News from the Frontlines of the Political Revolution!
Our National Organize to Win Call on Monday, July 26th will feature Sen. Ed Markey, Texas State Rep. Vikki Goodwin, and Our Revolution member Eric Hall, who is running for City Council in Birmingham, AL. Don’t miss it!
OUR THEORY OF CHANGE
IN THIS WEEK’S ISSUE: Read about how Our Revolution is
(1) Organizing our grassroots membership to fight inside the halls of power and outside on the streets to win real change;
(2) Holding our elected officials accountable to go big and pass a budget for the people, not for corporations;
(3) Electing progressive champions from north to south and across the country;
(4) Fighting for progressive policies that would end fossil fuel subsidies, expand Medicare coverage, and create union jobs;
(5) Transforming the Democratic Party at the state level in places like Florida and beyond!
SHOWDOWN ON CAPITOL HILL
“This budget bill will be a showdown,” Our Revolution Chairman Larry Cohen said. “This is the time that all our work comes together.”
On this week’s Organize to Win call, Larry gave our members
the state of play for Our Revolution’s key issues – including health care, climate, and union jobs – on Capitol Hill.
The bottom line: There’s significant progress to be made on four top Our Revolution issue priorities, namely provisions in the Senate budget bill that would expand Medicare, end fossil fuel subsidies, repeal Trump-era tax cuts, and penalize companies who break labor organizing laws.
All of these items – which are based on the results of our member survey – are included in the budget bill that’s been approved by the Senate Budget Committee led by Bernie Sanders. However, corporate Democrats and their backers in Big Pharma, Big Oil, and other industries are going all out to water down the legislation.
That means we must put sustained grassroots pressure on every Democrat in the House and Senate to hold the line on our progressive priorities. “We need to make them understand that if they don’t act, we will work in primaries and general elections to get rid of them,” Larry said.
The current budget bill – designed to bypass the filibuster and pass on simple majority vote – will be the last one before next year’s midterm elections. And as Larry explained, that means the next 60 days will be critical – “Together, if we build this movement we can make a difference this year. This year.
Not way into the future.”
That’s why Our Revolution will be training and mobilizing our groups to run coordinated distributed actions to press our policy priorities in Congressional districts across the country, starting with expanding Medicare to cover more Americans.
IF YOU OR YOUR GROUP IS READY TO HOLD DEMOCRATS ACCOUNTABLE, RSVP FOR OUR ACTION TRAINING HERE!
READ BERNIE’S OP-ED IN THE GUARDIAN ABOUT WHY THIS BUDGET BILL IS SO CONSEQUENTIAL.
President Biden has made impassioned pleas to stop the GOP rollback of voting rights in battleground states. But he’s done little to break the gridlock in Washington, take on the filibuster, and pass The For the People Act to harness federal power to end the massive disenfranchisement campaign that’s underway. “Biden’s silence has been deafening on fighting the filibuster to make voting rights a reality,” Joseph Geevarghese, Our Revolution’s executive director, told The Hill.
At a Presidential Town Hall in Cincinnati this week, Biden again indicated support for returning to the “talking filibuster” in which Senators have to actually speak uninterrupted on the floor to block legislation. This move would allow The For the People Act to be brought to the Senate floor for debate and limit the power of an individual Senator to torpedo the bill.
“The president moving out on this, rhetorically, is important. It signals to the base to keep fighting on this issue,” Joseph noted.
BECOME A MEMBER AND HELP US HOLD DEMOCRATS ACCOUNTABLE TO OUR PROGRESSIVE PRIORITIES!
This week, Our Revolution, the Democracy Collaborative and other progressive organizations sent an urgent letter to President Biden calling on him to invoke the Defense Production Act to save good union jobs at the Viatris Pharmaceutical plant in Morgantown, WV.
The plant – the largest manufacturer of generic pharmaceuticals in the nation – is scheduled to shut its doors on July 31st and outsource operations to India and Australia, which will result in 1,500 American job losses for highly skilled workers in the area.
“President Biden committed to rebuilding America’s industrial base, and by allowing the plant to go abroad, he’s breaking his pledge,” Joseph Geevarghese, Our Revolution’s executive director, said in an interview with the Charleston Gazette-Mail.
By invoking the Defense Production Act, President Biden could use his executive authority to immediately save these jobs and halt Viatris from dismantling the generic pharmaceutical manufacturing capacity at a time when the COVID-19 pandemic has already exposed our country’s most vulnerable supply chains.
“This plant seems more saveable than the Carrier plant in Indiana was,” added Mike Oles, Our Revolution’s national field director in an interview with In These Times. “This idea that we’re sending 1,500 jobs to India to produce life-saving medicines – when we have concerns about supply chains – is inconceivable. Why wouldn’t we try to keep our pharmaceuticals in the USA?”
Not only has the President been silent, so has Sen. Joe Manchin. The Nation has a hunch about the reason – “Why hasn’t West Virginia’s senior senator, Joe Manchin, made an effort to keep the plant open? Does it have anything to do with the fact that his daughter, Heather Bresch, was a top executive at the company for almost eight years, and worked there for almost three decades? Bresch left the company upon the completion of the merger, receiving a golden parachute estimated to top $30.8 million.”
WATCH THE LAURA FLANDERS SHOW TO FIND OUT MORE!
“Big Pharma vs The People: The Fight to Save America’s Largest Generic Drug Manufacturer” featuring Our Revolution West Virginia & union workers Sunday, July 25, 2021 11:30am on World Channel and on Youtube!
This week, Our Revolution joined with the Communications Workers of America (CWA) and other unions and progressive groups to form the Worker Power Coalition, to pass the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act, the most pro-labor legislation in U.S. history.
The coalition’s formation coincides with a national debate about “essential workers” and their working conditions in the United States, as the economy emerges from the pandemic.
The PRO Act would make it significantly easier for workers in the United States to join unions and raise their wages by establishing penalties of up to $50,000 for employers who violate workers’ union rights (there are no financial penalties as of now), banning employer-led anti-union meetings, override right-to-work laws, crackdown on employers ability to misclassify gig workers as independent contractors in effect allowing them to unionize, among other things. For employers that are hostile to unions, like Amazon, Uber, and Lyft, this legislation could be transformative.
MAKING CHANGE IN MINNEAPOLIS
This week, Our Revolution endorsed Jeremiah Ellison for re-election to the Minneapolis City Council.
George Floyd’s murder last year put Jeremiah at the center of the movement to rethink policing in our cities. He has been leading the fight in Minneapolis to create a Department of Public Safety that would oversee policing — granting the council some legislative control where they currently have none.
American cities are facing some alarming increases in shootings — but more of the same over-policing that killed George Floyd is not the answer. While this issue has scared off a lot of establishment Democrats, Our Revolution isn’t backing down and stands with Jeremiah and other progressives who are committed to reforming our criminal justice system.
Jeremiah joined our National Organizing Call this past Monday (watch here) to talk about this and other issues. He understands that affordable housing, gentrification, and urban violence are all connected and will fight to ensure tenant protections against exploitative landlords. Some of the measures he is pushing on the Council include giving tenants the first opportunity to purchase a home they are renting, ensuring they have legal representation in housing court, limiting the ability of landlords to look back on evictions, credit ratings, and criminal history, capping security deposits, and creating a pathway to rent control.
Help us re-elect Jeremiah Ellison and keep moving these issues forward in Minneapolis and across the country:
CLICK HERE TO SPLIT A CONTRIBUTION WITH JEREMIAH & OUR REVOLUTION!
MFA WIN IN MARYLAND!
After years of organizing and ongoing pressure by Our Revolution Montgomery County, MD (ORMoCo), the Montgomery County Council on Tuesday passed a Medicare for All resolution calling on federal officials to support single-payer.
Dr. Laura Kaplan-Weisman, who led ORMoCo’s efforts in conjunction with the Maryland Progressive Healthcare Coalition, said: “It’s great to see this come to pass after starting the push for it in 2019. I am grateful to the community activists, organizations, and businesses who worked together to form a grassroots coalition to show how badly we need Medicare For All now to reform our broken health insurance system. I know from experience in primary care that my patients, as well as all residents of Montgomery County, will benefit from high-quality healthcare, regardless of employment status or demographics.”
The victory in Montgomery County comes on the heels of the passage of MFA resolutions by officials in Prince George’s County and Anne Arundel County.
WHEN WE ORGANIZE, WE WIN!
Our Revolution Board member Jim Hightower talks about quality affordable child care in the latest issue of THE LOWDOWN: “It’s a cliche to say “our children are our future,” but it’s also true. Then why do we invest so little in our littlest ones, our future? Both in providing safe places for children of working parents and for boosting the education of pre-kindergarten tykes, America’s childcare system is a national disgrace. Moreover, the abject failure of state and national officials to meet this basic social need is spreading inequality, rolling back opportunities for women, and severely restricting economic recovery.”
GET THE LATEST COMMENTARY FROM JIM HERE!
DARK MONEY CLOUDS NINA TURNER’S RACE
In the race to elect Nina Turner to Congress, the finish line is in sight. But at the 11th hour, her establishment-backed opponents have opened the floodgates to dark money groups, who are now dumping cash into the race and spreading lies about Nina.
“The status quo keepers and seekers are throwing everything they’ve got at us to try to stop this movement but we will not be stopped,” Nina told our members on this week’s
National Organize to Win Call.
Election Day is Tuesday, August 3rd, but we are encouraging everyone to vote early. If you live in CD-11, click HERE for early voting hours and locations. If you don’t, scroll down to the ACTION CENTER to find out how you can help Nina get over the finish line!
Senator Nina Turner’s opponents may have dirty fossil fuel money on their side, but SNT has our movement in her corner. More than 1,000 Our Revolution members have already stepped up and made more than 200,000 voter contacts via text, phone calls, or door knocking. The campaign has raised money from people in every single state in the country, plus DC. And this weekend, Our Revolution canvassers will be knocking on doors alongside Congresswoman
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
We’ll be getting voters excited about a future that includes Medicare for All, a Green New Deal, Tuition-Free College, Criminal Justice Reform, and Living Wages.
“Poverty is a policy choice. Not dealing with climate chaos is a policy choice, not increasing the minimum wage is a policy choice, not making sure that people can unionize is a policy choice. Not canceling student debt is a policy choice,” Nina said. “But guess what the beautiful thing is? We can make new choices. And that’s why our movement is so important.”
This race will come down to voter turnout and Nina’s victory could hinge on just a few thousand votes. Every text, phone call, and dollar makes a difference. If you’re already volunteering and donating, keep it up! But if you’ve been waiting for an opportunity, this is the moment to make a difference.
QUEEN OF QUEENS
Our Revolution candidates won city-wide, across Brooklyn, and in 16 City Council districts in New York’s June primary election. Most of these races are essentially decided in the primary in this overwhelmingly Democratic city, but Felicia Singh’s victory in District 32 in Queens is unique: she now has an opportunity to take out the last Republican Councilmember in that borough in November’s general election.
Felicia is a teacher and community organizer running on a platform of education equity and environmental justice. She won the primary with Our Revolution’s support by focusing on increased voter turnout in a majority-minority, immigrant-populated district.
Her parents are working-class immigrants and she is the first in her family to earn a high school diploma and a college degree.
If she wins in November, she will be in the first group of South Asians on the Council – along with another Our Revolution-endorsed candidate, Shahana Hanif, who won her race in Brooklyn!
WHEN WE ENDORSE, WE WIN!
We’re halfway through the 2021 election cycle and we’re proud to report that 73% of Our Revolution endorsed candidates won their races!
That makes both 2020 and 2021 the best years for progressive electoral wins since Bernie started Our Revolution 5 years ago.
This year, we’re continuing to build the progressive bench by electing 118 progressive champions to serve as mayors, district attorneys, city councilors, and school board members.
Highlights include powering the primary victory of Philly DA Larry Krasner against a candidate with heavy backing from the Fraternal Order of Police; Winning a progressive majority on the St Louis City Council; Showing our political muscle in the Big Apple by winning city-wide races for Public Advocate and Comptroller – as well as electing the most progressive New York City Council ever; Turning the Fort Worth City Council blue, and putting four progressives in power on San Antonio City Council – including the first openly gay black man elected in Texas.
WHOSE PARTY? OUR PARTY!
Our Revolution is building a progressive Democratic Party at the grassroots level from coast to coast!
This week, Our Revolution Florida members ran the tables in the Democratic Progressive Caucus of Florida [DPCF] elections. The takeover of the Florida Democratic Party from the inside continues with five new Our Revolution-aligned members on the caucus’ Board. “We are thrilled to be actively involved in transforming the Democratic party with our inside/outside strategy. Our goal is to give voice and representation to working-class Floridians by reforming our party processes and fighting for progressive policies precinct by precinct throughout the state,” said Corrine Daly, Our Revolution Florida organizer and newly elected Treasurer of the DPCF.
ARE YOU DEM PARTY OFFICIAL?
Our Revolution, the Progressive Democrats of America, and the Bernie Delegates Network are identifying progressive party leaders at every level who want to network
and coordinate our collective work to empower the Bernie wing of the Democratic Party.
ARE YOU INVOLVED IN THE PARTY?
FILL OUT OUR SURVEY SO WE CAN CONTINUE WORKING TO MAKE OUR PARTY PROGRESSIVE
Join Our Revolution Massachusetts for a discussion on ending fossil fuel subsidies and investing in greener, cleaner energy sources. This is one of the best ways we can start addressing the climate crisis.
We have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to expand health care coverage for working families. That’s why Our Revolution and our allies will be kicking off a series of summer actions starting on Friday, July 30th. If you live in New Jersey, you can sign-up here to join us as we take the fight directly to Sen. Bob Menendez. And if you live in West Virginia, you can sign up here to keep up the pressure on Sen. Joe Manchin!
ACTION TRAINING!
Interested in hosting an action in support of Medicare Expansion this summer? Join us this Tuesday at 12.30p ET or 9p ET to get the training you need to pull off a successful event. The sessions will also give our members the organizing skills necessary to wage strategic actions to win other fights both at the local and national levels.
★
Our limited edition End Fossil Fuel Subsidies Dinosaur Sticker is about to go EXTINCT.
CLICK HERE TO GET IT BEFORE IT’S GONE & ADD IT TO YOUR COLLECTION!
Our Revolution members around the country are phone banking non-stop between now and Election Day – and we need YOU!
And if you live in Ohio, you can join us on the doors and canvass with Nina and AOC on Saturday, July 24th!
AOC isn’t the only progressive champion who’s helping Nina finish strong …
We’ll be on the doors with Bernie and Nina for a final weekend push before Election Day on August 3rd!
