2011 NCOM Convention

If you’ve never attended an NCOM Convention it may be difficult to picture a conference room with nearly a thousand bikers (all wearing their club colors) who are listening attentively to a State Senator, a City Mayor or an AIM lawyer explain the subtle nuances of a bill, a law or the strategy for a repeal. You may not be able to picture members of clubs that may have had serious differences working together to solve problems that impact not only themselves but all motorcyclists. That’s exactly what happens at the annual NCOM Convention and you can rest assured that spirit of cooperation goes home with each attendee to their local MC Chapter, their Abate Chapter, Confederation of Clubs, or State Motorcycle Rights Organizations (SMRO).

The 26th Annual National Coalition of Motorcycle Riders (NCOM) Convention was held in Albuquerque May 5-8. Richard Lester, founder of NCOM and AIM (Attorney’s for Injured Motorcyclists) dedicated this years conference to Sputnik, the legendary legislative warrior who died in June 2010. Sputnik’s influence was recognized and his presence missed at every session of the conference from the Opening Ceremonies, the Ringing of the Bell in the General Session and a special remembrance during the Silver Spoke Award Banquet. Sputnik’s memory continues to inspire awareness and motivate warrior motorcyclists to continue to fight for our rights and freedoms as bikers.

God Bless Sputnik … may he Rest in Peace!

I’m going to try to hit on what I found to be convention highlights in the various sessions I attended:
Legislative Task Force (LTF): South Dakota State Senator Jim Puttman is now the chairman of the LTF (a position held by Sputnik). The Legislative Task Force is a resource that your MRO is encouraged to use as a tool to support legislative research and even to help draft language that can be offered to your state or federal lawmakers. Reference the site: http://www.aimncom.com/ncom/ncom_board.htm for a list of the LTF members who serve as this resource.

Opening Ceremonies: Attendance at the convention opening ceremony was truly impressive. Patches from all over the country, lawyers and politicians shared their experience and expertise to protect your rights and the lifestyle you chose when you decided to ride a motorcycle and wear an “MC” patch.

NCOM Chairman Doc Reichenbach provided an overview of the convention objectives, an list of “hot topics” concerning all motorcyclists and a welcome to attendees. The Mayor of Albuquerque, Richard Berry, welcomed us to his city and thanked us for coming back (NCOM was last in Albuquerque fifteen years ago) to enjoy the natural beauty of New Mexico, the attractions in Albuquerque and especially us for spending our money and enhance his economy. Doc closed the opening ceremony with a note of optimism when he said, “We learned the game and now we’re helping to write the rules!” He made this comment to emphasize the momentum that’s been built and the sophistication that we’ve achieved in winning the battles we continue to take on.

U.S. Defender Program: To me, the true meat of the convention began to build during the Defender session. Bandido Gimmi Jimmy was the moderator of this session. Remember, the Defender program started in Texas and spread to the entire nation – we should be proud that we were a part of what will be recognized as a major milestone in the biker freedom movement. As a further reminder, the Defender program is a grass roots movement designed to support various “calls to action” that muster forces (much like Paul Revere did with his “one if by land and two if by sea” ride at the start of the American Revolution) to contact and influence law makers to support our biker agenda. To further familiarize yourself, use this link: http://usdefenders.org/

Gimmi Jimmy was as upbeat with his remarks in this session. He quickly acknowledged that the first phase of his agenda, motivate normally apathetic bikers to unify and become active, has gained momentum and we’re seeing the fruits of those labors. The fact that the Texas Defender program has grown into the U.S. Defenders is a true acknowledgment that his approach is working.

Jimmy first acknowledged Outsiders MC Double D for leading the Washington State COC’s effort to pass the country’s first profiling bill into law. The law forces local law enforcement agencies to adopt a written policy designed to condemn and prevent the profiling of motorcyclists, who have testified that police target them out of the mistaken assumption they belong to biker gangs. The language used in the bill was borrowed from a bill passed in 2002 that dealt with racial profiling and includes a training to address the problem.
Read more:
http://www.theolympian.com/2010/02/02/1124138/biker-profiling-bill-passes-first.html#ixzz1Ls1NxFGP
http://usdefenders.org/PDF/press%20release-Robert%20Christopher.pdf

Next was a story about a woman (a legally blind motor vehicle operator with no license) who killed a biker and was nearly released with a slap on the hands. Efforts of the Defender Program focused attention on the case and the woman was found guilty of manslaughter and was sentenced to twelve years in prison.

The Defenders made an unsuccessful attempt to kill the reauthorization of the Patriot Act. The Patriot Act, passed shorty after 9/11 was used to round up known terrorists, ship them to Guantanamo. That may have been a good use of the Patriot Act at the time but its presence on the books continues to provide law enforcement with the authority to arrest you and hold you without due process … it’s outlived its usefulness and is absolutely unconstitutional. We’ll continue to get another shot at the Patriot Act and we can expect other groups whose constitutional rights have been violated to join us in this fight.

Defenders were successful in tabling the progress of legislation that would have included motorcycle clubs along with street gangs in New Mexico. Just because it’s been tabled doesn’t mean this fight is over. Jimmy emphasized that we (the motorcycle community) need a law that will ensure that motorcycle clubs are not included with street gangs in all states and at a federal level.

Jimmy summarized the current status of the Fusion Centers and how they are affecting motorcyclists, especially patch holders. Fusion Centers are an entity created by Homeland Security and the Department of Justice. Look up Fusion Centers on Wikipedia and you’ll see information on how this post-9/11 response violates civil liberties through the coordinated efforts of various agencies to centralize data and make it accessible to law enforcement. Patch holders are not the only victims of Fusion Center activities: pro-lifers, returning veterans, Ron Paul supporters, conspiracy theorists and potential militia members are also targets. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is all over this one but progress is slow. There’s seventy-one Fusion Centers in the U.S. and two in Texas. They affect you, the patch holder and motorcycle enthusiast, by creating the potential that a roadside stop could result in your information being transferred to the Fusion Center database and that information could lead to you being categorized you as a domestic terrorist.

All these issues are damn scary to me … how about to you? Yes, no, are you sleeping through this one? Do you think the Defenders Program has any value to you? Get with the program and support your ABATE, State Motorcycle Rights Organizations, COC and U.S. Defenders. How can you do this? Join the COC (most states are now including Independents) and identify your U.S. Defenders, make sure the Defender contact has your contact info and above all, respond to the Calls to Action that you support.

General Session: The highlight of this Saturday session was the “Ringing of the Bell” and the Key Note address by New Mexico State Representative Rick Miera who also read the proclamation that the State House of Representatives made to recognize the National Coalition of Motorcyclists.

“Ringing the Bell” is a tribute and a remembrance of all those who have died since the previous NCOM Convention. In total, upwards of two hundred names of fallen brothers and sisters were read, each name was followed by the striking of a bell. The mood was somber as names were spoken and their bell was tolled. Sputnik, of course, received special recognition and as the ceremony was initiated. Doc Reichenbach suggested that Sputnik was no doubt hard at work, organizing the bikers in Heaven!

The Key Note address, by Rick Miera, who is a member of the New Mexico House of Representatives and the NCOM Legislative Task Force, a history of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) federal funding program from 1972 that threatened to withdraw funding for highway construction for states that did not pass a mandatory helmet law. New Mexico folded under this threat and passed a helmet bill in 1975 but repealed the law based on the unconstitutionality of the threat. Representative Miera predicts that we’ll continue to experience attempts (by both parties at both a State and National level) to continue trying to take away our freedoms.

Breakout Sessions: This session was for state specific reports from the various freedom fighters and MROs. I attended the session with three regions and fifteen states reporting that included: California, Colorado, Washington and Arizona.
The topics in this session ranged from the traditional to the ridiculous. A number of states, including California, continue attempts to modify their helmet laws. This seems to be a fight that continues infinitum and one that requires constant vigiliance.

At a federal level the HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) exclusion has yet to be repealed. HIPAA protects the privacy of your health information and guarantees that a group health plan cannot exclude coverage of a person’s preexisting conditions for more than 12 to 18 month after enrollment date. There is an equally important exclusion that insurance companies can use to classify members injured in “hazardous recreational vehicles”, i.e., motorcycles. The HIPAA exclusion puts policy holders at risk of not being covered in the event of an injury and one that motorcycle activists continue attempts to repeal.

At a state level, Arizona lost a first attempt to pass a “distracted driver” bill that would provide penalties for “texting” or other distractions that make drivers unsafe. Arizona MROs were successful in establishing a group medical plan for motorcycle owners that was similar to a plan initially started in Tennessee. This plan offers full health insurance coverage for motorcycle owners for as little as $300 per year.

Wyoming defeated a bill that would limit the speed a vehicle passing another vehicle could use, i.e., 10mph over the legal limit. Can you imagine passing an 18-wheeler while creeping along at only 10mph faster than the semi?

Additional topics included a lot of handlebar height laws, vertical license plate restrictions, proposal of a motorcycle interlock bill that would enable a driver convicted of DWI to get his/her driving privileges restored for motorcycles (the same as for cars), lots of state education programs, equal access fights (i.e., preventing businesses from restricting patrons from wearing colors – big impact in places like Sturgis and Laughlin during their bike events), reciprocity for motorcycle equipment (this means you wouldn’t have to change handlebar height when traveling across America), access to critical personal and organizational information under the Freedom of Information Act, Motorcyclist Profiling bills, injury threshold law that would provide for more penalties for a driver that kills a biker and equal access fights such as the California COC launched towards the Monterey County Fair for excluding biker’s wearing colors to the fair.

The breakout sessions gave me a good appreciation for the types of fights that various MROs face in their areas as they work to maintain the freedoms that you and I would like to continue enjoying.

Motorcycle Only Stops and Roadblocks: Mitch Proner from Proner & Proner, a law firm in New York, provided a history and overview of the New York class action suit claiming discrimination against motorcyclists at motorcycle-only roadblocks.

Police began using these checkpoints in New York State in 2008, using grant money from the Governor’s Traffic Safety Committee. Recently, the federal government has begun funding motorcycle-only checkpoint initiatives in other parts of the country, including the Atlanta area.

Though the stated rationale of these checkpoints is to increase public safety, the evidence indicates that most of the tickets issued in New York have little to do with safety violations. That puts motorcycle-only checkpoints at odds with Supreme Court precedent. The Court has said that roadside checkpoints whose primary purpose is general crime control are presumptively unconstitutional under the Fourth Amendment.

We’re still awaiting the outcome of a lawsuit in federal court in New York challenging motorcycle-only checkpoints. The lawsuit is the first in the country to raise constitutional objections to the law enforcement practice of setting up checkpoints to stop all motorcyclists traveling to or from popular motorcycle events.

You might be aware that Georgia has also accepted a $70,000 grant to fund motorcycle-only check points – setting up their checkpoints in early March just before Daytona Bike Week. Anybody that rode through Georgia along two major highways was stopped and often detained for as much at forty-five minutes.

Silver Spoke Award Banquet: The Convention ended on two relaxing and upbeat topics: a banquet on Saturday night and a Bike Blessing on Sunday morning. I made the banquet but saddled up and rode back to Arizona before the bike blessing – I like bike blessings, the potential of obtaining a bit more protection from hazards of he road is always attractive and I hated to miss this one. But missing Mother’s Day and the opportunity to take the little woman to dinner outweighed the potential for guaranteed safe passage home.

The banquet was well attended, liquor flowed, the food was excellent for the number of people served and everybody was in a good mood. The stress and pressure of putting on a good convention for the NCOM leaders had mostly passed. Bill Bish, founder of Concerned Motorcyle Riders of Ohio, a Board of Directors member for NCOM and the publisher of Ride On Magazine renewed his vows to his lovely wife of fifteen years, Darlene Bish.

The banquet serves as a venue for the convention wrap-up speeches, which again remembered the late Sputnik’s dedication and achievements, and presentation of the Silver Spoke Awards. Bill Hayes, Boozefighter MC and author (Original Wild Ones – The Story of the Boozefighters MC) received a Special Recognition award for his latest book, American Biker, published in late 2010. Bill’s contributions to bike club literature and his efforts to swing the pendulum of perception about motorcycle clubs was recognized by NCOM. Other Silver Spoke Awards went to Allen West, Congressman from Florida for Government; Tim and Bonnie King, News Reporters from Oregon for Media; John Parham, J&P Cycles for Commerce; Jerry King, Cartoonist for Art; and Sharon “Lady Ninja” Cancel, Co-Director of the National Sport Bike Association for Special Recognition. The Ron Roloff Lifetime Achievement Award went to Harold “Gunny” Hutcheson, the AIM Chief of Staff from Oregon.

The next morning, early – about 5am Arizona time – I packed my gear, crawled on my Road Glide and pointed it west on the Moccasin Trail, Interstate 40, towards Phoenix. The straight shot to Holbrook gave me plenty of windshield time to sort out all the input I’d absorbed during the three days of convention in Albuquerque. The ride through the White Mountains of Arizona made me happy to live in this great country where a group of over a thousand bikers representing hundreds of clubs can assemble to talk about and solve common issues important to all motorcyclists.

–Gypsy Raoul

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