Here are the DCCC’s options in a district in which centrist Dems have been squashed twice, so instead of remaining neutral and see if CO voters want to support a progressive, they elect to support a corporate lawyer whose firm defends the gun lobby.
There are a number of actions for this week identified below, followed by links to the blogs for the week focused on an extensive report on the influence of money in politics, a report on the DCCC and analysis of Rep. Carl Trujillo’s voting record. Look for more on the Trujillo -Romero primary this week. And be sure to go to the Actions & Events page for more on the actions below and other ways you can be engaged. Click here to visit the Actions & Events for This Week page.
Actions This Week
Local Action Team Mtg. Monday, April 30 (TODAY), 6-7:15pm at New Energy Economy 343 E. Alameda. The Local Action Team has been organizing around issues in Retake’s People’s Platform, creating plans for members to rotate appearances at City Council meetings to use public comment to educate the Council on policy options, and to match members of the committee with their City Council and begin meeting with them. The team is also focused on school board issues like the one that follows. This is a great way to advocate for social justice at a city level. For more information, contact Jennifer Johnson at gridded@mac.com
Tremendous Youth Development Program for Southside Youth but We Need to Fight For It. Email Action Needed Today and Participation in Santa Fe School Board Meeting Tuesday, 5:30pm at 610 Alta Vista. For roughly the $100K that the district spends on an ROTC program serving 12 students, the district could fund a soccer-themed youth and family development program staffed by part time college students, mostly alums of the SFPS, and trained parents of SFPS students. Kate Noble has proposed to begin with two middle school sites: El Milagro and Ortiz. The project offers weekly soccer as a lure to students and parents, but then offers:
- health/wellness and art;
- parent peer-training using the Abriendo Puertas curriculum;
- monthly workshops on themes that build family strength and resiliency as well as rights, resources and responsibilities;
- leadership training for youth and parents; etc.
The program will also emphasize school attendance and positive social engagement (behavior). The idea for this last one is not to focus so much on behavior modification, but more on developing restorative practices at school. Taken together it is a great concept that would serve 300 students and their families.
We need all of you who know members of the school board to reach out and let them know that you feel that this project is a perfect way to demonstrate the district’s commitment to southside youth. Thus far, only Steve Carillo has expressed opposition to this initiative, which is odd to me as i have always thought of him as an advocate for social justice. But please reach out to board members to voice your support for this great project. if you have a relationship with any of them. Thus far, Steve is the only board member who has spoken out against this initiative. It would also be good to have a number of us at the School Board Meeting to express our support for the program. It would be a good idea to also write to Kate Noble and thank her for her leadership. The message to the Board is simple: If we have $100K to support ROTC, we have to be able to find the same level of resources to serve some of the most under-served students and families in Santa Fe. Click here for contact info for all school board members. This will take you five minutes and can make a difference. Our calls and emails have worked with the City Council, let’s go to bat for our youth at the School Board.
Poor People’s Campaign Santa Fe. Saturday, May 5 11-3pm. The launch of the Poor People’s Campaign is just around the corner. Jennifer Johnson from our Leadership Team has been involved in statewide planning for the PPC. Please join us at this training where you will learn more about how Santa Fe will participate in this national action. Please email newmexico@poorpeoplescampaign.orgto rsvp and be notified as to the location. Find out more about the campaign at https://www.poorpeoplescampaign.org
Monday, May 14th at 2pmthere will be a rally to launch the national campaign at the Roundhouse. In over 40 capital cities across the US, thousands will gather to kick off this galvanizing event. Please join us!
May 5 11-2pm. May 6 2pm-5pm. Canvass in Madrid, Cerrillos and La Cienega for Janene Yazzie Needs You. And NM Needs Janene to Turn Around Our Energy Future. I met with representatives of Yazzie’s campaign Saturday at the Money Out of Politics conference in Santa Fe. Running against an entrenched Commissioner who is well-known in her district, Yazzie, a young Diné activist with a strong commitment to the environment, simply must have more funding to purchase lawn signs and print campaign materials to support canvassers. And she needs volunteers to canvass in areas around ABQ, Madrid, Cerrillos, and La Cienega with a tentative plan for canvassing on Sat., May 5 from 11-2pm and Sun. May 6 from 2-5pm. If you are interested in canvassing on Janene’s behalf, please respond to this email. You will have flyers, scripts and clearly marked walking routes. Click here to contact the campaign to make a donation and please be generous. They need a few $250, and $500 donations along with a whole bunch of small donations. If you would like to canvass in ABQ, Gallup, San Juan or other parts of her district, click the link above and sign up. Someone from her campaign will get back to you. This is our chance to entirely transform NM’s energy future and to accelerate our pivot to a just transition from fossil fuels to renewables and we need our folks to help.
DCCC At It Again: This is NOT OK
Levi Tillemann, an author, inventor, and former official with the Obama administration’s Energy Department, is a champion for “Medicare for All,” free community college, and confronting economic inequality and monopoly power. He is running against a centrist Democrat Democrat, Jason Crow, a corporate lawyer at a Colorado firm Holland & Hart and an Army veteran and as reported in several posts, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee appeared to be tilting the scales toward the centrist. As reported in the Intercept: “In November, it became clearer, as Crow was named by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee to the party’s “Red to Blue” list, which the committee specifies is not an endorsement but does carry symbolic weight. Crow’s first television advertisement focuses on Coffman’s support from the gun lobby, but conservatives have fired back to note that Crow’s law firm lobbies against gun control on behalf of gun manufacturers in Colorado.” So by siding with a corporate attorney who defends the gun lobby, the DCCC removes a strong argument for opposing Coffman.
But it doesn’t end there. From Intercept: “Crow’s work representing corporations accused of misconduct may become a liability in the campaign. Legal filings list Crow’s name on lawsuits defending payday lender Western Sky Financial and fracking firm Slawson Exploration.”
The party continues to believe that the best strategy for retaking the house is to try to lure Trump supporters instead of exciting a young, idealist base and communities of color who felt betrayed by the Dems in 2016. “In 2006, the last cycle viewed as a wave midterm election for Democrats, the DCCC famously became heavily involved in Democratic primaries. In that election, just as in 2018, the party attempted to pick moderate, business-friendly veterans, while nudging left-leaning candidates out of the election. But some of the party’s chosen primary candidates ended up losing, and several candidates viewed as too progressive to win the general in Republican-held districts — such as John Hall, Carol Shea-Porter, and Jerry McNerney — went on to win that election with little to no DCCC support.” But this strategy is precisely why the Dems continue to struggle. “They squash progressive candidates. They destroy the diversity of ideas in their caucus. They keep ideas like ‘Medicare for All,’ free community college, or impeaching Donald Trump from having a significant role in the national conversation,” says Tillemann. “The issues that resonate most with voters are not the issues that the DCCC is telling candidates to focus on.” Click here to review the full Intercept article.
Solid Research on How the Democrats Need to Inspire Their Base
A CNN report describes new research that could point the DCCC and the Democratic Party in an entirely different direction, one that would support candidates like Tillemann. “Studies suggest that some of Trump’s voters will not change their minds in response to any kind of economic policies. The only way for Democrats to win those voters over would be to turn their backs on core constituencies, like college-educated, working women, African-Americans, and immigrants, who have been vital to the party for decades. So, rather than trying to appease the cultural anxieties of white male voters, Democrats should instead focus on offering them economic solutions to their challenges, such as pushing for a robust infrastructure program (polling showed that 53% of white males in states won by Hillary Clinton support an infrastructure initiative), while energizing, organizing, and mobilizing the millions of Americans who were part of the coalition that Barack Obama successfully wove together in 2008 and 2012. It was a coalition that understood that the diversity of this country is its strength, not its weakness. Ultimately, the goal for Democrats should be to convince Trump’s base that this is the only viable future for the democracy.”
I don’t want to excerpt this article, as it would be better for you to just read it in full, as it counters the DCCC’s misguided strategy to ties us to the center. If you want, send a link to Rep. Lujan. Click here to read the full report. It is excellent.
If you want to write to Ben Ray and tell him, yes again, that while we respect what he is trying to do: win seats, that his strategy is doomed to failure, click here for contact info. Personally, I think Rep. Lujan is doing what he thinks will work. Maybe his constituents need to weigh in.
The Week in Review
Some good stuff this past week, beginning with an examination of the degree to which money influences our civic conversation, elections, and legislative processes, a truly frightening summary. The second post focused on the DCCC, a sort of lead in to today’s feature, and then closing with an examination of the voting record of Rep. Carl Trujillo who is locked in a primary battle with Andrea Romero. Plenty worthy of your review.
Money & Politics: It Is Way Worse Than You Think. We Are In Serious Trouble.
Romero vs Trujillo in Dist. 46– Part I: Rep. Trujillo Votes & Donors
Categories: Election, Political Reform & National Politics, Personal & Collective Action
I wonder whether the russians have hacked your site given the constant focus in these times on dem internal problems. I am unsubscribing
I do not think the Russians are responsible for Retake using history, reason, logic and democratic principles to critique the Democratic Party. It turns out that there have been books and articles written about how the Dems have consistently lied and betrayed democratic principles together with the American ‘people’ (not including the top 10%). Lujan is not an isolated instance. It is the whole party machine, its corporate culture, a culture not too different than the Republican party’s. Lujan stays in power, and has power, precisely because he has the support of the party’s culture. This is a strong culture with strong antidemocratic foundations. That’s why I believe that progressives elected to fill posts in the party have little chance to get anything done that does not satisfy the needs of the party’s culture. And those needs are to serve corporate feudalism not democracy!
Simply avoiding “internal” Democratic party issues gets the Democratic Party “nothing”. It is wise for you to “unsubscribe” from a communication that encourages THINKING.
Too many people place their trust in national organizations for historic reasons. The wise always consider exactly who influences, who pays for, and how the agenda gets made. If you are unwilling to consider these questions, you are naively trusting big money to choose what is best for you. You will be disappointed. In the U.S. there is one party (big money) with two names. Many are waking to this fact. Whatever issue you care about, there are democrats undermining that issue today. The DNC has little regard for voters, for issues, and for local government. this is not new. They, like their GOP colleagues, are driven by the enormous costs of campaigns and how to secure funds to keep their jobs in the next election. Wake UP.
I do think that there is a risk in overly aggressive attacks by either wing of the democratic party on the other. Not all center leaning democratic politicians are corporate shills collaborating in a nefarious plot to put america under total corporate control. I’m pretty sure some of them actually believe that the policies that they advocate are in the best interests of their constituents. To see what kind of risks are inherent in litmus tests of ideological purity, one only needs to look at what Grover Norquist and the rest of the conservative purity police have done to the Republican Party.
It is certainly legitimate to critique the party for ‘pre-selecting’ candidates in smoke filled rooms (even if the democratic party’s smoke probably isn’t from cigars these days). It is also legitimate to criticize party strategy and advocate for alternatives, but this doesn’t justify disparaging the motives of others in the party.
You are right but I believe we need to re-define some terms. Like Center. Where is the Democratic party’s center today? Or better, how far right from true center is the party’s ideology, strategies and vision for the nation? We need to accept the fact that, during the last 1/2 a century the plutocratic agenda to move the whole country to the right has been quite successful.We also need to accept the fact that it all happened, and is happening today, with the wilful collaboration of the Democrats!
Eduardo, for me the ‘center’ is that portion of the party that tends to put more weight on the issues of jobs and pay for the working class (those that don’t have a college degree) and the problems of small businesses. At times, the interests of these groups are at odds with those of the progressive wing of the party on issues such as additional regulation, environmental issues and certain tax questions.
For example, the (non-government employee) unions will be on the opposite side of many environmental issues to the progressive wing of the party. (The XL pipeline, for example). One side is prioritizing the environment, while the other, the economic welfare of a group that may otherwise have limited options. Neither side is necessarily ‘wrong’ or ‘right’ (or for that matter, right or left) – they simply have different priorities. Another example is provided by the sugar tax vote, in which the primarily working class south-side of Santa Fe (where most people with kids live as well) voted overwhelmingly against the sugar tax as a job killer, the financial burden of which would fall primarily on them.