency.\u201d Ray Wilkinson of Albuquerque called the situation \u201ccrony capitalism at its worst.\u201d<\/p>\n

And from Rebecca Cabildo of Los Alamos: \u201cReally disappointed in our Legislature. They have to do better than this.\u201d<\/p>\n

In fact, I\u2019ve been speaking for years with everyday people about bail reform and capping short-term loan interest rates. I\u2019ve found agreement across ideology about the obvious: These systems rob the poor to line the pockets of people with power and privilege. These systems should be dismantled.<\/p>\n

But in New Mexico, we don\u2019t dismantle them. We just scale them back a bit. The debate isn\u2019t about whether to continue robbing the poor. It\u2019s about how much we\u2019re going to take.<\/p>\n

The bail reform approved last year was a step forward, but a small one. Capping interest rates on short-term loans at 175 percent would be the same.<\/p>\n

These aren\u2019t changes to celebrate with pride. We should be ashamed that this is the best we can do.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ll have to find a way to drastically reduce the influence of lobbyists and money on our government before we can dismantle the predatory systems too many of our policymakers continue to prop up.<\/p>\n

Heath Haussamen<\/a> is NMPolitics.net\u2019s editor and publisher.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Under the current system, the debate isn\u2019t about whether to continue robbing the poor. It\u2019s about how much we\u2019re going to take.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":55852,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1192,10],"tags":[3329,705,146,107],"class_list":["post-299094","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-commentary","category-haussamen-columns","tag-2017-legislative-session","tag-money-in-politics","tag-poverty","tag-roundhouse"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299094","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=299094"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299094\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/55852"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=299094"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=299094"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=299094"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}