Bernie spoke at the People’s Summit in Chicago, rails against Trump and warns the Democratic Party that the mainstream, status quo politics and allegiance to corporate America is not going to yield better results than in 2016. Also, call to action for Wednesday on Ranked Choice Voting.
Ranked Choice Voting. Wednesday, July 12, 6:30pm, City Hall, 200 Lincoln. FairVoteNM is calling on Retake supporters to turn out again at the City Council this Wednesday, only this time to raise your voice. At 6:30, Maria Perez from FVNM will provide speaking points and organize speakers who will begin testifying for 2 minutes each at 7pm. Two weeks ago Councilor Villarreal introduced the concept of moving forward conditionally with the condition being that the software company is able to obtain certification of the software. But a resolution to not move forward and Lindell, Rivera, Harris and Trujillo voted to not proceed with RCV, narrowly winning their motion 4-3. But since then, the Secretary of State has communicated to the Clerk that the certification is virtually certain to be achieved. What’s more, given that the City Charter states that the City must implement RCV when it has the equipment and sofware to do so, not proceeding could subject the City to litigation. Perhaps by raising our voices, we can convince the Council to reverse direction and approve implementation of RCV. Click here for speaking points and contact information for all City Councilors. Councilor Ives who was absent last meeting and Councilor Rivera, who is rumored to be vacillating on this are the most important Councilors to contact. Remember, in all communication, phone, email, and testimony, be civil and respectful. It is fine to be critical; it is not okay to be uncivil.
Retake the Roundhouse, Round II: An Emerging Strategy to Identify Democrats Who Impeded Passage of Progressive Legislation in 2017 and Apply Some Heat. In November, the Democrats retook the Roundhouse, but in the 2017 legislative session a great many bills failed to even get to either the House or Senate floor for a vote. Why? Retake is developing a strategy through which we will identify committees where good bills dies and specific legislators who impeded passage of progressive legislation and develop a better understanding of how the legislative process actually works. This strategy is still in its formative stages and you can impact the development of the strategy by getting involved.
When we attended the Democratic Party fundraiser at the Mayor’s home (thank you Mayor), State DPNM Chair Richard Ellenberg spoke of how the Democratic Party was launching canvassing to tell voters what the Democratic Party stands for. When he said this, my question was: “What exactly does it stand for?” This strategy directly addresses this identity crisis for part of our work will be to develop a progressive platform of no more than 8-10 legislative priorities and work with the DPNM platform committee to incorporate those priorities as a preamble to the more lengthy platform. With a set of clear legislative priorities, Democratic Party canvassers would be able to clearly describe exactly what the Party stands for. Click here for a full discussion of this strategy. Retake is holding a planning meeting on this strategy on Tuesday from 6pm-7:30pm at 1420 Cerrillos. Click here to RSVP on Facebook or email us at volunteer4retake@gmail.com. This is going to be an extremely impactful effort.
Thursday, July 20th, 6pm-8pm, 1420 Cerrillos. Activist Research Team. Our Research work has taken a shift and has become for more directly relevant to state and local policies. On the 20th, we are beginning with a deep dive into gentrification in Santa Fe. We will discuss the Chainbreaker report: Equitable Development and Risk of Displacement and Chainbreaker’s People’s Platform. Click here to review the Report. Click here to review the People’s Platform. Click here to RSVP on Facebook or simply write to volunteer4retake@gmail.com. We encourage you to bring friends and if you want to select one or more of the planks from the 10-point People’s Platform and do a bit of digging, we want to identify effective programs, policies and initiatives that have been implemented in other communities that relate to the platform. As the Retake the Roundhouse II group identifies 8-10 legislative priorities, this research team will then look for evidence underscoring the impact and efficacy of those policies.
Canvassing News. Lastly, we have made a slight change in the canvassing strategy we introduced, as we want to hold off on using a technique called Deep Canvassing until our canvassers are better steeped in the concepts of gentrification, equity, and displacement. Instead we will launch canvassing with a “community conversations” approach which is MUCH easier to implement. We will work in pairs and go door-to-door on their own block and surrounding neighborhood. Community Conversations Listening is more about listening and sharing stories with your neighbors and is a deeply satisfying experience. You will share a flyer about just how unjust our city is and then ask the resident how s/he feels about it. You will talk about that reaction and then ask about other issues either at the state, national or local level that the resident is concerned about. Canvassers will ask those who are concerned about equity to sign up to be active or to receive information, but you will not try to dissuade those who are not moved by the equity flyer. You will thank them for their time, make a note in your contract form and you will return in 4-6 weeks to do deep canvassing once you are more comfortable speaking about gentrification in Santa Fe. This is how we will build a citywide base committed to social and economic justice. Beginning the end of July, Retake will be offering a weekly one-hour orientation to Community Conversations Listening where we will provide scripts, contact forms and flyers and demonstrate the Community Conversations Listening technique and after the training you will be ready to go out and meet your neighbors. If you are interested in finding out more about canvassing, please write to volunteer4retake@gmail.com.
That’s it for today.
In solidarity,
Paul & Roxanne
Heartening to Hear Civility, Honesty, Integrity and Truth Once Again
Bernie notes that the 8 richest people on earth own more wealth than half the earth’s population. Bernie makes many of his same points, but zeroes in on how he feels the Democratic Party must shift if it hopes to avert more election catastrophes and the lessons to learn from Jeremy Corbyn’s shocking performance in England’s vote last month. Sharing this in part as his points echo mine from Sunday’s post, click here if you missed it as it reviewed the last 8 years on the national level and the last Roundhouse session, with suggestions as to how the state and national Party must change and what Retake is going to do about it. But the real reason I included this today is because it was nice just to hear what a honest, progressive politician with integrity sounds like. At 37 minutes in, he really takes on Trump. And at 41minutes in, he takes on the Democratic Party. Cheers.
Categories: Democratic Party Reform, election reform
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