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| Affiliation | Democratic |
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2018-01-01 |
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| Name | Patrick M. Davis |
| Address | 3926 Simms Ave SE
Albuquerque, New Mexico , United States |
| Email | None |
| Website | None |
| Born |
Unknown
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| Contributor | RBH |
| Last Modifed | BrentinCO
May 12, 2018 12:47am |
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| Info | Pat was born into a pretty average middle-class family. His dad, also Pat, worked summers in our family’s well drilling business to put himself through college. He met Pat’s mother, Connie, there and they married before she finished college.
A few years ago, they retired after almost 30 years of working. A postal worker by day, his dad took on side jobs as a volunteer firefighter and working our small family farm. My mom was an educator for almost 30 years, first as a kindergarten teacher and later as a principal with a knack for turning around bad schools.
Along the way, they saved a little and bought a house. They borrowed against it to send their two sons to college. And they had put aside what they thought they’d need to retire. “My brother and I tried to follow their lead,” Pat says, “but that middle-class dream doesn’t work for our generation like it did for theirs.”
Pat’s brother received his Ph.D. and did his postdoc work at Sandia Labs on solar and renewable energy technology in the early 2000s. Today he works on clean energy and troubleshooting programs for GE.
Pat and his parents, Capitol Police Graduation, 2001
After working as a police dispatcher to help pay for college, Pat joined the US Capitol Police protecting members of Congress, and later the DC Metropolitan Police where he was assigned to serve as a bicycle officer and walking a foot beat in some of DC’s toughest Anacostia neighborhoods.
After working a few months on a local DEA Task Force, he changed his perspective on the war on drugs. “As an officer, I too often arrested the same people over and over and I responded to more shootings than I can count, says Pat. “It was dangerous work and it seemed that we never solved much of the problem. That’s why I pledged to go back to school to learn how I could change the system.”
In 2004, UNM Police hired Pat as a Lieutenant then sent me to the FBI National Academy where he lived in Quantico, VA for three months working alongside innovative police leaders and the FBI, looking for ways to address terrorism, rising community violence and rebuild community-police relations.
In 2009, he received a Master’s in Criminal Justice from New Mexico State University and joined the Albuquerque District Attorney’s Office as a public information officer.
“Susana Martinez’s harshest critic”
In 2009, Pat ran for Sheriff in Bernalillo County. He received a lot of attention for running as an openly-gay man, but a Tea Party wave swept Gov. Martinez into office along with a new dynamic for New Mexico politics.
“I realized we had to do more to elect better candidates, so I joined the Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund’s Campaign Board to help elect more LGBT candidates nationwide, then set off to start a new organization to help New Mexico’s progressive leaders win elections.”
As the executive director of ProgressNowNM, Pat traveled around the state talking to small groups of frustrated Democrats and progressives and got them involved in local actions to fact-check conservative fake news and get trained to win elections.
Pat speaking at CWA protest and Verizon boycott, Albuquerque 2016
The Santa Fe New Mexican called him “Susana Martinez’s harshest critic” for taking on fights no one else would, but his community organizing work started making the most difference.
Pat led ProgressNowNM to partner with the Drug Policy Alliance to give Santa Fe and Albuquerque voters their first votes to decriminalize marijuana (it won in both places!), joined the Respect ABQ Women campaign to defeat a dangerous anti-abortion ballot initiative in Albuquerque and started a PAC to fight Rep. Steve Pearce’s PAC spending hundreds-of-thousands of dollars to defeat rising progressive stars.
Today, ProgressNowNM is New Mexico’s largest progressive advocacy organization and helps to train candidates and activists statewide to run for office.
A progressive champion on the city council
In 2015, City Council President Rey Garduño announced his retirement and endorsed Pat to take serve.
After choosing to run with public financing, Pat was invited, along with Eric Griego and Alan Webber, to join Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s first class of state and local candidate training run by the Progressive Change Congressional Campaign (PCCC).
That training helped Pat win on progressive values and put them into action.
When Donald Trump unplugged us from the Paris Climate Accords, Pat set out to fight climate change at home. He co-sponsored and passed the city’s first clean energy generating standard, 25% by 2025, then built and passed a $50+ million solar energy project to put solar panels on public buildings citywide.
A former police officer, Pat has been a leader on police oversight and reform efforts to restore community policing and drug treatment and intervention programs to support those with addictions as public health issues, not criminals.
And even though the NRA said no law would stop a school shooter, Pat worked with APD school resource officers, students, and teachers to write new legislation give police the tools to investigate shooting threats to schools made via social media. APD used that 4 times last year to investigate school shooting threats in Albuquerque.
On the city council, Pat is served two terms as chair of the City’s Finance & Government Operations Committee where he provides oversight for city policy and spending.
One of his first projects on the city council was passing a new renewable energy standard for Albuquerque (25% by 2025), then he initiated a citywide solar project to put $51 million in solar panels on city buildings to fight climate change.
In 2017, Pat announced his run for Congress after current Rep. Michelle Lujan Grisham announced her run for governor in 2018.
There are just six openly gay members of the US House of Representatives. Pat will be the seventh member of that caucus. He was endorsed by the Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund in November 2017, alongside US Sen. Tammy Baldwin and 8 other incumbents and candidates deemed most viable and likely to protect and expand LGBT voices in Congress.
Pat lives in Albuquerque with his partner Christopher, their dogs Jack & Okra, and their cat Gus.
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