Author Archives | Sen. Bill O'Neill
Public service has been at the center of Bill O'Neill's life, much of it involved with the criminal justice system. 20 years ago he helped found the highly regarded Dismas House, where parolees rebuild their lives in a positive, law-abiding manner. He served as Executive Director of the New Mexico Juvenile Parole Board, and is currently the Development Director for the PEP Program, a mentoring program for high-risk juvenile offenders run through the New Mexico Conference Of Churches. A graduate of Cornell University, Bill has lived in Albuquerque since 1990.
He was elected to the House of Representatives in 2008. In his first term of office, Representative O'Neill sponsored -- and in many cases, passed -- a wide range of bills in the areas of public safety, ethics reform, and protecting our most vulnerable citizens.
In the current 2013 legislative session, Senator O'Neill has sponsored a range of bills in the area of ethics reform, public safety, and tax policy.
For a list of bills that Senator O'Neill is sponsoring, or to contact him about an issue that is important to you, do not hesitate to e mail him at oneillsd13@billoneillfornm.com, or to call him on his personal cell (450-9263).
Why Democrats should welcome Independents into our primaries
A little over a year ago, I wrote an essay for the New Mexico Mercury entitled, “Why progressives should welcome independents into Democratic primaries.” As this issue has become more visible in recent weeks, and as I find myself advocating for this position, I was asked recently how I came to this strongly held belief. For all of us who run for public office, each election (win or lose) has its share of lessons to be learned...
Continue reading...Weekly Poem: Pasqual
23. May 2014
His teeth are like a row of stumpy razors, and his black hair has a sheen like the sun on black
coral. He drinks Diet Coke instead of the filtered rainwater preferred by the Progressives, who
incidentally make him very nervous.
"What bills are you going to steal from me today, young man?" he teases me on the House
Floor.
Walking slowly, with the deliberation of a champion mule, his decades of office passing like so
many forgotten arguments. That quizzical look that he always gives me, impossible to read...
A Reckoning Soon For Governor Martinez? Why She Is Vulnerable In 2014
03. April 2014
First of all, let me express my disdain for "conventional political wisdom", or these narratives that emerge among the political class (that would be me) and somehow become predominant in political conversation. I am instinctively skeptical of anything-- local or national-- presented as political truth, deemed an unassailable political reality. That Governor Martinez is a shoe-in for re-election in New Mexico, for example. Or that Democrats are going to lose the U.S. Senate in 2014...
Continue reading...Why progressives should welcome independents into Democratic primaries
26. June 2013
First of all, can we acknowledge that there is significant disillusionment amongst the voting public with the partisanship and lack of compromise that has Congress virtually paralyzed at the moment? In a similar way, can we admit that the gerrymandering of congressional districts to the point where less than 10% of these same districts are considered "competitive" is largely to blame for the systemic edge that House Republicans will enjoy for the next decade? There is absolutely no incentive for these Republican incumbents to listen to the middle, concerned as they are about their unforgiving right-wing base...
Continue reading...
15. August 2014
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