trump

Notes from the March 1st meeting

/ Andrew J. Lazarus / Leave a comment

We reviewed the election landscape in California, especially CA–22 and the governor’s race. As Bruce pointed out, the state Democratic Convention failed to reach the 60% endorsement threshold for either of these races. There’s even some fear that with eight Democrats splitting the pro-D vote, the two Republicans will end up advancing to the general election. Notwithstanding sentiment at the convention, we expect Democrats who can’t self-fund and are polling in single digits will drop out before June.

I went over the National Indivisible’s first three Democratic primary endorsements. I promised a video [coming soon] to go with the printed version, which is appended below. Two are trailing their opponent in fundraising and the third is an essential upgrade. Sally caught Leah’s and Ezra’s weekly What’s The Plan call. The official summary:

2026-03-01-NationalIndivDownload

Ann Overton brought an origami butterfly from the No Kings Art Build. The next event is Saturday, March 7, 1:00–5:00, in the Mills College area. You can sign up for that session and/or March 8, 14, and 15 with Mobilize.

We finished with 100 postcards for the Virginia Redistricting referendum, which was approved by the Virginia Supreme Court today.

Our Friday protests have grown (82 last week), but we still have enough chocolate for everyone. Indivisible Berkeley is starting a similar weekly protest, Wednesdays at 4:30–5:30 at MLK & Russell.

2026-03-01-IndivEndorsementsDownload

Notes from the 2/15 meeting

/ Andrew J. Lazarus / 1 Comment

I reported on the relatively favorable forecast for the House and the key Senate races. The most contentious California race, among Democrats, is the primary to take on David Valadao, the Republican in CA–22. The candidates are Randy Villegas and the more conservative Democrat Dr. Jasmeet Bains, who appears to be the favorite of out-of-area Democratic leadership. Conversely, Villegas is the favorite of Democratic leaders in the district, Dolores Huerta, and our colleague Mary Boergers, who leads the Berkeley chapter of Central Valley Matters. There will be a Villegas fundraiser this Friday, 5:00–7:00. If interested, you can sign up here.

Note that Sister District has renamed itself States Win, so that is how I will refer to it from now on. With the exception of a Michigan special election, they have not picked any races yet. They are playing in more states than last cycle, including Nevada, Arizona, Michigan, and North Carolina. We’ve written postcards or raised money in those states before. Nicole Zambrano has left States Win for grad school; Ariana Ybarra replaces her as the West Coast Organizing Manager. She warned me, they are fond of phonebanking.

Volunteers for roles in Indivisible Elmwood:

  • CA Indivisible – Bruce
  • National Indivisible and Vote Forward — Sally
  • Indivisible Berkeley & Indivisible East Bay — Estella
  • States Win — Martha
  • Central Valley Matters — Ann O.

[Martha and Estella: I will be granting you author permission for this website. I believe everyone else who volunteered has it already.]

We distributed 100 postcards encouraging turnout for the North Carolina primary. No need to bring them back here, unless you need some stamps.

Our protests have grown to over 100; ICE murders served as a a recruitment tool. They are currently 4:15–5:15. We will revert to 5:00–6:00 after the Daylight Savings switch.

Indivisible Berkeley is organizing a new weekly protest at MLK & Russell, Wednesdays 4:30–5:30 pm. Starts March 4.

We Choose to Fight

/ db13jackson / Leave a comment

Unless you’ve been forcefully tuning out the news, you must be  experiencing some of the horror/panic/disgust we’re feeling at the blitzkrieg of Trump nominations and wondering what, if anything, can be done.

Indivisible, the national organization, is organizing “We Choose to Fight” actions at senators’ offices—something not everyone can do at this point.  But phone calls and emails to Senate offices are still worth doing this week. Below is an email we sent (in slightly different versions) our Senators today, based largely on these resources from Indivisible. You might want to contact them as well. Both Padilla and Schiff have spoken out in hearings on Vought and Patel, so we start by thanking them.  Here is our email, (with parentheses for the Padilla version)

Dear Senator Schiff (Padilla),

I appreciate your outspoken opposition to Kash Patel’s nomination as FBI director (Russell Vought’s nomination as federal budget director). We need real leadership from Democrats in the Senate on this and on what amounts to a fast-moving coup attempt by Trump and his allies.

Our democratic institutions can only survive this authoritarian onslaught if those of you in leadership positions act forcefully to block this attempted blitzkrieg.  This could involve: denying a quorum by walking out whenever Republicans don’t have 51 votes in the chamber; blocking unanimous consent to force Republicans to take the longest possible route for each step of the confirmation process; using all 30 hours of debate on Patel (Vought) and other MAGA nominees to expose Project 2025, Musk’s Treasury takeover, the funding freeze and the mayhem at the FBI; forcing roll-call votes, quorum calls, and procedural delays to slow everything down; refusing to vote for even moderate nominees while this power grab continues; and making the case that this is a constitutional crisis requiring all hands on deck.

There is real fear in your constituency that Senators may try to appear “reasonable” to the MAGA steamroller and allow it to roll on.  You can offer reasonableness once the money and power grab is stopped, but at this critical moment, you need to make the case loudly and publicly about why you’re blocking this coup.

Your constituent,