New Mexico Civic Engagement Table

Background

The Center for Civic Policy created the New Mexico Civic Engagement Table as a project in 2008. NMCET pursues a goal of “decolonization” and justice for “historically and systemically excluded communities—people of color, women, LGBTQ+, and young people.” It labels these target voters the “New American Majority.” The New Mexico Civic Engagement Table is a coalition of more than 40 New Mexico left-progressive advocacy groups that concentrate on issues like redistricting, immigrant rights, “economic justice,” and “climate justice,” while pursuing an increased, mobilized base of NAM voters. The group’s strategies include political education, voter registration, and voter mobilization. ¹Specific issues NMCET has engaged include automatic voter registration, tax and budget reform, and raising the minimum wage. ²

The New Mexico Civic Engagement Table joined its parent, the Center for Civic Policy, in recognizing “Black August,” ³ which celebrates “freedom fighters,” particularly those in prison. ⁴ The New Mexico Civic Engagement Table and CCP call for defunding police and support the Movement for Black Lives policy platform, ³ including demands of “reparations for past and continuing harms” such as slavery, oppression, and colonialism, including free education, free food, free healthcare, free housing, and a guaranteed minimum income for all black Americans and illegal immigrants. ⁵

Affiliations

State Voices

The New Mexico Civic Engagement Table is the New Mexico chapter of the national left-of-center organization State Voices. ³ It received more than $1 million from the left-of-center Wallace H. Coulter Foundation and six-figure contributions from the Open Society Foundations founded by George Soros. ² It was a member of the left-leaning network Democracy Alliance. ⁶

The New Mexico Civic Engagement Table has over 40 New Mexico-based left-of-center partners. It supports and strengthens the partner network with field, advocacy, and legal trainings, voter mobilization workshops, meetings for race and gender equity, and an immigration workshop. ¹ Their joint efforts included increasing minority representation in the 2020 census, and a redistricting campaign called the People’s Power, People’s Maps. ⁷

New Mexico Counts 2020

New Mexico Counts 2020 was formed to increase participation in the 2020 U.S. Census by minority populations. The initiative was an effort of the New Mexico Civic Engagement Table, the Center for Civic Policy, the Native American Voter Alliance Education Project, and others. ⁸

New Mexico Dream Team

The Center for Civic Policy is a funder for the New Mexico Dream Team, ⁹ a network that seeks to “create power for multigenerational, undocumented, LGBTQ+, and mixed status families towards liberation.” The group advocates creating infrastructure to change policies to “dismantle systematic oppression.” ¹⁰

Funders

Democracy Funders Collaborative has supported the New Mexico Civic Engagement Table. ¹¹ It is a coalition of many left-of-center funding organizations including the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the Open Society Foundations, Kresge Foundation, the Ford Foundation, and Carnegie Corporation of New York. ¹²

The Four Freedoms Fund also funds the New Mexico Civic Engagement Table. ¹³ It is a left-of-center funding organization that supports complete legalization immigration and opposed immigration enforcement efforts. ¹⁴

Leadership

Oriana Sandoval is the co-director for the New Mexico Civic Engagement and the chief executive officer for the Center for Civic Policy. Her background includes advocating for “environmental justice,” civil rights, and working on voter mobilization for “historically disenfranchised communities in New Mexico,” while the executive director of New Mexico Vote Matters. ¹⁵

Melanie Aranda is the co-director of the NM Civic Engagement Table and chief operating officer of the CCP. ¹⁵