EscInd: Weekly Action Plan for August 14, 2023
Note: this August 14th newsletter was meant to be sent on August 13rd, but TinyLetter had an outrage so delivery wasn't complete and we're now resending the newsletter. Some info are now outdated. Apologies for the technical difficulty! Welcome to Escondido Indivisible’s weekly action plan for August 14, 2023! Pick an action or two and commit yourself to doing them. As President Obama said in his farewell speech: Believe in your ability to bring change. Show up, dive in, stay at it.
Events
- Wednesday, August 16, 2023, 5:00 PM: Escondido City Council Meeting at City Hall Council Chambers, 201 North Broadway, Escondido, CA 92025. Agenda includes Item #13 on Campaign Contribution Update and Item #14 on Public Comment Policy (to remove Oral Communications at the beginning of the meeting – Oral Communications will only occur at the end of the meeting – and add an Electronic Public Comments section to the City Public Comments Resolution). Live broadcast of the meeting will be at escondido.org here. Public comments may be made via Public Comment Form.
Election 2024
- Read-up on California's 2024 ballot measures will rehash old ideological battles.
- Read-up on Alabama's redistricting brawl rehashes bitter fight over voting rights.
- Contact Assemblymember Maienschein and State Senator Jones and ask them to support AB-1248 to “require a county, general law city, charter city, school district, or community college district that contains over 300,000 residents to establish an independent redistricting commission to adopt district boundaries after each federal decennial census” and ACA-4 to “reinstate voting rights to people in prison on felony convictions”.
- Contact Representative Issa, Representative Peters, Senator Feinstein and Senator Padilla and urge them to pass legislation to restore and strengthen the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Judiciary Reforms
- Read-up on The Other Billionaires Who Helped Clarence Thomas Live a Luxe Life, Justice Clarence Thomas’s $267,230 RV and the Friend Who Financed It and Senate Judiciary moves Supreme Court ethics bill forward — toward a dim future.
- Contact Representative Issa, Representative Peters, Senator Feinstein and Senator Padilla and ask them to pass legislation to adopt a code of conduct for the Supreme Court such as S.359/H.R.926 or S.325/H.R.927 and expand SCOTUS such as S.1616/H.R.3422. See Demand Your Representative Cosponsor the Judiciary Act of 2023 and Demand your Senator Cosponsor the Judiciary Act of 2023.
Civil Rights
- Read-up on How librarians, kids and the country are paying for the ongoing rancor, Local school boards face off with CA leaders over banning Black & LGBTQ+ history and Temecula school district sued over its ban of critical race theory.
- Contact Representative Issa, Representative Peters, Senator Feinstein and Senator Padilla and ask them to pass the Equality Act to “amend the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to prohibit discrimination on the basis of sex, sexual orientation and gender identity”. The bill passed the House in 2019 and 2021 but the Senate failed to act on both times. See What Is The Equality Act? Anti-Discrimination Law Explained.
- In-Related News: read-up on Man Fatally Stabbed After Vogueing at a Brooklyn Gas Station and A dancer's killing — over voguing — highlights the dangers Black LGBTQ Americans face.
- In-Related News: read-up on Freedom Schools launching to teach Black history in Florida.
Reproductive Rights
- Read-up on Indiana will be 15th state to ban almost all abortions and 4 states are using fetal personhood to put women behind bars.
- Contact Representative Issa, Representative Peters, Senator Feinstein and Senator Padilla and ask them to pass legislation to “codify access to contraception into federal law” and abortion rights. Note that Representative Issa had previously praised the overturn of Roe vs. Wade and voted against codifying abortion rights. See The escalating MAGA attack on reproductive freedom and Oppose a National Ban on Abortion.
Escondido Indivisible is a grassroots group dedicated to affecting changes in our local community. Our website is at EscondidoIndivisible.com. Send us links and comments at EscondidoIndivisible50@gmail.com. And feel free to forward our newsletter to interested parties! If you were forwarded this letter, you can subscribe here, and check the archive here.
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