Friday, September 7, 2018

Friday 9/7 Call to Action

Friday
The Big Push
Democrats in the Senate Judiciary Committee have been working their buns off trying to block the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. While the Republicans are doing their best to ram this nomination through, the Democrats are working as a team to be a stumbling block. I have to say, it feels good to see our Democratic leaders standing up for a change. While there are plenty of issues that make Kavanaugh a terrible candidate for this lifetime position, Dem Senators on the committee are homing in on three specific issues to target three specific senators: Susan Collins; Lisa Murkowski; and Tim Scott.
Roe v Wade
A secret email obtained by The New York Times shows Kavanaugh challenged the accuracy of deeming the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade abortions rights decision to be “settled law of the land.” This email was one of the many of the documents turned over by President George W. Bush’s lawyer. It was deemed “committee confidential” which means it was not be be viewed by the public or discussed by Democrats when questioning Kavanaugh. In the email, Kavanaugh was considering drafting an opinion piece that anti-abortion women could submit under their names. In the email Kavanaugh wrote, “I am not sure that all legal scholars refer to Roe as the settled law of the land at the Supreme Court level since Court can always overrule its precedent, and three current Justices on the Court would do so.”
This document is very important because both Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins are pro-choice. Sen. Collins recently made a statement that she spoke with Kavanaugh and was confident that he considered Roe v. Wade settled law. She may need to rethink that after reading this document.https://www.nytimes.com/…/p…/kavanaugh-leaked-documents.html
Native Hawaiians and Alaskans
U.S. Sen. Mazie Hirono released "committee confidential" documents Thursday in which U.S. Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh questions the constitutionality of Native Hawaiian programs. During the hearing, Senator Mazie Hirono said, “I think you have a problem here. Your view is that Hawaiians don't deserve protections as indigenous people under the constitution and your argument raises a serious question on how you would vote on the constitutionality of programs benefiting Alaska natives. I think that my colleagues from Alaska should be deeply troubled by your views.”
http://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/…/sen-hirono-releases-confiden…
Alaskans are very much aware of Kavanaugh’s dicey past when it comes to native Alaskans. According to the Anchorage Daily News, Alaskans should be wary of Kavanaugh’s track record or voting rights, environmental protections, and subsistence fishing rights. Read more about it here: https://www.adn.com/…/kavanaughs-record-raises-concerns-on…/
Minorities
In a news conference, members of the Congressional Black Caucus argued that Kavanaugh would weaken provisions of the Voting Rights Act and be a general threat to civil rights. http://thehill.com/…/405368-congressional-black-caucus-says…
In a display of awesomeness, Senator Cory Booker released a memo from Kavanaugh that highlighted racial profiling. This memo was also labeled “committee confidential” but Sen. Booker made the decision to make it public anyways. https://www.npr.org/…/kavanaugh-hearings-day-3-booker-has-h…
Two Republican Senators need to say no to stop Kavanaugh from being given a lifetime appointment to the highest court in the land. Today, take some time to contact Sens. Collins, Murkowski, and Scott. Remind them of why Kavanaugh is a terrible choice. Encourage them to vote “NO”. There are varying opinions on whether you should call a senator that is not your own. There are plenty of alternate ways to contact a senator besides the phone. Email! Snail Mail! Twitter! You get the idea.
Here is some contact information for each senator:
Susan Collins of Maine
https://www.collins.senate.gov/contact
@SenatorCollins
Lisa Murkowski of Alaska
https://www.murkowski.senate.gov/contact
@lisamurkowski
Tim Scott of South Carolina
https://www.scott.senate.gov/contact
@SenatorTimScott
Farm Bill
While we are all distracted by Kavanaugh, the members of the House are busy setting up a farm bill that will roll back pesticide laws passed in 155 communities nationwide -including many in Minnesota- putting our health and safety at risk. Read more about it here https://www.ehn.org/farm-bill-would-preempt-pesticide-bans-… and then contact your members of Congress and let them have it. Check out this map to see if there are any environmental safety regulations in your town. https://www.ewg.org/interactive…/2018_local_pesticide_laws/…
Test Your Way to Victory!
Many of us may feel overworked, over scheduled, and under-slept, but have the desire to GOTV for the November midterms. We can join MoveOn’s texting team and transform the tiny bits of time in our week into progressive action in key jurisdictions across the country. https://front.moveon.org/join-moveon-text-team/
Tweet Your Way to Victory!
Here’s a way to use social media to support candidates we support. Let’s take a look: https://sterbalssundrystudies.miraheze.org/…/Helping_the_ca…
Redistrict Your Way to Victory!
From 2009 to 2016, Republicans had all the momentum in state-level elections, and they used those tremendous gains to stymie President Obama and the federal government generally. Now that the GOP has seized power at the federal level, though, we have a chance to flip that dynamic, to turn their president's unpopular malevolence and bumbling into big gains for Democrats in gubernatorial and state legislature races across the country. And we need to, in order to protect the people from what a right-wing White House, Congress, and Supreme Court could/would foist upon us (https://www.bloomberg.com/…/democrats-focus-on-governors-ra…). So, let's support organizations like the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, and find a race or two to support directly as well (even if it isn't in your own state). https://democraticredistricting.com/2018-targets/
Candidates cannot win without help from us. Commit today to doing your part.
Each candidate on the November ballot has a website where you can sign up to volunteer.
Walz/Flannagan https://walzflanagan.org/
Amy Klobuchar https://www.amyklobuchar.com/
Tina Smith https://www.tinaforminnesota.com/
Julie Blaha https://blahaforauditor.org/
Steve Simon https://stevesimonmn.com/
Keith Ellison https://keithellison.org/
District 1 Daniel Feehan https://danfeehan.com/
District 2 Angie Craig https://www.angiecraig.com/
District 3 Dean Phillips https://www.phillipsforcongress.org/
District 4 Betty McCollum https://www.mccollumforcongress.com/
District 5 Ilhan Omar https://www.ilhanomar.com/
District 6 Ian Todd www.iantoddforcongress.com
District 7 Collin Peterson http://www.petersonforcongress.com/
District 8 Joe Radinovich https://www.joeradinovich.com/
Minnesota House Campaigns
Check out these calendars for upcoming events near you.
https://cd2action.com/calendar/
https://calendar.google.com/calendar/embed…
This And That
National healthcare advocate Ady Barkan, who has ALS, has an interesting approach to courting Sen. Collins (R-ME) vote on Kavanaugh. He is soliciting donations to go to her opponent in her 2020 re-election bid should she vote for Kavanaugh. https://theintercept.com/…/brett-kavanaugh-susan-collins-a…/ Over $100,000 has been raised so far. Let’s see if we can help:https://www.crowdpac.com/…/either-sen-collins-votes-no-on-k…
Study after study shows that the most effective way to get people to vote is by having conversations with them in the four days before Election Day (Saturday, November 3rd–Tuesday, November 6th). Volunteer here to be part of the last big push. https://thelastweekend.org/?source=MN02
Sister District Action Network did a study on the impact of postcards on voter registration and released the results showing positive results:https://mailchi.mp/…/dark-money-fireside-chat-and-critical-… Let’s read the report and keep on writing postcards!
Klobuchar-202-224-3244
Smith (202) 224-5641
House of Representative switchboard: (202) 224-3121
MN Legislators: https://www.leg.state.mn.us/leg/legislators
Resistbot: https://resistbot.io/
Governor Dayton- https://mn.gov/governor/contact-us/

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