Please join me in welcoming the season the progressive way with a Halloween treat!

Zoom Party Fundraiser for Pamela Price for Alameda County District Attorney, taking place on October 31st at 1pm! 

As you may know, Pamela Price ran for District Attorney in 2018 as the first person to challenge the incumbent D.A. since 1966—and she got 42% of the vote!! She is running again in 2022, and if we all work together, we can elect her in the June primary with at least 50% +1 of the vote!

WHY THIS RACE IS SO IMPORTANT:

Alameda County prides itself on being perhaps the bluest county in the bluest state, but we are not living up to our values when it comes to who runs our criminal justice system. Our current Sheriff, conservative Republican Ahern, was featured on John Oliver’s show as an example of how bad Sheriffs are in the entire country, with a rap-list that includes the high rate of deaths in Santa Rita Jail, multiple multi-million-dollar lawsuits and payouts because of misconduct, and a string of racist incidents. Our incumbent D.A. has a record of taking money from Police & Sheriff Associations (the 3rd highest recipient in the state) and is the highest recipient of individual contributions from police officers and Chiefs. According to ACLU data, our incumbent DA has remained neutral or opposed many of the biggest criminal justice reform changes supported by close to 80% of Alameda County constituents. Both of Pamela’s opponents in this race are career DAs in O’Malley’s office who are likely to continue the status quo of “business as usual.”

Come and meet Pamela, ask her your important questions about criminal justice in Alameda County, and learn more about her platform that includes restoring public trust in our criminal justice system, reducing the epidemic of gun violence in our communities, and strengthening our re-entry and rehabilitation services for those leaving incarceration. 

 I’m supporting Pamela because she is part of the nationwide movement to end the disparities in our (in) justice system that disproportionately target and harm people of color and the economically disadvantaged. Pamela will bring accountability, transparency, and compassion to the District Attorney’s office.

REGISTER HERE! https://www.pamelaprice4da.com/judith_zoom_party

The Activate America webinar Tuesday reported on a specific study of postcarding that they conducted in two districts in NV.  The webinar was recorded and will be available if anyone wants to dig into the statistical weeds.  They also promised to send out a copy of the study and of the slide show synopsis that they presented on Tuesday.  I found the event and the study modestly interesting, but less encouraging than did the researchers and the org leaders.

The study attempted to measure whether receiving a postcard that told Democratic and Independent voters in two districts that Senator Catherine Cortez Masto and their Congressional Representative had supported the covid relief stimulus payment bill, while not one Republican had voted for it, had a positive effect on the voters’ favorability rating of Cortez Masto and their Rep.

The take away was that there was a statistically significant rise (at .05 level) in Cortez Masto’s favorability rating compared with a control group that did not receive the postcard. However, there was no rise in favorability for the congressional reps.  The presenter’s interpretation was that postcards work best on better known candidates, but they should be part of a broad, multi-faceted GOTV campaign.

Activate America also announced that they are launching a study in Wisconsin that will try to compare efficacy of postcards vs texting.  I believe they said that they will be testing the efficacy of negative messaging (against Ron Johnson) in that study.

Finally they reported that they are currently launching numerous voter registration campaigns (some in Virginia) including postcards, phone banks, and instagram Direct Messaging.

It’s happening Tuesday, July 27^th at 12:00 Noon Pacific. You can RSVP HERE.

Earlier this year, Activate America (formerly Flip the West) partnered with Movement Labs to study the efficacy of postcarding as a tool to improve the way voters see their Democratic representatives. The results are in and we invite you to join us to hear Professor Shana Charles and our Data Director Andre Charles share the findings.

Other studies have shown postcards to be an effective tool for voter registration and voter turnout, but do they actually change hearts and minds? You’ll want to tune in to find out.

At yesterday’s IE meeting I agreed to report back on the Indivisible East Bay (IEB)zoom meeting with Sen Padilla’s leg director that I attended today. IEB holds regular (often monthly) meetings with both CA Senators’ leg directors. Some of these are attended by reps from other Indivisible groups. In CA and nationally, many Indivisible chapters do the same, as well as holding regular meetings with Congressional Reps and with state legislative electeds and/or their staff. I have been attending many of these meetings over the past 3 years or so. Two remarkable IEB policy wonks prepare detailed memos with questions and pitches on current legislation that serve as the basis for these conversations. I have forwarded the memo from today’s meeting to Andy so that he can either post or forward it to anyone who would like to see a copy.

Today’s meeting started by emphasizing the For the People vote tomorrow. Josh reported that Sen Padilla personally, and the Democratic caucus generally, have been in intensive convo with Mancin throughout the week-end. As we know, we are not going to win this without modifying the filibuster graveyard. However, Mancin has moved to support a compromise version of For the People, and it appears that tomorrow there will be the “moral victory” of 50 Dem votes. Various strategies about how to proceed after that are being discussed. A bumpy road at best.

Today’s meeting also discussed a long list of domestic and foreign policy issues. The memo is below.

Well, it’s far from what we hoped, but at least not the abyss that seemed possible. I imagine most of you have received the Flip the West email about their multi-pronged GA campaign–phone banks, texting, and postcards. We all know the drill. I just signed up for texting and post carding. Since I can’t figure out how to post the Flip the West call and volunteer links here, I’ll forward them to Andy. Or just email me at judith.stacey@nyu.edu if you’d like me to email it to you personally. Onward, and solidarity

Thanks to everyone who zoomed into The Meet & Greet for Board of Supes Dist 1 candidate Vinnie Bacon last night. Even bigger thanks to everyone who donated and or is willing to volunteer to phonebank or perhaps text for him. As I said last night, in addition to my personal donation, I will add an extra $10 for each $100 that my invitees donate by 5:30pm today, Sun, 8/30. Here are the links for donating and volunteering:

The recording of last night’s zoom meeting can be found at the link below with the password as shown. 
https://zoom.us/rec/share/2u5QFLHqsWlJQ6vN4UPBdqwDTor6X6a81ClNrPcOzUrVSNHQ-QnpPfAJFv9ckcVi Passcode: 2D5At..S 
The link to contribute and have it go towards your total is here: https://secure.actblue.com/donate/aug29wellstone
And of course, volunteers can sign up here: https://bacon4supervisor.com/volunteer/

“Don’t miss them!”

https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipOck_GrkA_RLV2gf8i5hcnW0Belirv5SabjVIqFeuphGosnBnNtUs_UVoEjnZzFiA?key=cDM2YXJPM09weHhONlZ2azJ2dVBqX3ZfWnZWeXRn

The Alameda County BOS agenda item to consider Sheriff Ahern’s outrageous funding proposal has been postponed because of the death of Supervisor Valle’s father. Valle is the current BOS chair and the swing vote on the 5-member BOS. Thanks for whatever emails and calls you already submitted. We will need to mobilize again when the item is rescheduled.

My prior post only included email addresses for the supervisors and I didn’t include a sample call script. Here are both

Call and Email script to reach out to Board of Supervisors:

My name is ___ , I’m calling urge you to deny the sheriff’s $85 million budget proposal on Tuesday. We’re in public health crisis, invest taxpayer dollars in healthcare and housing!

The coronavirus has reached Santa Rita Jail. Please immediately release people now. Any budget decision that prioritizes incarceration over healthcare puts all of us at risk.

FUND HEALTHCARE NOT HANDCUFFS

Board of Supervisors Contact Information:

District 1: Scott Haggerty scott.haggerty@acgov.org ; (510) 272-6691

District 2: Richard Valle (Board President, everyone contact)richard.valle@acgov.org ; 510- 272-6692

District 3: Wilma Chan. wilma.chan@acgov.org ; 510-272-6693

District 4: Nate Miley. nate.miley@acgov.org ; 510-272-6694

District 5: Keith Carson. Kcarson@acgov.org ; 510-272-6695

The Alameda County Board of Supervisors, at its upcoming meeting on Tuesday, April 21, will consider a request from Alameda County Sheriff Gregory J. Ahern for an additional $255 million over the next three years for the stated purpose of increasing staffing at the Alameda County Santa Rita Jail in Dublin despite the continuing decrease in the jail population. This is precisely the wrong way to spend County money, especially during the pandemic. Rather than giving the Sheriff more money for fewer prisoners, the Board of Supervisors should recognize that COVID-19 is spreading exponentially at the jail where the rate of diagnosed inmates per capita is 14 times the rate of recorded positive cases in Alameda County as a whole.

Instead, there is an urgent need to release as many inmates as possible and to fund healthcare, housing, and reentry programs, not more incarceration. Please call or email the Board of Supervisors, urging them to reject the Sheriff’s request for additional funds. It is particularly important to contact Supervisor Richard Valle from southern Alameda County, in addition to your Supervisor. If you have friends who live in Valle’s Second Supervisorial District (the cities of Hayward, Newark, and Union City; the northern portion of the city of Fremont; and a portion of the unincorporated community of Sunol), please pass this email to them.

Contact your member of the Alameda County Board of Supervisors below:

1. Supervisor Scott Haggerty
2. Supervisor Richard Valle
3. Supervisor Wilma Chan
4. Supervisor Nate Miley
5. Supervisor Keith Carson

Not sure who your County Supervisor is? You can look up which district you live in here. You can also sign up to give public comment at the meeting, which will be live-streamed.  Instructions for participating in the live stream are here.