Tell your member of Congress to vote NO on additional funding for Trump’s deportation machine. Next week, the Democratic controlled House will vote on a bill to provide additional funding to the Department of Homeland Security. The Senate will vote on its own bill, which will contain nearly $5 billion for DHS. We need our members of Congress to stand up and refuse to give Trump more money to terrorize communities and lock up families.

Check out our updated impeachment toolkit at Impeach.indivisible.org. Our campaign page is updated with new resources to help keep the pressure on Congress this Fourth of July to do its job and hold Trump accountable.

Check out Indivisible’s new Presidential Engagement Playbook and prepare for next week’s debates by downloading Indivisible’s June Debate Guide

 

Register for NPNA’s Family Protection Network Field Webinar tomorrow 6/21

Trump’s recent threats about a new surge of deportations are raising alarms across the country, and it is critical that Indivisibles do everything we can to stand with immigrant communities.

Our allies at the National Partnership for New Americans (NPNA), together with the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition (TIRRC), the Fair Immigration Reform Movement (FIRM) and others are hosting a webinar tomorrow, June 21 at 1pm Eastern Time / 10am Pacific Time to discuss the NPNA Family Protection Network and the local rapid response strategies. Speakers will highlight local and statewide public funding wins to expand community protection and access to counsel, how to work with employers to protect workers, and share strategies to build partnerships with private law firms.

Indivisible national survey results are in and were published this week. 80% of Indivisibles favor launching an impeachment investigation into Donald Trump.  Read the details here.

An Indivisible Statement to Congress is up on the national website calling on our elected members of congress to begin an in-depth, public impeachment inquiry.  This began as an initiative of Indivisible South Bay, has spread like wildfire, and is now gathering signatures of Indivisible groups nationwide. Read it here, but skip the sign-on—we’re already signatories based on our discussions Sunday.

#ImpeachTrump National Day of Action is this Saturday, June 15.  The nearest rally is in Oakland at the Ronald V. Dellums Federal Building. Go if you can—advance signups here are recommended.

Our Sunday discussion of Indivisible’s April survey included reference to the US Indivisible position on abolition of the filibuster.  Most Indivisible groups nationwide are in support of doing away with the filibuster if Democrats manage to take over the Senate in 2020.  You can read about it in depth here. There’s also a good discussion of the issue by Matt Iglesias on Vox: The Democratic debate over filibuster reform, explained.

At Sunday’s meeting we’ll present the fascinating results of this spring’s Indivisible survey on engagement in the 2020 presidential race. Indivisible has asked that their national survey results not be shared publicly on social media or anywhere it might become accessible to those outside our network. So to get the details you need to be there.  Join us!

From Chloe Stryker, Indivisible Senior Regional Organizer, West Coast

• We are rolling out a 2-year Democracy Plan, take a look! We will discuss more on the National Activist call. 
• Debate Watch Parties/Recruitment
  • Toolkit
  • Register your party here: https://act.indivisible.org/event/local-actions/create/
• #ImpeachTrump Day on June 15th with MoveON and By the People
  • Groups can register events here, and Indivisibles can RSVP for events here.
• Dream and Promise Act Passed!
• Defund Hate – Updated resource page here.
  • The ask for Indivisibles is to call your MoC and tell them to sign onto the CPC letter, which closes on Thurs. This letter is led by Reps. Jayapal, Pocan, Castro, and Chu calling on the House Appropriations to #DefundHate.
• Prescription Drug Pricing – Pelosi will possibly put out a summary this week of the opposing bill, which Indivisible does not support (we support the Doggett Bill as it is more friendly for consumers).
  • Policy is working with Public Citizen to put out a press statement, and will be inviting partners from the prescription drug table to sign on (such as Ce3nter for popular Democracy, Housing works, etc.).
• Raise the Wage – Would raise the minimum wage to $15/hour. There are 200+ co-sponsors, but Pelosi won’t bring it to the floor until there are 218 co-sponsors.

Impeachment discussions are heating up. At our May 26 meeting, the consensus of our group was to support Marin Indivisible’s Public Statement on Congressional Oversight calling for impeachment hearings if Trump stonewalling of congressional subpoenas continues.  Mueller’s statement Wednesday added pressure on Democrats to take a stand on impeachment. An action item for local Indivisibles this week is to urge Members of Congress to “support Rep. Rashida Tlaib’s Impeachment Resolution (H.Res.257);” Barbara Lee is already a co-sponsor, so ours would be calls to support her position. Finally, the May National Indivisible Leah/Ezra letter newsletter makes the case that regardless of the political pros and cons, “it’s the constitutional duty of the U.S. House of Representatives to begin impeachment proceedings.”

WHAT HAPPENED TO OUR PRIORITY BILLS?

Yesterday (May 16) was do-or-die day in the legislature with the occurrence of the much anticipated #SuspenseFile hearing. The suspense is now over; the following bills will live to see another day (aka. will be headed for floor vote imminently):

• AB 392 (Police use of force, non-fiscal and didn’t go to approps)
• SB 29/ AB 4 (Health4All)
• SB 200/ AB 217 (Clean drinking water)
• AB 32 (Ban private prisons)
• AB 1217 (Issue ad disclosure)
• SB 47 (Ballot disclose act, this actually skipped suspense)
• ACA 6 (Free the vote, though this likely won’t start moving until mid-June because it’s a constitutional amendment that’s exempt from deadlines)

ACTION: INDIVISI-CALL IN WEEK NEXT WEEK

Now that we know what is headed for a floor vote, it’s time to let our legislators know how we want them to vote! ALL of our legislators will be voting on all these bills (except ACA 6) in the next few weeks. To pack the biggest punch, we’re coordinating a call-in week next week to drive calls about a different bill every day.

I’m also excited to announce that we now have a patch through number to the legislature that will send you to your state legislators after entering your zip code. This will allow us to track how many calls we all make so please use it for calls! We have everything you need for call-in week in this TOOLKIT including call scripts, sample tweets, and graphics! CALL IN WEEK TOOLKIT!

LAST CALL FOR LOBBY DAY SIGN UP Indivisibles will be there live in Sacramento during one of the most exciting times of the legislative session for our Indivisi-Lobby Day on May 29th! This is the last call for sign-ups! Please RSVP by Monday, May 20th! RSVP for May 29th Lobby Day

Last week the national Indivisible organization launched an “Indivisible Pledge” and invited both grass-roots activists and Democratic presidential candidates to sign it.  As Rachel Maddow noted Monday, this has particular significance for the candidates, who must pledge to run constructive, issue-driven campaigns and actively support whoever emerges with the nomination (no sour grapes, 3^rd party threats, etc.).  But local activists who sign the pledge are also asked to “Do the work to beat Trump. We’re the grassroots army that’s going to power the nominee to victory, and we’ll show up to make calls, knock doors, and do whatever it takes.” It looks like this, rather than endorsing any one candidate (which most Indivisible chapters—including ours—rejected), is how Indivisible plans to impact the primary process.  Hurray!  Here’s the message from the national team:

Take the #WeAreIndivisible pledge. We’ve got 11 candidates and nearly 10,000 grassroots activists signed up. But this simple ask will take all of us to uphold. So, if you haven’t already, take the pledge and add your name. And if your local group is ready to commit to our weekend of action in July 2020, register your event on the map here.

Other Actions: We’re also asked to ask our member of Congress to support Rep. Pramila Jayapal’s Medicare for All Act and H.R. 1046, Rep. Lloyd Doggett’s bill aimed at bringing down drug prices, but Barbara Lee is already a co-sponsor of both. If you’d like to be heard on another bill she’s co-sponsored, there’s a link for a call asking her to resist pressures to water down  H.R. 6, the Dream and Promise Act!

There’s also a plea for cash, which the national effort will certainly need: “We’re doing everything we can to launch successful 2020 campaigns and advocacy nationwide. But phonebanking, organizing, training, and more take resources that are far from free — and we need your help to afford them. Please: we need you to chip in $30.00 or more to support Indivisible now and into 2020.”

The following urgent request is from Jiggy Athilingam, Indivisible Senior State Policy Manager. Note: Item 3 has been taken care of.

California’s clean energy future is at risk. Last year, we passed SB 100 to accelerate our renewable energy portfolio standard to 60% renewable by 2030 and 100% renewable by 2045. Now, special interests are trying to carve out loopholes and exemptions to weaken the law.

SB 386 (Caballero) would exempt two irrigation districts and allow them to count large hydro power toward the 60% renewable standard. If these two districts are allowed to count large hydro, they will have absolutely zero incentive to produce real renewable energy. What’s worse is that this sets a very dangerous precedent — it won’t be long until every district demands this exemption, which would completely undermine our path to a cleaner energy future.

SB 386 passed the Senate Energy Committee this week with the votes of moderate Dems and Republicans. It does not have to go to Appropriations and there is fear that it may get fast tracked to the Senate floor, as early as next week.

The SB 100 coalition is on emergency alert and needs our help.

Here is what you can do:

1. Call your state Senator. Since this could be headed to the floor, every Senator needs to hear from us. Look up their number here. Here is a call script:
   “Hello, my name is <NAME> from <TOWN>. I’m calling to express serious concern about SB 386, a bill that would effectively gut the renewable energy goals set forth in SB 100 by allowing large hydro dams to count toward the 60% renewable by 2030 standard. Climate change is an emergency and I expect California to lead the way in environmental reform, not undermine our own progress. Can I count on Senator <NAME> to vote NO on SB 386 on the Senate floor next week?”
2. Drop-in to your Senator’s office. If you have the time, grab a few of your group members and spontaneously stop by your Senator’s district office on Monday in person to ask them to vote NO on SB 386.
3. Sign your group onto the coalition opposition letter. The SB 100 coalition is submitting an opposition letter (text at the bottom of this email). To sign on, please email your name, group name, and group logo to djacobson@environmentcalifornia.org
4. Tweet about this to raise awareness. This bill has been moving quietly and we need to raise awareness about its dangers. Use the sample tweets in this toolkit and the graphics below. Sample social

This bill could move as early as next week so time is of the essence. Thank you for your activism!

In solidarity,

Jiggy