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Action Alert: Sign Up To Phonebank Into Battleground Congressional Districts

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Indivisibles —

We’re grieving. We’re mad. We’re facing a long road ahead of us to retake power.

But we’re also just 30 days out from the midterm elections.

That’s 4 weekends of giving it everything we’ve got. There’s a blue wave building all over the country, and every one of us — from the brightest blue districts to the deepest red districts — must chip in to help however we can. Because we know that we don’t win the House, the Senate, or key governorships unless we leave it all on the field before November 6.

Can you sign up for a phonebanking shift this week? We’re phonebanking each. and. every. day. until this election is over to support the great work Indivisibles are doing on the ground in their districts and states.

Here’s who we’re phonebanking this week:

  1. Progressive voters in Ohio in support of the Ohio Neighborhood Safety Amendment. This ballot initiative will bring much needed criminal justice reform and reinvest millions of dollars into drug treatment and community-based recovery programs.
  2. Voters in WA-08 for Kim Schrier
  3. Voters in GA-01 for Lisa Ring
  4. Voters in OH-06 for Shawna Roberts
  5. Voters in TN-03 for Danielle Mitchell
  6. Voters in TN-04 for Mariah Phillips

Can’t make it to a shift this week? We already have shifts scheduled until October 21 and you can sign up for as many shifts as you want until then here.

We’ve said this before but its really, really important: getting involved now through the election in direct voter contact — phonebanking 📞, canvassing 📋, voter registration 🗳 — will push our movement to victory in November.

Sign up for a phonebank shift now and, together, district by district by district, we will reshape what’s politically possible.

In solidarity,
The Indivisible Team

Vouchers Starve Public Schools

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  1. Arizona school vouchers funded by Kochs – Lawmakers enacted the nation’s broadest school vouchers law. The vouchers are touted as giving parents “school choice” and can be spent on private or religious schools. It is not about choice, it is about weakening public schools. The idea of federal subsidies for private schools began in the South after the passage of Brown v. Board of Education (1954) as a way to maintain separate white schools.
  2. Plan to starve public schools – School choice drains money from underfunded public schools. Some schools in Arizona have 40 students to a class and have to ask the public for book donations.
  3. Moms fight back – Six Arizona mothers formed a group, Save Our Schools and set out to collect signatures to get a referendum on the ballot to overturn the voucher law. 75,321 signatures were needed and they submitted 111, 540 signatures to the secretary of state. It is called Proposition 305 and is on the Arizona ballot for November 6.
  4. Money Laundering – Empowerment Scholarship Accounts were approved by the Arizona legislature in 2011. Parents get pre-paid debit cards, funded by tax dollars, if they transfer their children from public schools to home-schooling or private or religious schools.
  5. Two School Systems – Federal and state funding of charter schools, vouchers, and “scholarships” leads to 2 separate school systems which compete for dollars. 90% of students in Arizona attend public schools which are weakened by the diversion of education funds and then declared “failing” when they can’t deliver quality services.
  6. Destruction of Teachers’ Unions – For 20 years, the Koch Brothers (Americans for Prosperity) and Betsy DeVos (Federation of Children) have pushed for the weakening of teachers’ unions. Unions are said to have “too much power.” The ultimate goal of these groups is to turn public education over to private corporations.

Read the full article

 

Action: Attend LCI’s #StopKavanaugh Rally On Saturday, August 26

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On August 26, all across the country, Americans will stand united in commitment to our freedom and our future to demand that the U.S. Senate stop Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination for a lifelong appointment to the Supreme Court.

Lower Cape Indivisible folks will be gathering from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Orleans Rotary to protest the Kavanaugh nomination.  RSVP here.

In Brett Kavanaugh, Donald Trump chose a nominee who not only has extremist, ultra-conservative legal views on a range of issues, but who has repeatedly argued that the Supreme Court should put the president above the law. Donald Trump is at the center of a criminal investigation, and he should not be allowed to pick his own judge and jury.

Kavanaugh would rule against reproductive freedom, health care, the environment, voting rights, workers’ rights, LGBTQ rights, and immigrant rights for generations.

Senators in all fifty states must listen to their constituents, do their jobs to uphold the will of the people, protect the soul of our country and Constitution, and block this nomination. United, we will fight to ensure Brett Kavanaugh never gets confirmed by the Senate. We will #StopKavanaugh. Join us!

Trump’s Tax Reform – A Bad Joke On the Middle Class (2 min read)

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Judy Taylor, Researcher

Donald Trump campaigned on the promise of tax relief for middle class Americans and bragged that the benefits of the GOP’s tax reform bill would go to the middle class, not high earners.  Surprise: that isn’t what happened.  The long-term Republican goal of reducing taxes for the wealthy justified by its “trickle down” theory, combined with the force of Trump’s billionaire cabinet, resulted in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 that benefits wealthy individuals and corporations, largely ignores the middle class, and hugely increase the federal deficit.  Corporate benefits will trickle down—to investors and shareholders.  But that’s not all.  Now the administration is floating the idea of large cut to taxes on investment income worth $100 billion over ten years.  Guess who will benefit?

There is some light at the end of the tunnel—some polls suggest that voters are increasingly aware of the deep inequities of tax “reform,” and that the same Republicans in Congress who voted huge tax breaks to billionaires are also responsible for increases in health care costs to ordinary Americans.

Read the full article

Action Needed Today! Call Gov. Baker To Demand He Sign Automatic Voter Registration Into Law

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Governor Charlie Baker has until the end of the day to sign Automatic Voter Registration into law.

This cannot wait — call his office now at (617)-725-4005 and demand his signature!

Today is the 10th day that Automatic Voter Registration (AVR) has sat unsigned on Governor Baker’s desk. With one stroke of his pen, he could bring this commonsense, bipartisan reform to the Commonwealth and make our elections more participatory and secure. But if he lets the day slip by and takes no action, AVR will be completely scrapped — and we will be forced to start from square one.

We cannot let this happen. Massachusetts deserves a better and more inclusive democracy, and the only way to ensure that AVR is in place by the 2020 presidential elections is for Governor Baker to sign it into law today. The bill had strong bipartisan votes in both chambers of the legislature (including a unanimous vote in the Senate) and is supported by key officials like Secretary of State William Galvin and Attorney General Maura Healey.

AVR is a popular, commonsense reform that’s proven to work — and there is no reason for Governor Baker not to sign it. Call him TODAY at (617)-725-4005!

In other states like Oregon, California, and Vermont, AVR has already delivered serious results. The reform has registered hundreds of thousands of new voters nationwide, while also securing elections with more accurate and up-to-date voter rolls. Now, when faith in the electoral process is more fragile than ever, we cannot afford to let this opportunity for a crucial win in Massachusetts slip by.

Your voice has been vital in the campaign so far, and we know we can count on you one last time. So let’s mobilize — call, email, and tell your friends! It’s time to get Automatic Voter Registration over the finish line.

Call (617)-725-4005 NOW and tell Governor Baker that it’s time to bring AVR to Massachusetts.

Thanks for all you do,

Pam Wilmot, Executive Director
and the team at Common Cause Massachusetts

Action: Oppose the Citizenship Question in the Census (Time-Sensitive)

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U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross has directed the Commerce Department to include a citizenship question on the 2020 U.S. Census.

Including this question will discourage participation and impact the data collected, particularly in under-served areas.

The League of Women Voters is asking all League members to submit a comment opposing this question to the Commerce Department using this LWVUS link.

You can use the prepared text in the LWVUS link or substitute your own comments. It only takes a minute.

Here’s a New York Times article  on why an accurate Census is crucial.

The deadline to comment is Tuesday, Aug. 7.