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Support AB 857, Public Banking

By Sylvia Chi

Deadline: now and ongoing –

In recent years, a lot more people have started thinking about who’s running their banks, and who’s profiting – and whether they’re the ones who are losing. Now, California Assembly Bill 857 proposes to allow local governments to apply for a banking license from the state, so cities, counties, or regions could establish their own public banks. The legislation is sponsored by the California Public Banking Alliance (CPBA), a statewide coalition of grassroots advocates representing areas ranging from San Diego to Eureka, as well as Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area, Beneficial State Foundation, and Friends of the Earth. The East Bay is home to CPBA member Public Bank East Bay (formerly Friends of the Public Bank of Oakland), one of the pioneers of the public banking movement in the United States, and we’re calling on our state legislators to sign on as co-authors of this bill. Scroll down to see what you can do to help!

In short, a public bank is one that’s owned by a government, accountable to the public, and managed by professional bankers. (For a longer description, check out Wikipedia.) In the US, the main example of a public bank is the Bank of North Dakota (BND), a state-owned institution founded in 1919 that holds state and other public deposits. BND functions mainly as a bankers’ bank, partnering with local community banks and credit unions to issue loans. It has few retail functions, but its partnership with local financial institutions makes North Dakota home to one of the most robust local banking sectors in the country.

AB 857 would allow local governments in California to create their own versions of BND, strengthening our local financial institutions and keeping our public money in the local economy. Currently, Wall Street banks are the only option for banking services for most local governments. These banks enjoy record profits and anticipate regulatory rollbacks. But why should our communities support them, since they profit from financing and enabling precisely the same fossil fuels, private prisons, destruction of communities, and other reprehensible activities that our communities are actively fighting? Public banks can be a much-needed alternative to the mega-banks, help counteract the risky trend towards bank consolidation, and serve as a source of strength for local economies. They can even help finance the projects proposed in the Green New Deal.

Public banking is possible right here in the East Bay. The city councils of Oakland, Berkeley, and Richmond, together with the Alameda County Board of Supervisors, authorized a feasibility study for a regional public bank, which reached positive conclusions. After reviewing the study, the Finance and Management Committee of Oakland City Council voted to forward the study to the full City Council, which accepted it. The next step toward creating a public bank for the East Bay is to develop a business plan and apply for a license – which doesn’t exist yet. We need AB 857 to pass so the East Bay can move forward on creating our own local public bank.

AB 857 is gaining support in the state legislature, but the East Bay’s representatives haven’t yet signed on. Let them know you want them to support and co-author AB 857!

What you can do:

Ask your state senator and assemblymember to commit to co-authoring and supporting AB 857. If you don’t know who your state representatives are, enter your address here to find out.

What to say:

My name is _______, I’m a constituent, and I am a member of Indivisible East Bay. I support public banking as a way to strengthen the local economy. We need to pass AB 857 so the East Bay can move forward on creating our own local public bank. A public bank can help the East Bay by providing low-interest loans for underserved small businesses and affordable-housing developers, and for building needed public infrastructure. Please co-author and support AB 857.

  • Senator Nancy Skinner (email) 510-286-1333 (district) or 916-651-4009 (Capitol)
  • Assemblymember Rob Bonta (email) 510-286-1670 (district) or 916-319-2018 (Capitol)

  • Assemblymember Buffy Wicks (email) 510-286-1400 (district) or 916-319-2015 (Capitol)

 

Sylvia Chi is a member of Public Bank East Bay and legislative chair of the California Public Banking Alliance.

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Sign on! Petition and bills to reform charter school laws

By Emily Filloy

Deadline: Now and ongoing –

Are you sick and tired of billionaires backing charter schools, while public schools scramble to pay teachers a living wage?

The proliferation of charter schools and the disastrous effect they have on our public schools was brought to the public’s attention in the recent Los Angeles and Oakland teachers strikes. In the Oakland Unified School District alone, charters cost the district $57 million a year—plenty to give the teachers the raise they need. Now that former Governor Jerry Brown is no longer blocking the road to any charter law reform, legislators have proposed a package of reform bills that would give Oakland, LA, and other heavily charter-impacted districts some much-needed relief.

We need you to do two things:

  • First, contact your Assemblymember and State Senator in support of these four bills: AB 1505, 1506, 1507, and 1508. Read on for more info, a call script and contact info.
  • Second, sign the CharterLawReform.com petition. This petition demands five fundamental changes to state charter law that would go a long way to leveling the playing field. Once the playing field gets leveled, the billionaires creep back under the rocks they crawled out from. When you sign, this petition will automatically send your state reps a notice that you want them to reform the Charter School Act.

Background:

Throughout Jerry Brown’s tenure as governor, he refused to sign almost all charter reform legislation, even bills requiring charter schools to follow the Brown Act and other sunshine and anti-conflict of interest legislation. Now, Governor Newsom has already signed SB 126, dealing with oversight of charter schools! We know that if we can get reform bills passed, Newsom will sign them; but to do that, we need to keep pressure on the legislature. The charter industry is rich and powerful – spending billions to elect pro-charter legislators and school boards and to fight reform legislation. We citizens need to let our reps know that selling out our public schools to privatizers is not okay.

Right now, this package of four bills would reform laws that currently favor charter schools over public schools throughout California:

  • AB 1505 would make the decision of a local school board to deny a charter petition final. Currently, if a local school board denies a charter petition, the operator may appeal first to the county and then to the state. Like bad parenting—if mom says no, try dad.
  • AB 1506 would impose a cap on the number of new charters, allowing a new charter to open only if an existing one closes.
  • AB 1507 would end the ability of a district to authorize a charter school and then place it in another district. Yes, that happens.
  • AB 1508, introduced by East Bay Assemblymember Rob Bonta and coauthored by Senator Nancy Skinner, expresses the intent to allow school districts to take into account the fiscal, academic, and facilities impacts of a proposed charter on the district schools where it is to be located. This means that a school board can say, “No, we can’t afford yet another charter school.” Combined with AB 1505, which eliminates appeals, this would allow local school districts to once again have control over the number and location of its schools.

What you can do:

 Sign the petition: CharterLawReform.com

 Contact your state representative in support of AB 1505, 1506, 1507, and 1508.

Contact the members of the Assembly Education Committee, where these bills will be heard:

Spread the word!

What to say:

For your local representatives:

My name is___________. My zip code is_________. I’m a member of Indivisible East Bay. I’m urging Assemblymember/Senator __________ to support AB 1505, 1506, 1507, and 1508.  This package of bills will begin to hold charter schools accountable to local communities and ensure that charter proliferation won’t destabilize another school district. Can I count on Assemblymember/Senator ________ to support these bills?

For members of the Education Committee:

My name is ________. I’m a member of Indivisible East Bay. I’m urging you, as a member of the Education Committee, to support AB 1505, 1506, 1507, and 1508. This package of bills will begin to hold charter schools accountable to local communities and ensure that charter proliferation won’t destabilize another school district. Can I count on Assemblymember/Senator ________ to support these bills?

 

Emily Filloy is a retired OUSD teacher whose grown children are graduates of Oakland Unified School District. She and other educators started Educators for Democratic Schools to fight for the survival of public education.

 

Heidi Rand Actions, newsletter action, State & Local Calls/Emails, Uncategorized

Thank Gov. Newsom for closing the Death Chamber

On March 13 Governor Gavin Newsom, by executive order, instituted a moratorium on the death penalty in California and ordered the repeal of California’s lethal injection protocol along with immediate closure of the Death Chamber at San Quentin State Prison. California has the largest death row population (currently 737 people) in the Western Hemisphere, and capital punishment has a long and complicated history in the state.

Newsom said:

The intentional killing of another person is wrong and as Governor, I will not oversee the execution of any individual. Our death penalty system has been, by all measures, a failure. It has discriminated against defendants who are mentally ill, black and brown, or can’t afford expensive legal representation. It has provided no public safety benefit or value as a deterrent. It has wasted billions of taxpayer dollars. Most of all, the death penalty is absolute. It’s irreversible and irreparable in the event of human error.

The statement released by the Governor’s office expands on the unjust application of capital punishment:

The death penalty is unevenly and unfairly applied to people of color, people with mental disabilities, and people who cannot afford costly legal representation. More than six in ten people on California’s death row are people of color. A 2005 study found that those convicted of killing whites were more than three times as likely to be sentenced to death as those convicted of killing blacks and more than four times as likely as those convicted of killing Latinos. At least 18 of the 25 people executed in the U.S. in 2018 had one or more of the following impairments: significant evidence of mental illness; evidence of brain injury, developmental brain damage, or an IQ in the intellectually disabled range; chronic serious childhood trauma, neglect, and/or abuse.

What You Can Do:

You can watch a recording of Newsom’s announcement here, and then thank him for his brave action. Also, be aware: the SF Chronicle predicts that while Gov. Newsom may not suffer personally for his action, Democrats in swing districts may – so pass this on to your friends!

Use your own words, or check out these resources for reasons why the death penalty should be abolished:

Contact Governor Gavin Newsom:

  • Email
  • Phone: (916) 445-2841 or Fax: (916) 558-3160
  • Postcard: 1303 10th Street, Suite 1173, Sacramento, CA 95814
  • Twitter: @CAgovernor

Death Penalty Illegalizer graphic by Ssolbergj

 

 

 

anngdaniels Actions, Call Scripts, Contact, newsletter action, State & Local Calls/Emails, Uncategorized

No on SB 230

Remember Stephon Clark? You should. Almost exactly a year ago, in March 2018, he was chased by the police into his grandmother’s back yard in Sacramento, shot multiple times, including in the back, and killed, because the police were suspicious of . . . his cell phone. Now the Attorney General has announced that the police who shot him will not face criminal charges. It’s past time to change when police can use deadly force. Your voice is needed: There are two competing bills in the California state legislature, but only AB 392 is good. The other, SB 230, is a weak bill being pushed by law enforcement as a counterpoint to AB 392. Contact State Senator Nancy Skinner, Chair of the Senate Public Safety Committee today. Read on for more info, a call script and contact info.

The Sacramento Bee says that AB 392 would provide “serious reform – not window dressing” to address the problem of death and injury caused by police use of deadly force. We need that kind of reform. When this bill was before the legislature last year, as AB 931, it passed the Senate Public Safety Committee, of which Senator Skinner is the chair, but did not pass the Senate. This year, there’s a second chance.

But SB 230 is coming up before Senator Skinner’s Public Safety committee first. Supported by law enforcement agencies, this bill would allow law enforcement officers to use deadly force, even when they have other options available and even when there is no actual threat to others. Although the bill addresses training and policy, it does so in a superficial and vague way, providing no requirements and setting no minimum standards. It does not address the fact that police in our state kill people at significantly higher rates than the national average, and disproportionately kill people of color, particularly those who are unarmed, and does not do anything to prevent future tragedies of this kind. Although it requires all agencies to maintain use of force policies, it includes no requirements for these policies, other than “guidelines” without specificity. SB 230 would thus authorize agencies to issue policies in direct conflict with the recommendations of the California Attorney General, which emphasized clarity and specificity on use of force policies. SB 230 similarly provides toothless training guidelines with no requirements beyond a short list of subjects to be given “adequate consideration.” Beyond the subject, there is no specificity on what standard officers should be trained to. This is NOT the kind of reform we need.

What you can do:

Contact Sen. Nancy Skinner at (916) 651-4009 or (510) 286-1333. Since she is chair of the committee that the bill is before, you can contact her even if you aren’t her constituent; however, if you do live in her district, you should mention that fact.

Check out this list of members of the Senate Public Safety Committee; if any of them represent you, contact them, or if you know anyone in their districts, please send them this article.

What to say:

My name is ___________, my zip code is ___________ and I’m a member of Indivisible East Bay. I’m asking Senator ______ to vote NO on SB 230 when it comes up before the Senate Public Safety Committee. This is a weak policing bill being pushed by law enforcement as a counterpoint to AB 392, which is the real progressive police reform that our state needs to save lives. SB 230 doesn’t deserve to pass the Senate Public Safety Committee. The Public Safety Committee already passed the stronger policy through committee last year as AB 931. It would be disappointing to see the committee pass a weaker bill this year. Can I count on Senator ___________ to help block SB 230 in the Public Safety Committee?

Add for Senator Skinner: I would like Senator Skinner to use her leadership to kill SB 230 in her committee. 

 

Heidi Rand Actions, Call and Email MoCs, Events, Get Involved, State & Local Calls/Emails

Phone and text bank for 2019 special elections

Updated May 1: More phone & text banking dates have been added! Read below for all details and to see all upcoming dates. Note that there may not be links to RSVP for some dates – please RSVP and send any questions directly to host Nancy Klein at nancyklein44@gmail.com or 510-917-4045

 

Think nothing is happening in 2019, so far from November 2020? Think again! Hero phone and text bankers in West County, who wore their fingers to the bone dialing and texting for the 2018 Blue Wave, are jumping back into weekly (mostly) phone and text-banking parties on Tuesdays from 1 to 3 PM in El Sobrante, and starting on May 14, in Richmond.

They’re focusing on the many upcoming special elections, and you can come help slow the trump train by texting and making calls! Join any of these West County phone or text-bank parties, Tuesdays ongoing, anytime between 1 to 3 PM. We’ll update this article as more events are added, so check back!

All are welcome, from newbies to experienced! The hosts will train you and make sure you’re comfortable calling or texting. Bring your phone, charger, and earbuds (for your comfort) AND a laptop or tablet (or when you sign up, let them know you’d like to borrow one), and don’t forget your good cheer and positive energy to #Resist! And bring friends!

To RSVP (if there’s no link for a date) and if you have any questions, contact host Nancy Klein at nancyklein44@gmail.com or 510-917-4045

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You Can Help Get Coal Outta Richmond!

By Janis Hashe and Janet Scoll Johnson

Push is quickly coming to shove in the accelerating fight to end coal transport through Richmond. An ordinance that would prohibit new coal handling and storage infrastructure and phase out existing coal operations over a period of years is scheduled to come before the Richmond City Council in late March or early April. The Sierra Club/Sunflower Alliance-backed group No Coal in Richmond is going door-to-door in heavily impacted areas, collecting signatures on a letter to city council members urging them to support the ordinance. Want to help? Read on for more info, and see our action items later in this article.

You might well ask: Why does the Bay Area, a region famous for its environmental leadership, still have coal trains coming through our communities? Why do we have huge, uncovered piles of dirty, dusty coal sitting right next to our Bay at the Levin-Richmond Terminal on the Richmond waterfront? Why is the Port of Richmond one of the last three ports left in the state to export the dirty fossil fuel when California doesn’t even use coal power?

The answer, of course, is money. The coal (and even more dirty petroleum coke, aka petcoke) are being shipped overseas, primarily to Asia, where they are still being burned for power. So, we are exporting our poison to communities overseas … only to have the dirty air drift right back to us in the trade winds.

Due to the falling price of clean energy and the commitment of activists, the coal industry is in retreat in the U.S. We’ve retired 259 coal plants in seven years — that’s one plant retired every 11 days. And more than three million people work in the clean energy economy, which now employs more people than fossil fuels in almost every state in the country. But the coal industry can still make money from overseas sales, and it does not care about the impact on public health or the environment.

What you can do:

1. Help pass “No Coal in Richmond”

Help us get signatures, through canvassing and tabling at local events, to support the strongest possible measures to end this public health and climate menace. 

What: No Coal in Richmond Door-Knocking
When: Saturday 3/2, Sunday 3/10, Saturday 3/16, Sunday 3/24; 1:30–4 pm
Where: Meet at the Bobby Bowens Progressive Center, 2540 Macdonald Ave., Richmond
RSVP: action@sunflower-alliance.org

You’ll get a quick briefing, pick up materials and a map, and leave from there with a partner. The work is gratifying and easy; 95% of the people who open their door say “No coal in Richmond? Where do I sign?” If the scheduled times don’t work, and you can door-knock with a local canvasser or help the organizers in other ways, please send an email to action@sunflower-alliance.org

2. Richmond residents, tell your City Council to pass the ordinance

If you’re a Richmond resident, you can call City Council members to urge them to support the ordinance, and you can show up to the meeting in which the ordinance will come up for its first vote. At this time it looks like the ordinance will be placed on the agenda in late March or early April. To help, or if you have questions, contact Janet at action@sunflower-alliance.org  

 

Janis Hashe is a freelance writer/editor/teacher/theatre person. She has been politically active in Santa Cruz, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chattanooga and now Richmond. Her deepest personal commitments include fighting climate change, ending factory farming and overturning Citizens United. She’s a member of Indivisible East Bay and the CA-11 team.

Janet Scoll Johnson is a long-time Richmond resident and an organizer for No Coal in Richmond and Sunflower Alliance, which works on the front lines of local fights against fossil fuel pollution and infrastructure expansion in the S.F. Bay Area and throughout California.

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Terminate the tax on periods – period!

By Rosemary Jordan

Action deadline: March 8 and ongoing – Taxing period products is absurd and unjust. Under California law, health items like walkers, medical identification tags, and prescription medications – including Viagra! – are not taxed. But menstrual health products are not tax exempt in California, even though they are considered medical necessities by the Federal Drug Administration. This regressive tax harms women and girls living in deep poverty the most. It holds back our youth while they are already saddled with expenses. California state Assembly Bill 31 seeks to end this injustice.

Introduced by East Bay Assembly member Rob Bonta and co-authored by other East Bay lawmakers (Bauer-Kahen, Glazer, Quirk, Skinner, Wicks, and Wieckowski) and joined by over a dozen other co-authors and sponsors, AB 31 would make menstrual pads, tampons and reusable cups tax exempt. AB 31 has support in the Assembly and the Senate, from Republicans and from Democrats.  

But just like the last two times a similar bill was introduced, this is no slam dunk.  The legislature and the Governor need to hear loudly that it’s time to advance Menstrual Equity in California – not by compromise half-measures, but by a full exemption from sales tax for all period products.

Indivisible East Bay has joined a Support Letter that also includes California NOW, Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California, CA State Strong, and over 70 other organizations and individuals. The American Academy of Pediatrics in California is sending their own letter of support, and cities and counties across California are taking up resolutions in support of AB 31. Now it’s your turn!

What You Can Do:

Take Action Now: Get Postcarding!

The best thing you can do now, as we await hearings in Sacramento in March: gather your friends together for a postcarding event. We need to tell our elected officials that we want this bill to pass! Download postcard templates, scripts and addresses here.

Tell your elected officials: Support AB 31!

Can’t put together a postcard party? Please take a moment to contact your Assemblymember and also the chair of Assembly Committee on Revenue and Taxation, which must pass AB 31 for it to proceed in the Assembly.

What to say:

My name is ____, I’m a member of Indivisible East Bay and I’m a California voter (for your own representative, include your zip code). I want AB 31 to pass in California. Menstrual equity begins with ending the Tampon Tax. Please vote YES on AB 31!

Get more involved!

You can add your name to the Support Letter, write letters to the editor, and/or get your city council to pass a support resolution. And you can join other supporters of AB 31 for hearings in Sacramento! To get involved, email endthetampontaxinca@gmail.com.

 

Graphic credit: Lynn LaRocca

Rosemary Jordan is Co-Founder of Alameda4Impeachment, a registered Indivisible group and a partner in the Citizens Impeachment Coalition, which includes representatives of cities, towns and counties nationwide (including four in the East Bay) that have passed local Impeachment resolutions. Rosemary also serves on the Steering Committee of All Rise Alameda and is co-leader of the End The Tampon Tax In California campaign. She has over 20 years of professional experience in healthcare and aging.

indivisibleebadmin Actions, Events, Get Involved, Meetings, Our Impact, Rallies & Protests, State & Local Calls/Emails, Uncategorized

Tell CalPERS to divest from fossil fuels

By Sara Theiss

Are you a CalPERS member or beneficiary? A California taxpayer? Someone who cares about the future of our planet? If so, please join Fossil Free California in Sacramento on March 18, 2019, when we’ll tell the Board of Directors of the CalPERS pension plan, the largest pension plan in the U.S., to divest from fossil fuels! On that day, the CalPERS board will meet to update its sustainable investing program – and we will be there to hold them accountable, for CalPERS beneficiaries, California taxpayers, and future generations.

Anyone can can speak for up to three minutes during the public comment period. See the list below of some of the many reasons for divestment. While the CalPERS board has a fiduciary duty to act on behalf of its beneficiaries, as public officials they also have a responsibility to act in the best interest of all Californians.

Please join us at 9 AM on Monday March 18, at the CalPERS Auditorium, Lincoln Plaza North, 400 Q Street, Sacramento, CA 95811. The Board needs to hear a broad spectrum of voices, including yours.

To join us on March 18, or for more information, including about car pools, please contact STheiss@ffca.org

Why should CalPERS divest?

Fossil Free California is a nonprofit organization that works to end financial support for climate-damaging fossil fuel. Graphic © Fossil Free California 

Sara Theiss decided to focus on climate issues after retiring from the California Office of the State Public Defender in 2017, and now volunteers with Fossil Free California (FFCA) to end financial support for the fossil fuel industry. She is a CalPERS retiree and leads FFCA’s campaign on CalPERS divestment.

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H.R. 1 is Priority One

By Ion Yannopoulos and Ann Daniels

Even little kids know how voting works: you vote, your vote gets counted, everyone else’s vote gets counted, the totals are added up, and the winner is the one who gets the most votes. Simple.

Or not. In real-life elections, there are so many ways this goes wrong. Let’s look at “your vote gets counted” – how do you know? And how do you know that the total of votes they announce is actually the same as the number of people who voted? There could be cheating or tampering. Even in honest elections, people can make mistakes all along the line. Bottom line: it’s so easy for there to be lost votes, miscounted votes. So how can you trust election results?

That’s why one of the first (if not the first) priorities of the new Democratic House of Representatives is H.R. 1, the For the People Act, which among other things lays the foundation for (more) secure elections. And that’s why we need you to tell your Member of Congress that you want them to support H.R. 1. Read on for more info and what to say.

Background

There are a lot of reasons why voting machines can be vulnerable to problems – and unfortunately, voting machines in the U.S. are subject to most of them. But there’s good news: it’s possible to count votes to a very high degree of accuracy, detect interference in elections, and prevent election tampering, all by using paper ballots and something called a risk-limiting audit – essentially, double-checking the election by using a specific statistical method of analyzing the votes cast.

H.R. 1 requires, among many other things, that new voting machines always start with paper ballots, and that those ballots be retained until the election is over. Why paper ballots? Digital data is cheap, fast, and very flexible – but it has a fatal flaw, because it can be changed nearly undetectably. The only way an audit can tell if there’s been tampering is if there’s a trusted source to verify the electronic vote against: namely, the voter’s original ballot. There are electronic voting machines that produce a paper ballot, but if they are hacked, the paper part produced by the electronic voting machine is just as tainted as the electronic part. In fact, there are even ways that the votes can be hacked based on the paper record produced by the electronic machine! Experts agree: Paper ballots are an indispensible part of election security.

What you can do:

1. Contact your Member of Congress. Let them know you support H.R. 1. All three of our East Bay Representatives have cosponsored the bill; thank them. Barbara Lee is on the House Appropriations Committee, which will have to come up with the money to address the funding needed for the states to agree.

What to say:

My name is _____, my zip code is ____, and I’m a member of Indivisible East Bay. I’m calling to thank ______ for cosponsoring H.R. 1 to make our elections trustworthy by making them secure. Please make sure other Members of Congress understand how dangerously insecure our current voting machines really are, and convince them to support H.R. 1. Thank you.

For Barbara Lee, who is a member of the House Appropriations Committee, you can add:

I’m also asking you to make sure the provisions for funding voting machines with paper ballots are rock solid, to resist criticisms about “unfunded mandates.”

  • 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

2. Contact the California Secretary of State. The Secretary of State oversees elections. The National Association of Secretaries of State (NASS) is having a conference in Washington from Feb. 1-4, 2019, and one of the topics they will address is voting on a resolution opposing any federal attempts to decide how state money is spent on elections – essentially leaving decisions about election machines in the hands of the states. Tell Secretary of State Alex Padilla that we don’t believe our elections can be safe nationally if any states are vulnerable, and that a minimum standard needs to be set for all elections.

What to say:

My name is ______, my zip code is _____, and I’m a member of Indivisible East Bay. I’m calling to thank Secretary of State Padilla for speaking out about the need to defend election integrity, and I want to ask him to speak against the NASS Interim Position on Potential Federal Election Funding. Our elections can’t be safe nationally if any states are vulnerable. For us to be secure and for our elections to be trusted they need to be verified by audit, and we need both paper ballots and risk-limiting audits in order to make that happen.

Secretary of State Alex Padilla: email; Main phone (916) 657-2166; Legislative Office: (916) 653-6774

3. Help work on these critical issues with the Indivisible East Bay Voter Rights & Election Integrity team — email heidi@IndivisibleEB.org, or join the #voting-issues channel on IEB’s Slack. Want an invitation to join Slack? Email info@IndivisibleEB.org

4. Find out more: For more information, read our past articles about election security and risk-limiting audits:

anngdaniels Actions, Get Involved, newsletter action, State & Local Calls/Emails, Uncategorized

No More Likability BS

Oh, those women politicians. So smart. So accomplished. Why can’t they just be more … likable?

We’re calling BS. In fact, we’re calling it #LikabilityBS. And if you’re already as tired as we are of this everything-old-is-new-again campaign, we invite you to join us in calling out the media when we see them trivializing women elected officials, women candidates, or any powerful women by focusing on their supposed personality defects – or supposed problems with their dancing, their hair, their wardrobes, their unladylike language, or anything else that anyone thinks they need to make over to please the boys.

Here are some great ways to say: you don’t have to like them; you don’t have to like me; but you do have to take women seriously, and you do have to start covering our substantive positions and issues.

What you can do:

  • Call out the BS on social media. It’s easy to re-post and collect frowny faces, but the point is to educate and mobilize:
    • Educate by posting and showing people the BS going on;
      • Beyond posting on your own social media pages, amplify your message by writing comments on the Facebook page, Twitter or Instagram accounts for the media channel, reporter, pundit, etc., that you want to call out;
    • Mobilize by telling people what they can do: for example, sharing a letter to the editor that you’ve written (see below for how-to), or linking people to this page telling them how they can fight the #likabilityBS
      • Ask people to retweet or share your social media posts and comments
  • Write a letter to the editor: Most print and online media have a “letters to the editor” section, and this is a great way to reach the public. Criticize a publication for engaging in #likabilityBS or praise it for giving good coverage, or take it to task for not talking about substantive issues – you choose how to frame the discussion. Some newspapers have specific requirements: for example, that letter writers must be local to their distribution area or be subscribers – so be sure to check their rules! In general, letters to the editor are most likely to be printed if they are:
    • short – aim for 250 words or shorter
    • from you as an individual, not as a representative of a group
    • clear – let people know exactly what you’re talking about. If you’re responding to something the newspaper published (as opposed to something going on in society in general), refer to it specifically by the title and date of the article.
    • to the point – talk about one thing, not everything that’s on your mind.
    • written in a reasonable tone – avoid nastiness and DON’T YELL!!!!
    • written with proper grammar, syntax, spelling and punctuation – use your computer’s editing functions, ask a friend to read it over. Newspapers have editors, but they’re far more likely to print something that’s accurate to begin with.
  • Use the same tools and techniques to thank and compliment the media when they get it right!
  • Follow and support independent media and voices and spread the word:
    • Progressive Voices provides politically progressive content to consumers via mobile device and online
    • Free Speech TV is a national, independent news network committed to advancing progressive social change
    • Media Matters for America is a progressive research and information center dedicated to comprehensively monitoring, analyzing, and correcting conservative misinformation in the U.S. media
    • ResistanceLive is a daily broadcast on Facebook, YouTube and iTunes that provides political updates for the Resistance, brought to you by Elizabeth Cronise McLaughlin
    • Local AM radio station Real Talk 910 broadcasts forward-thinking political talk and opinions featuring Stephanie Miller, Thom Hartmann and Norman Goldman.

Graphic © Walt Disney’s Cinderella, Little Golden Book adapted by Campbell Grant