Peggy Stielow (right), President of the Rio Rancho School Employees Union, speaks to a reporter at the June 15th press conference in Albuquerque. Stielow is a plaintiff in the case.
"I decided to join this law suit as a plaintiff because the situation violates my constitutional rights on several levels, as it does other working New Mexicans. The bottom line to this story is that the state was strapped for cash this year. They came up with $454 million short --which in the context of the state's $6 billion a year budget is far from being catastrophic.
"In response to this budget shortfall, state officials passed a law that gave them a right to a pension payment holiday for two years and put the burden of that cost solely on the backs of public employees. At the end of the day, the best answer the state could come up with, when faced with this budget shortfall, was to take money from working people who are already struggling to get by.
"The scariest and most baffling aspect to the passing of the law is that our Retirement Board came out during this process and explicitly advised the state that this law violates the constitutional rights of public employees. Yet the state proceeded anyway. A financial bump in the road does not mean the state can choose whether or not to respect and observe the constitutional rights of working New Mexicans.
"We are here today as working New Mexicans who are saying loud and clear --enough is enough. We won't give up our constitutional rights because the state is inconvenienced by its obligations to us. And we will stand up today and forever how long it takes. . . "
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