Policy Fights

Tens of thousands tuned in this week to Our Revolution’s Economic Justice Town Hall with Reps. Barbara Lee and Ro Khanna, Professor Richard Wolff, and worker activists like Sergio Valderrama from around the country.

We dug into the issues that cut to the core of our shared economic struggle, including jobs, wages, housing, labor power, healthcare costs, student debt, greed-flation, and more.

A rigged economic system is crushing people and creating a wealth gap that has enabled the ultra-wealthy to hijack democracy in America.

Rep. Barbara Lee lived the struggle as a single mother and knows the tough decisions families face when wages are too low, and the rent is too damn high.

She has spent her life and career waging the fight for economic justice, and now we have a chance to send her to partner with Bernie Sanders and speak for our movement in the Senate.

“I know what economic injustice is. I know how people are struggling,” Barbara said on the Town Hall. “We can’t have people just hanging on the edge in the wealthiest, most powerful country in the world.”

Barbara and Bernie recently teamed up together on the new OLIGARCH Act to tax the ultra-wealthy. They’re also pushing for a Wall Street speculation tax, a bill to close the CEO-worker pay gap, an audit of the Pentagon, and more. 

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“Senator Sanders and I have worked on this daily,” Barbara said. “People cannot wait. Billionaires are scamming the system, and regular folks are paying excessive taxes to fuel the Pentagon budget. This is money that should be invested in healthcare, housing, and lifting people out of poverty.” 

Rep. Ro Khanna is chairing Barbara Lee’s campaign for the U.S. Senate because he knows her passion and record and these crucial issues.

“I’ve often said Barbara Lee is the antiwar voice we need, but I could never have predicted we’d need that voice so urgently in the moment we’re in,” Ro said on our Town Hall. “If you care about peace, if you care about a ceasefire in the Middle East, Barbara Lee is the only candidate in this race to come out for a permanent ceasefire.”

“As is often the case, she is a bit ahead of all of us. She showed the way, and we’ve got to rally around her. She’s going to win because people are going to find out California is a progressive, pro–peace state.”

HELP US ELECT BARBARA LEE TO THE SENATE

When 1% of America controls nearly a third of the wealth and the bottom half can claim less than 3%, we’re in trouble, and so is our democracy, Ro told us.

“For 50 years, there’s been a war on the working and middle class in this country, and people feel that,” Ro said. “Wages aren’t keeping up, and folks can’t afford medical debt, student debt, credit card debt. They say, ‘I can’t afford to live in America.’”

“That is the central challenge that the Democratic Party has to tackle,” he explained, “to create economic opportunity and wealth generation in every district in America. There are many parts of this country where there’s no economic opportunities, no job creation, no sense of the American Dream. This country cannot stand that divided. “

“It’s why I co-chaired Bernie’s campaign and why I’m chairing Barbara Lee’s campaign. We need to prioritize the working class. That means Medicare for All, universal childcare, forgiving student loans, free public college, a living wage, paid family leave, power for labor unions, and more. We know what needs to be done in this country, and it also means taxing the ultra-rich.”

ADD YOUR NAME – TAX THE RICH

We were excited to have Economist Professor Richard Wolff also join the Town Hall on Monday!

“The problem for people is an unequal distribution of wealth, which is used to corrupt our politics,” Professor Wolff told us. “The rich understand you can’t have democracy because the mass of people might use it to change the distribution of wealth, and for that reason, they aim to stop that process.

“If you want a political democracy, you have no choice but to advocate for an economic democracy because, without that, you’ll never get the political democracy either,” he explained.

Wolff said he takes great encouragement from seeing the surge of unionization and labor strikes — from Starbucks to UAW to graduate students organizing on campus. 

“There is a movement already underway of people saying they don’t need to live in a world as unequal as this one,” Professor Wolff said. “We can do better than this, and it’s our job just as the working people who struggled before us — to stop slavery, to stop feudalism. Now, it’s our turn to make a better world.”

Sergio Valderrama is doing just that and making a difference as a worker activist with Fight for $15 and a Union.

He joined our Town Hall Monday night from his car between DoorDash deliveries. A McDonald’s worker for 10 years, Sergio has always had to work two or three jobs to support his wife and children.

Last year, Our Revolution joined Sergio in the fight to win AB257, which set a $20 minimum wage for fast food workers and gave them a seat at the negotiating table in California — a form of sectoral bargaining we want to export around the country.

“Winning this bill was important. It helped a lot with expenses and rent, but the cost of living keeps going up, and we must keep fighting,” he said. “And I don’t have insurance, so I can’t actually afford to go see the doctor.”

Sergio speaks for so many of us, and we’re proud to be with him in this working-class movement to demand real change and elect progressive leaders who fight alongside us.

Our Revolution partner U.S. Rep. Ro Khanna has introduced the State-Based Universal Health Care Act! 

This is a bill that would allow states to develop their single-payer healthcare plans! This is instrumental in the pathway toward a federal Medicare for All program. 

State by state, we are fighting for universal healthcare, but we’re also partnering with Ro Khanna and Bernie Sanders in a push to end medical debt, stop hospital price-gouging, and lower drug prices.

SIGN TO SUPPORT STATE-BASED UNIVERSAL HEALTHCARE

This Thanksgiving, we are grateful for the solidarity of all our movement allies here and around the world. 

This Black Friday, workers from around the world will stand shoulder to shoulder in a global day of action to Make Amazon Pay – pay its workers, pay its taxes, and pay for its climate damage. 

Keep and eye out for strikes and protests in over 30 countries for dignity on the job and a sustainable future for all! 

VICTORY! Congratulations to United Auto Workers who won tentative agreements with the BIG 3 this week after months of hard-fought negotiations and strikes.

Our Revolution members joined workers on picket lines coast to coast – from Maryland to Michigan to West Virginia and beyond. 

We’ve been canvassing dealerships and distributing leaflets in our community about the UAW’s Stand-Up Strike and how Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis tried to avoid settling fair contracts with 150,000 workers after making $250 billion in profits. 

Strikes work, join a union! UAW has proven that when workers organize, they can win and defeat some of the most powerful corporations on earth. This is why our working class progressive movement stands with the burgeoning unionization efforts across the country. 

Barbara Lee joined fellow U.S. Reps Pramila Jayapal and Ro Khanna, and CA Assemblymand Ash Kalra at Our Revolution’s Healthcare for All Town Hall, where thousands tuned in to help chart a path for healthcare justice on every front – from ending medical debt to guaranteeing healthcare as a human right in California and nationwide. 

Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Pramila Jayapal emphasized the importance of electing “more true universal healthcare champions to the Senate just like my friend Barbara Lee.” 

“She’s someone who will build the coalitions we need and do the organizing on the inside in the Senate to get more senators to recognize what we all know: the healthcare system is broken and we need Medicare for All,” Jayapal said. 

“Together, we can finally give Americans what they deserve: universal comprehensive healthcare prioritizes people not profits – with everybody in and nobody out,” she added. “I’m thrilled about Barbara Lee running and that Our Revolution is doing the organizing on the ground to help her win.” 

Rep. Ro Khanna served as a campaign co-chair for Bernie Sanders’ 2020 run for President, and now he’s chairing Barbara Lee’s campaign for Senate. 

He said she’s well-positioned in the race and much-needed in the seat because she has been a fearless trailblazer – not only on Medicare for All, but also on foreign policy, which sets her apart from her opponents. 

“She was for Medicare for All and eliminating medical debt before anyone, and she’s been the only person who opposed the war in Afghanistan expanding,” Ro said. 

“When I used to say that 2 months ago, you know that’s great, but now we NEED her voice,” he said. “She’s the only person talking clearly and loudly about the Palestinians also who are being killed in Gaza. She’s condemned the brutal Hamas attacks, but she’s also calling to end the cycle of violence.” 

“This is the time that we need a candidate who is going to caution against another expanded war, and candidate who’s going to stand up for Medicare for All,” Ro stated. 

California Assemblyman Ash Karl also joined the conversation – layout out the path passing his bill for CalCare single-payer healthcare, which was first authored by Barbara Lee. 

“The bottom line is: CalCare is how we can get the greedy insurance companies out of our healthcare system – the same doctors, nurses, providers, they’re just funded through one source,” Ash explained. “Small businesses and individuals are getting ripped off.” 

“Even with the most expensive healthcare system in the world, we have people dying and medical debt is the number one cause of bankruptcy for families in our state,” he said. “With our movement and a senator like Barbara Lee, we can get it done. We can’t stop, lives depend on it, so thank you Our Revolution for being the wind behind our sails to continue to push us.” 

Abortion is on the ballot in Ohio, and we have a chance to shut down this new rightwing playbook to attack our rights. Our Revolution has been organizing for months to make sure Issue 1 passes, and we preserve reproduction rights in the Buckeye State and beyond. 

After the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, a small but loud group of deep-pocketed extremists took to the states, determined to gut abortion laws. But the resistance has been real. 

Thanks to grassroots funding, armies of volunteers, and organizations like Our Revolution, we have a real shot at enshrining a woman’s right to abortion access in the Ohio constitution. 

News broke on Friday that President Biden canceled $39 billion in student debt for 800,000 borrowers through administrative fixes. 

This big win comes after Our Revolution hosted a live Student Debt Town Hall with Rep. Ro Khanna where our members shared powerful stories and discussed our inside-outside push. 

The President can still use his executive authority to cancel debt, pause payments, and crack down on predatory lending practices. 

“The President should cancel student debt in the Higher Education Act. He should zero out the accounts,” Ro told us on Monday. “If the Supreme Court rules against us then let’s see if they actually enforce the collection of debt that has already ben canceled.” 

“Congress has given the Executive the power to do this. The President needs to push and invoke these authorities and cancel it,” Ro said. “We’ve got to be assertive at a time that the other side is taking action that is unconstitutional.” 

While Rep. Khanna teams up with progressive lawmakers to work the levers of power from the inside, on a parallel outside track, we’re organizing our grassroots members to flood comments into the Secretary of Education to show the strength of our demand. 

Councilmembers Will Jawando and Kristin Mink joined us for Server-for-a-Day in Ocean City last week, where they served up food to promote legislation to raise the wage – and not leaved tipped workers behind! 

“It was a great experience and it was fun, but it’s also hard work. I think this demonstrates why we need to do it,” Councilman Jawando told Maryland Matters. 

The event included Our Revolution, One Fair Wage, and our coalition of worker activists and other state/local elected officials at On the Bay Seafood – a ‘high-road’ restaurant that pays its servers the full minimum wage. 

Organizers and workers fought and won a $15 minimum wage that goes into effect on Jan. 1st in Montgomery and Howard counties, but the tipped wage is still $3.63. 

Last month Mayor Brandon Johnson joined us for a similar event in Chicago, and if you’re in Ohio, RSVP now to join us this week with Mayor Aftab Purval in Cincinnati and Mayor Justin Bibb in Cleveland for Server-for-a-Day events! 

Stay tuned! In Ohio and Arizona, Our Revolution has teams canvassing for signatures for petition drives that will put a $20+ minimum wage directly on the ballot in 2024.