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Red to Blue HQ grand opening

By Ward Kanowsky

Representative Eric Swalwell (CA-15) hosted the grand opening of the “Red-to-Blue” headquarters at the IBEW Union Hall in Dublin, California on September 15, 2018.  The Hall is being made available through the mid-term elections to organizations who want to help GOTV (Get Out the Vote) through activities like phone banking and postcarding in battleground districts across the country.

At the grand opening, an overflow crowd had the option to phone bank in support of Jessica Morse, who is running against incumbent Tom McClintock in CA-4, or Colin Allred in Texas, or J.D. Scholten in Iowa. These were three of the “Future 40 Candidates” highlighted by Rep. Swalwell, a group of young, diverse candidates spread out across the country.

Future 40 Candidates

Indivisible East Bay has signed up to take advantage of the use of the Hall, with both postcarding and phone banking events planned on Saturday, October 6. More info and RSVP here. Hope to see you there!

Can’t make it, or want to find out other opportunities to help win back the House and Senate at the mid-terms? Check out our calendar!

Photographs by Ward Kanowsky. 

Ward Kanowsky is co-lead, with LeAnn Kanowsky, of the Indivisible East Bay CA-15 Team.

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SB 10: A good bill gone bad

Action deadline: ASAP – We had hoped that state Senate Bill 10 would end money bail in California. Unfortunately, by the time it was passed by both houses of the state legislature, it codified many of the problems it was originally intended to cure.

Money bail keeps one in three people in jail after arrest because they can’t afford to pay bail – in California that averages $50,000! – or instead pay a big, nonrefundable bond to a private bail bond company. In other words, bail disproportionately keeps the poor and people of color in jail. The State Senate passed SB 10 but at the last minute, the Assembly amended the bill in ways to let local courts create their own systems to decide who can or can’t be released. Those systems can’t impose monetary conditions for release, but it’s easy to imagine situations in which local prejudices favor and disfavor the same people as under the current system. As San Francisco Public Defender Jeff Adachi says, “this is not the bail reform California needs.” And with mere days to go in the legislative session, the Senate approved the amended version of SB 10.

What you can do:

MOST IMPORTANT: Tell Jerry Brown to veto SB 10.

Call: (916) 445-2841
email: leg.unit@gov.ca.gov
Tweet: @JerryBrownGov

What to say:

My name is _______________, my zip code is ____, and I’m a member of Indivisible East Bay. I am calling to urge Governor Brown to VETO SB 10. I support abolishing cash bail in California, but the amendments to SB 10 have changed it so that it isn’t real bail reform any more. It allows pretrial detention so that people who are arrested can be held without due process for nearly 2 weeks. It let judges decide who stays in jail based on their subjective determination, instead of giving them an objective risk assessment tool. Please VETO this bill, and tell the legislature that you want real bail reform instead.

Then, if you still have time: Please tell your state representatives that you’re disappointed that they voted for phony bail reform rather than the real thing.

What to say:

My name is ___, my zip code is ___, and I’m a member of Indivisible East Bay. I’m disappointed that you voted yes on SB 10. I support the abolition of cash bail in California, but the amendments to SB 10 in the Assembly let judges decide who stays in jail based on their subjective determination, instead of giving them an objective risk assessment tool. They allow pretrial detention so that people who are arrested can be held without due process for nearly 2 weeks. This isn’t real bail reform and you should have voted NO on SB 10.

Graphic: © ACLU of Northern California

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Swalwell’s Swell Town Hall

On August 11, 2018, Representative Eric Swalwell (CA-15) spoke to an enthusiastic audience at his “How Can I Help? A Campaign Town Hall & Midterm Election Kickoff.” The purpose was to get the audience geared up for the upcoming midterms, particularly upcoming House races. To facilitate engagement in these efforts, Rep. Swalwell is opening an office in Dublin where people can take action to help with Democratic races. The space will have areas for phone and text banking and also for writing postcards. On the weekends, the office will serve as a coordination point for events out in the field, such as canvassing. Located at the IBEW Local 595 (6250 Village Pkwy, Dublin), the space is scheduled to open on September 4. Rep. Swalwell encouraged the audience to use this space to work toward getting the candidate(s) of their choice elected.  He recommended that everyone pick one or two candidates that they really want to help get elected, as it’s easier to focus on a small number, and you’ll feel more accomplished if your candidates win!

During the Q&A period, someone asked about election security and whether our ballots were going to be secure. Rep. Swalwell said that although election security is very important, the concerns should not be sensationalized, as it may cause some folks to sit out the election because they will think their votes won’t matter. Instead, he said, we should focus on getting everyone out to vote rather than worry about hacking.

An audience member also asked Rep. Swalwell if he’d be willing to co-sign House Joint Resolution 48, which would overturn Citizens United. Both Representative DeSaulnier and Lee have co-signed it already, and Swalwell said he is supportive and will look into co-signing.

Overall, it was a motivating gathering full of people eager to help take back Congress.  All CA-15 residents should consider joining Rep. Swalwell’s office on this fight!

Excited to join Indivisible East Bay’s CA-15 team? Email us to get started!

Photograph by Janine Costanzo

 

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Go Time on Two Good Bills

By the Indivisible East Bay Voter Rights and Election Integrity team

Action deadline – ASAP! 

Great news! Thanks to your help in making calls, two good California bills that Indivisible East Bay supported, AB 2188 (Social Media Disclose Act) and AB 3115 (Jails: Voter Education Program), passed out of committee and are scheduled to be voted on by the full state senate. Read our prior articles for more info and background, see list below.    

  • AB 2188: Deadline: August 30 – Ads on social media are not always what they seem and many of them have been doing some serious damage to our democratic process. Free speech should be public. Make everyone show their names and faces if they’re paying to change our minds.  The vote for this bill will not be held until August 30.
  • UPDATE Aug. 26, 2018: IT IS UNCLEAR WHAT OCCURRED WITH THIS BILL, BUT FOR NOW WE ARE NOT RECOMMENDING ANY ACTION. AB 3115: Deadline: ASAP – IEB supported AB 3115’s passage in the Assembly because it gives people with criminal convictions who still have the right to vote a chance to become participating citizens again. 

Please call your California State Senator ASAP: 

You can mention both bills during your call. What to say:

My name is ____. My zip code is ____ and I’m a member of Indivisible East Bay. I’m calling to ask the Senator to vote YES on two important voter bills. First, about AB 2188 –  we shouldn’t be subject to political ads on social media like Facebook without knowing who paid for them. Free speech should be public and accountable.

UPDATE 8/26/18: DO NOT USE THIS PORTION OF THE SCRIPT: Second, about AB 3115 – we should do everything we can to reduce barriers to voter registration. Increasing voter education and voting access to thousands of people in California jails will improve civic participation and public safety, and it’s the right thing to do. 

I strongly urge Senator ____ to vote yes on AB 2188 and AB 3115. Thank you.

  • District 7, (Contra Costa) Senator Steve Glazer, (916) 651-4007
  • District 9 (Alameda & Contra Costa), Senator Nancy Skinner, (916) 651-4009
  • District 10 (Alameda & Santa Clara), Senator Bob Wieckowski, (916) 651-4010
  • District 11 (San Francisco): Senator Scott Wiener, (415) 557-1300
  • District 15 (San Jose area): Senator Jim Beall, (916) 651-4015
  • Tell your friends in other districts to call their senators. Search here or see list at this link.

We’ve been busy – and so have you, making calls and following these important bills. Read our articles:

 

Are you interested in working with the IEB Voter Rights and Election Integrity team? Send us an email or join the voting-issues channel on IEB’s Slack.

Graphic © California Clean Money Campaign

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Tracking down Senator Feinstein

On the morning of August 11, 2018, IEB members tracked down Senator Dianne Feinstein at a campaign office-warming for San Francisco Supervisor Catherine Stefani. It was a very cozy event of the kind Sen. Feinstein clearly (and understandably) prefers to open town halls — though during her remarks she did say something about envying Supervisor Stefani’s ability to get out and meet her constituents in her small district, compared to a whole state. That was a little galling from someone whom we’ve barely seen try to meet with the general public.

But the event was also kind of sweet in its way. Along with Sen. Feinstein, several SF women politicians came out to support Supervisor Stefani, including Mayor London Breed and State Treasurer Candidate Fiona Ma. Senator Feinstein led the crowd in a chorus of “Happy Birthday Your Honor the Mayor” and all of the younger women appeared genuinely starstruck to be there with one of their role models, whom a couple of them jokingly compared to Taylor Swift. Certainly, it was heartwarming to see this group of women come together to support each other and marvel at how much has changed — and how much has stayed the same — since Sen. Feinstein was the second woman (first elected) on the SF Board of Supervisors.

But the real reason we were there was to talk to Sen. Feinstein about Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court. We politely cornered her near the exit, shook her hand, and thanked her for everything she was doing, all her letters and tweets. We told her we were also working hard to fight the Kavanaugh nomination. As she edged away up the stairs, we told her we wanted to see action from the Democrats. She stopped, turned back to us and said that they would take action, but that we couldn’t win. As we looked at her, dismayed, she reframed the statement: Democrats in the Senate need Republicans to vote with them, and that to get that, we probably need some new information to come out. We agreed and told her we were working on both of those things too.

It’s clear that she hasn’t given up, and that she will keep up the fight to the best of her ability no matter what, but it’s also clear that she needs our calls and encouragement to build her strength and resolve. Because if we don’t win this fight, it won’t be because it was impossible; it will be because it was very hard and too many of us gave up. We need to make her believe that we can win, and we need to believe it ourselves because that’s the only way we have a chance.

Please contact both senators today and say:

My name is ______, my zip code is _________ and I’m a member of Indivisible East Bay. Thank you for everything you’ve done to protect the Supreme Court. Please keep fighting the Kavanaugh nomination and rallying your constituents. We are winning the battle for public opinion. Most Americans support reproductive rights, workers’ rights, and the ACA. We need to keep showing more of them that Kavanaugh threatens those things, and keep showing vulnerable Republicans how much they have to lose.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein: (email); (415) 393-0707 • DC: (202) 224-3841

Sen. Kamala Harris: (email); (415) 355-9041 • DC: (202) 224-3553

 

ameliacass Actions, Contact, Events, Get Involved, Uncategorized, Volunteer Opportunity, Who We Are

Canvassing with Indivisible Northern Nevada

At the Indivisible East Bay July All Member Meeting, two of our colleagues from Indivisible Northern Nevada gave a presentation about their efforts identifying issues that matter to voters in the Reno area as part of the campaign to get out the vote to unseat Senator Dean Heller, identified as one of the most vulnerable Republican Senators. They were so inspiring that in early August, 2018, a group of IEB members traveled to Reno to attend the 2018 Lake Tahoe Summit and to canvass and register voters in northern Nevada with our Indivisible colleagues. 

Our Indivisible Northern Nevada hosts, all women, greeted us at the picnic tables at Reno’s Idlewild Park with coffee, orange juice, and three kinds of pastries all laid out on a floral tablecloth. After an enthusiastic welcome, some wrangling of the MiniVan app, and a little roleplaying, we were ready to talk to some voters. The goal was to identify issues the voters cared about and decide what, if any, further contact to plan with them. We split into pairs; my partner Ruth happened to live nearby so we decided to start in her neighborhood, which made it very easy to find the addresses that popped up on my phone. 

The first person we talked to was a stocky man with a sunburn who came out around the side of his house smoking a cigar. As planned, we asked him what issues he was thinking about in the upcoming election. He said he was pretty happy with how things were going for him, and would stay happy as long as his taxes were low. We probably could have said “thank you for your time” right then and there and taken him off the list. But he was polite and reasonably friendly, if a little smug, so we pressed a little further, asking what he thought of the state of Reno’s infrastructure and about recent changes to the federal tax code. He said he got a $10K tax cut and that if Reno outgrew its infrastructure he’d just move somewhere else. Then his wife came out to tell him his mom was on the phone and we were able to make a graceful exit.

Our next experience was happier. We talked to a young woman just out of nursing school who came to the door in a bathrobe with a towel on her head, yet was happy to chat with the strangers at the door about her top issues: student debt and cost of living. With her busy life, she didn’t know anything about the candidates for Senate or other upcoming elections, but she promised to educate herself by November, and to vote. After consulting in the car, we decided that we didn’t need to send anyone back to talk to her more about the issues and we marked her “GOTV” so that someone would call or visit to remind her to vote.

After a few unanswered knocks, we came to a house that seemed to have no door. The front of the house was a row of garages and at closer inspection there was a door at the back of one of them. We ventured inside to knock, and retreated back to the driveway. Just when we were giving up and turning to leave, a white-haired woman who looked to be in her seventies opened the door. She said she hadn’t really thought about the issues or which ones were most important to her. When we suggested some common answers like health care, jobs and the economy, or the environment, she said that “all those things must be important to anyone who’s alive” but didn’t really offer anything further.  She talked about a need for balance and cooperation in government and seemed mildly enthusiastic about the fact that so many women are getting involved and running for office right now. Back in the car, we decided that she probably could use another conversation to make her feel that her vote mattered and to be sure she knew which candidates agreed with her on the issues and would bring balance to Washington: we marked her “MAYBE.”

Even our Trumpiest door knock was calm and cordial, probably in part because we identified ourselves as non-partisan and asked for information rather than giving it. A middle-aged woman on crutches told us that she thought things were “finally on the right track” now that Trump was in office. We felt sad for her, suspecting that she is one of those supporters who is actually hurt by the president’s policies, but got a certain amount of satisfaction out of emphatically taking her off our list for future visits.

At our next stop, we met a man whose top issue was immigration. He said straight off that we definitely need “some” immigration to get people to do the jobs that Americans don’t want to do. He also said that people who enter the country without permission are “breaking the law” and should face consequences, and should need to prove that they haven’t come to do harm. But he was kind of wavering on whether it was okay to lock them all up in detention for fleeing violence or seeking a better life for their families. We marked him down as a strong MAYBE, almost envying the interesting conversation in store for the volunteer who comes back to engage him further about the facts around immigration and how to vote in alignment with his beliefs.

Our last conversation of the day was with a young father whose front yard was full of children’s toys, and who was the only non-white person we came across in that neighborhood. It was a short visit both because he was obviously busy and because it was pretty clear right away that he was a strong progressive informed on the issues and in favor of Medicare for all. We marked him “GOTV” and both sort of regretted that we didn’t at least ask if he wanted to volunteer; but it hadn’t occurred to us until after the moment had passed.

The group reconvened back at the park to discuss our experiences and talk about what we want to do better next time. The canvassers were energized, feeling good about people’s responses to getting questions about their opinions and priorities rather than being asked to support a candidate or fed a party line. Some also expressed a sense that out of all these voters who had registered as non-partisan, more were leaning leftward than rightward on the issues.

As for our goals to do better next time, we all thought we needed some more strategies to draw out relatively uninformed people in naming their top issues. And we noted our inclination to spend perhaps too many of our valuable canvasing minutes having long conversations with enthusiastic progressives, but decided there was value in that too both for our own morale and theirs.

Certainly my own morale was lifted by the trip, especially meeting the Indivisible Nevadans who fed us, opened their guestrooms to us, and taught us how to make connections with their neighbors and community.

If you’d like to join next time please fill out this form.

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Don’t Expose Protesters to Alt-Right Retaliation

Tell the media they’re putting people in harm’s way

Did you read about how the media put protesters against white supremacists and neo-Nazis in danger of reprisals by the far right? No? Berkeley, we have a problem.

On August 5, 2018, Berkeley witnessed another “Say No to Marxism” rally. This rally built on the momentum of a similar gathering in Portland the day before, for which organizers recruited big names in the far-right. Although Amber Cummings, the Berkeley event’s main organizer, vehemently denied any association with America’s white supremacist movement, she has fought alongside them in the street – and as in Portland, some major white supremacy groups were invited to the rally, including Patriot Prayer, the Proud Boys, and American Guard. Cummings invited alt-right speakers including Bay Area Proud Boy Jeffrey Perrine, who became infamous at an earlier far-right rally where he called for immigrants’ heads to be “smashed against the concrete” and to “separate their kids.” After the event gained negative publicity, the Proud Boys’ leader, Gavin McInnes, pulled his official endorsement, and the American Guard were disinvited; but Perrine and other well-known white supremacists were still photographed at the rally.

On the morning of August 5th, a wide coalition of community groups came together to counter-protest. From the beginning, police arrested counter-protesters for infractions such as wearing masks and carrying sign posts to a political protest. And before we go any further: We understand that some people feel uneasy in the presence of protesters wearing masks, but we ask you to consider these facts:

  • Some of those most vulnerable to alt-right attacks, including people of color and LGBTQIA folk, feel a strong need to conceal their identities from white supremacists. Like other people about whom we read far too often, they can find themselves in trouble for no reason other than simply existing while being black or brown or gay; they may have no intent to do anything to harm anyone, but may rely on masks to protect themselves from being identified and bullied or worse once the protest is over.
  • That’s no idle fear: publicly posting the identities of counter-protestors for harassment and death threats is a common white supremacist tactic.
  • Thus, by arresting those wearing masks, police may be endangering precisely the people who need the most protection from white supremacists.

In light of this, what followed played right into the hands of the alt-right. The Berkeley Police Department tweeted the mugshots, full names, ages, and locations of those they arrested, and news outlets, including NBC Bay Area, CBS and Berkeleyside, reported their full names, ages and towns of residence – leaving vulnerable community members open to future harassment, death threats, and attacks by violent white supremacists.

Regardless of whether or not the protesters committed a crime – and no one had been charged at the time of reporting! – this kind of release of information does not further justice. Rather, it puts those arrested at a serious risk of violence and harassment from the far-right, incites fear, and has a chilling effect on the number of people willing to attend future protests. This matters. We as a community need to be able to show up when our friends, loved ones, and neighbors feel threatened. We need to know that we can show strength and solidarity and stand up to bigotry without fear of being targeted. And we need to know that local publications will not publish our personal information and make it easy for the people who wish us harm to find us.  Tell Berkeleyside, CBS and NBC (for CBS and NBC, please write a comment after the article) that we will not accept this dangerously negligent reporting or public shaming and that they do not represent us in their actions.

What you can say:

My name is ______ and I’m a member of Indivisible East Bay. I am outraged by your decision to publish the names, ages, and hometowns of those arrested at the August 5 rally and march in Berkeley. Alt-right organizations like those participating in this rally have a stated policy of exposing, harassing and threatening those who oppose them; your actions endanger members of our community and further embolden the far right in their tactics of violence and intimidation. I am asking you to remove this information from your article and commit to not repeating this sort of action that directly puts lives in danger.

Tell Your Members of Congress: Oppose H.R. 6054

Meanwhile, on the national front, there’s H.R.6054-Unmasking Antifa Act of 2018. This bill provides:

Whoever, whether or not acting under color of law, while in disguise, including while wearing a mask, injures, oppresses, threatens, or intimidates any person in any State, Territory, Commonwealth, Possession, or District in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him by the Constitution or laws of the United States, or because of his having so exercised the same, shall be fined under this title, imprisoned not more than 15 years, or both.

Let’s unpack that. It means, you could get put in jail, if you:

  • are exercising your free speech/assembly rights
  • while wearing a mask (what’s a mask? more on that in a minute)
  • and you injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate anyone – whatever that means.

Now you’d think that:

  • you’re not supposed to injure, oppress etc. anyone anyway
  • and that should apply to everyone no matter their political beliefs (the law specifically doesn’t apply to the police, which is a whole other story).

– but, as Vice says, “After all, it’s pretty clear whom something called the ‘Unmasking Antifa Act of 2018’ is meant to target.”

Now, we know that there are folks on all parts of the political spectrum who don’t like Antifa, and many who don’t condone violence under any circumstances. That’s an important discussion, but it isn’t necessary to get into here, and this is why:

  • You might think this law doesn’t appeal to you, but you might be very wrong. I’ve never gone to a protest in a mask but I’ve pulled a scarf across my mouth and nose when stink bombs went off. That counts as a “mask.” And who knows but someone might hear me say something against the Current Occupant of the White House and claim that I intimidated them?
  • And it isn’t much of a stretch to imagine someone calling the police on a group of young people of color who are wearing masks and making a lot of noise – say, on October 31 …
  • Bottom line: Do you really want this government – which calls the media the enemy of the people and prosecutes non-violent people for being journalists or carrying medical supplies at protests – passing laws that by their very name are aimed at jailing protestors on the left?

Please tell your Member of Congress:

My name is ____, my zip code is ____ and I am a member of Indivisible East Bay. Please speak out against HR 6054, Unmasking Antifa Act of 2018. This government should not be passing unnecessary and poorly conceived laws that by their very name are aimed at protestors against white supremacists, at a time when the government is failing to take adequate action against white supremacists and supremacist organizations themselves. Please keep HR 6054 from becoming law.

  • Sen. Dianne Feinstein: (email); (415) 393-0707 • DC: (202) 224-3841
  • Sen. Kamala Harris: (email); (415) 355-9041 • DC: (202) 224-3553
  • Rep. Mark DeSaulnier: (email); (510) 620-1000 • DC: (202) 225-2095
  • Rep. Barbara Lee: (email); (510) 763-0370 • DC: (202) 225-2661
  • Rep. Eric Swalwell: (email); (510) 370-3322 • DC: (202) 225-5065
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YES on SB 100 – 100% clean energy for CA

Deadline – August 30, 2018

While the Current Occupant of the White House is working to Make America Oil-Friendly Again, California is working on going 100% for clean energy with SB 100-the 100 Percent Clean Energy Act. That means cleaner energy for buildings, industry and transportation without fossil fuels.

SB 100 accelerates the state’s primary renewable energy program, known as the Renewables Portfolio Standard (RPS), which currently requires that 33% of the state’s electricity come from renewable resources by 2020 and 50% by 2030; we are on track and some say well ahead of schedule to meet those goals. SB 100 goes further, requiring that 60% of the state’s electricity come from eligible renewable sources by the year 2030, and that the remaining 40% of the electricity mix come from eligible renewable resources or other zero-carbon resources by 2045. The Union of Concerned Scientists believes that given progress to date, “meeting 100% of California’s electricity needs with zero-carbon resources is a bold goal, but achieving it is within reach.”

After failing to pass the Assembly in 2017, on July 3, 2018, SB 100 passed out of the Assembly Committee on Utilities and Energy and is scheduled for a vote on the Assembly floor in mid-August. The Assembly has until August 31 to pass all bills.

California has led the nation in the transition from coal to clean energy resources and has the chance with SB 100 to continue to be a leader in combating climate change, which is the single biggest threat to our health and economic stability statewide. And renewable energy has been a boon for green jobs, innovation, and investment in California. Please contact your Assemblymember to support SB 100.

Read more about SB 100.

What to say:

My name is ____, my zip code is ____, and I’m a member of Indivisible East Bay. I’m calling to ask Assemblymember ___ to vote YES on SB 100. I support the goal of powering California with 100% clean electricity by 2045. California needs to move toward this goal as quickly as possible because global warming and extreme weather and fire are threatening the state as never before. SB 100 can help create jobs, clean our air, improve health conditions and prevent damage to our whole state. Let’s have California be a leader in taking this crucial step. Please vote YES on SB 100.

IEB is grateful to the Union of Concerned Scientists for information and material used in this article.

Photograph by Circe Denyer

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Keep California Air Clean

By Christina Tarr

Deadline – October 2, 2018

Back in 2012, the Obama administration (remember them? Sniff…) set an ambitious target for emissions standards: Cars and trucks would achieve a standard of 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025.

There are so many obvious reasons this is a good idea that it seems pointless to even mention them, but here are a few anyway:

Unfortunately, the current administration hates the environment. On August 2, 2018, the Trump Administration released its long-threatened proposal to weaken antipollution and fuel efficiency standards, revoking the 54.5 MPG goal and freezing standards at about 37 MPG after 2021. But wait, it gets worse: the 1970 Clean Air Act grants a waiver to California allowing us to set our pollution standards at a tougher level than the federal government; 13 other states now follow our lead. Currently, 40% of all car sales in the United States take place in California and the thirteen other states operating under waiver — and California’s tougher standard is now the de facto national standard. Big Oil’s Friend in the White House wants to revoke this waiver, meaning that the new, lower federal standard will be the law of the entire land. This is a direct hit at California.

Here’s a great video from Congressman Mark DeSaulnier (CA-11) explaining the whole story.

What you can do:

Submit a comment at Regulations.gov:  

The Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Transportation are taking comments on this ill-advised rollback until end of day (Eastern time) October 2, 2018; and you can write to them here.  Include these points in your comment:

  • Climate change is real. We need to reduce our use of fossil fuels.
  • The automobile industry needs a goal to work toward. It’s in no one’s interest to move the goalposts.
  • Clean air is important for public health.

Take action in California:

Governor Jerry Brown said, “California will fight this stupidity in every conceivable way possible.” California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, 16 other states and the District of Columbia already sued the EPA in May in anticipation of this recent action, and now Attorney General Becerra is planning to lead 19 attorneys general in a new lawsuit against the actual proposal.

Write to Brown and Becerra and thank them for taking action to preserve our state and our nation’s clean car emissions standards:

Governor Edmund G. Brown
c/o State Capitol, Suite 1173
Sacramento, CA 95814

Phone: (916) 445-2841
Fax: (916) 558-3160
Or by email

Attorney General Xavier Becerra
California Department of Justice
Attn: Public Inquiry Unit
P.O. Box 944255
Sacramento, CA 94244-2550

Phone: (800) 952-5225
Fax: (916) 323-5341
Or by email

Let your Members of Congress know your thoughts about the need for strong emission standards for automobiles, and the need for California to set its own standards. Include the same points as above:

  • Sen. Dianne Feinstein: (email); (415) 393-0707 • DC: (202) 224-3841
  • Sen. Kamala Harris: (email); (415) 355-9041 • DC: (202) 224-3553
  • Rep. Mark DeSaulnier: (email); (510) 620-1000 • DC: (202) 225-2095
  • Rep. Barbara Lee: (email); (510) 763-0370 • DC: (202) 225-2661
  • Rep. Eric Swalwell: (email); (510) 370-3322 • DC: (202) 225-5065

 

Christina Tarr is a local librarian with an interest in birds and wild places.

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Kavanaugh’s papers matter. You need to call.

Deadline: Just pick up the phone and call, would it kill you?

You don’t call. You don’t write. You think they don’t notice, but they do.

Back-channel reports to some Indivisible East Bay members confirm what press reports are starting to say: Senators aren’t hearing from their constituents about Brett Kavanaugh, and there’s no groundswell against him.

We know, it’s hard to get all excited about documents, especially with everything else going on, but let’s look at a little history:

  • 1971: during the confirmation hearings of Supreme Court nominee William Rehnquist, who joined the Court in 1972 and served as Chief Justice from 1986-2005, the Senate asked Rehnquist about a memo he wrote as a Supreme Court law clerk. In the memo, Rehnquist said the court’s 1896 ruling upholding racial segregation “was right and should be reaffirmed” – he said nope, that was just the opinion of Justice Robert Jackson, for whom he was clerking. The Senate, because those were gentler times, accepted the excuse; most historians don’t. Things might have been very different if the Democratic-controlled Senate had rejected Rehnquist and another judge had gone on to be approved.

  • 1971: The New York Times published the Pentagon Papers, a previously secret official Department of Defense history of the USA’s involvement in Vietnam. Daniel Ellsberg, who had worked on the papers, released them (without permission). The papers showed that the US carried out actions during the Vietnam War that the Johnson Administration kept secret even from Congress; that the administration had consistently lied about the war; that mainstream media reports about the war were untrue; and that the public was deliberately kept completely in the dark.
  • 1974: 34 years ago this week, on July 30, 1974, after President Nixon had resisted a prolonged attempt to require him to release information about the Watergate affair and other material, he finally complied with the Supreme Court’s decree and released subpoenaed recordings of White House meetings to the special prosecutor. The contents of those recordings, transcripts of which were made public, contributed to his resignation on August 9.
  • 1987: During the Reagan administration, the Tower Commission investigated the so-called Iran-Contra affair. They retrieved backup copies of files from a National Security Council computer mainframe, after NSC staff deleted the original files. Using these files and other documents, the Commission proved that the US government had broken numerous laws by secretly selling weapons to Iran (and also to Iraq) during the Iran-Iraq war.
  • 2017: A letter to Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen and DHS Acting Inspector General John Kelly signed by six Senators, including Kamala Harris, says “We write today deeply alarmed by reports that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has been improperly – and perhaps unlawfully – destroying records of families that it separated at the border. … According to two officials at DHS, records linking children to their parents are mysteriously disappearing or being intentionally destroyed.”

What’s in the documents that Kavanaugh won’t turn over from his tenure in the Bush White House? Well, we don’t know, since we haven’t seen them, although there are now reports that Kavanaugh might have advised President Bush on how to get around the ban on torture during that time, and that we’d find information about this in the records that Judiciary Committee Chair Chuck Grassley won’t supply.

There’s still time to make our voices heard. The SF Chronicle quotes prominent local professor and Constitutional Law expert Rory Little as saying that “a ‘galvanized grassroots movement’ might change the equation.” And even the head of the libertarian/right-wing Federalist Society told the ultra-right wing corporate overlord Koch network that we have a chance to scuttle this nomination. BUT: you need to pick up that phone AND then get all your friends to pick up their phones. Especially your friends who live in Maine and Alaska, home of crucial swing Senators Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski – these Senators felt the heat on health care and voted the right way, but they’re not feeling the pressure now, and they need to.

What to say:

My name is ____. My zip code is ____ and I’m a member of Indivisible East Bay. Thank you for demanding to review all of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh’s relevant documents. Please keep it up! What we know about his views on reproductive rights, health care, and executive power is frightening enough already. I want to know what else is in his record that Republicans are so desperate to hide from the American people.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein: (email); (415) 393-0707 • DC: (202) 224-3841

Sen. Kamala Harris: (email); (415) 355-9041 • DC: (202) 224-3553