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** alliance4action Newsletter
November, 2020
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The election of our lifetime is underway! For those of you who do not know the history of a4a, a number of progressive individuals and organizations came together in November four years ago after the results of the 2016 election were known. Change Is Happening and the Democratic Club of the Santa Rita area provided a venue to discuss how we should proceed. The goal was to protect and promote the values which we felt were being threatened by the new administration. I’m not sure any one of us realized how much these values would be threatened during the current administration.

This election has been defined as a battle for the soul of our nation. We have come together in so many ways to assure that we can regain the decency and humanity that we have lost during the current administration.

We have voted, made phone calls and written letters to individuals. We have rallied and written letters and opinion pieces to people in our community. Our speakers have given us factual information about the issues. We have watched debates for candidates running for local offices. We were able to make a financial contribution to the Democratic candidate for Pima County Supervisor. Our Action Teams have informed us further about issues with health care, climate change, education and immigration. We have had meetings and correspondence with our elected officials. We have learned how to speak out about the many injustices as well as how to advocate for progressive legislation.

I am proud to be a member of the alliance4action.

We will not give up until Joe Biden is elected president and our state and local offices are held by honorable and decent people who are concerned with the rights of all Arizona citizens. There is a blue wave coming to Arizona and our democracy.
Polly Daly, Chair, alliance4action
November General Meeting
Sunday, November 15, 2020
2:00 p.m.

The Electoral College and Democracy:
Are They Mutually Exclusive?

presented by
Maureen Brooks

The program will look at the history of the Electoral College and its relevance today. Should we/can we change it?

The election of Leadership Team officers for 2021 will also be held.

Zoom link:
[link removed]
Meeting ID: 853 9533 5947
Passcode: 292128
alliance4action Treasurer’s Report
October, 2020

Beginning Balance as of September 24, 2020 $2226.13

Income 0.00
Expenses 0.00

Ending Balance as of October 25, 220 $2226.13

Maggie Sievers, Treasurer

a4a Action Groups
Climate

Climate Change - The Future
January 2017 was unimaginable. We made our homemade signs: "Climate Change is Real", "Facts Matter", "Global Warming is not a Hoax". One woman painted the Statue of Liberty crying tears of oil on her poster. A climate denier was about to be sworn in as president.

Now, despite the current president, more citizens accept that human caused climate change is real and believe it is a grave threat. Moreover, they want government action to combat it. Joe Biden pledges ambitious domestic climate action, to rejoin the Paris Climate Accord and to restore global climate leadership. Getting elected is just the first hurdle in the battle.

The members of the Climate Action Group intend to stay informed and to advocate politically for a livable world. We will meet in November, after the election, via Zoom for a Climate Conversation. Date TBD.

To receive notices of upcoming a4a Climate Group actions and events send a message to [email protected] (mailto:[email protected]) with "Add to email list" on the subject line.

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Education

Our team is focused on the upcoming election. At the federal level we can identify several things that need to happen once Joe Biden becomes our new President. Betsy Devos current Secretary of Education must be replaced by someone who is a professionally educated teacher. This person must have actually taught! Additionally, this person must respect the profession, advocate for quality education for all of our nation’s children, and have a respect for the value of public education from pre-K through University levels. Title IX needs to be restored to the original intent. Student loans must not be used to enhance the bottom line of financial institutions, but used instead, to benefit the student. Existing student loan debt needs to be evaluated and eliminated for students who attended “sham” programs.

We also have a ballot initiative in Arizona that, once passed, will restore needed financial support to our schools. This is Proposition 208. The likelihood of this passing looks positive at this time. Our schools and teachers in Arizona are among the lowest funded in the nation. We will be advocating for this new money to be spent as intended and focus on the needs of public schools.

With anticipation that great things be in the future for education. Contact Polly Daly ([email protected] (mailto:[email protected]) ) to join us!

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Health Care
The a4a Health Care Action Group met on October 21. Nine of us shared our election efforts, including Blue Card Drops, writing letters and cards to voters, letters and columns to the Green Valley News and being at the Women’s March rally on October 17. We challenged each other to check our ballot status at:
[link removed].

We couldn’t get away from the election and the Coney Barrett nomination, since it's so connected to the future of the Affordable Care Act. Neither could we get away from discussing the pandemic and items new to some of us such as “challenge testing.” There is a new COVID Dashboard that gives multiple data points by zip code. It is available at:
[link removed] .

Our responses to the Imagine Challenge (what a potential Biden Administration will do for health care immediately) were that he will:

1. Make a federal mask mandate, along with federal pandemic plans.
2. Fire Scott Atlas, along with elevating qualified scientists and health professionals.
3. Reinstitute the Pandemic Group.
4. Push a legislative fix to the individual mandate issue and/or make the mandate $1.00.


Our next meeting is November 18th at 1:00 via Zoom. Contact Laurie Jurs at [email protected] (mailto:[email protected]) for more information. Please join us!

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Immigration
The Supreme Court has agreed to review 3 cases related to the border and immigration:
1. US Census will or will not include unauthorized residents? Read more here ([link removed]) .
2. Can the border wall be funded by Defense Department funding?
3. Can asylum-seekers be required to wait in Mexico for their court hearings?

Read the article about 2 and 3 here ([link removed]) .

Biden promises to increase the annual target of incoming refugees to 125,000. (During the Trump administration, refugees were reduced each year until the 2020 target of 15,000.)

If you'd like to learn more about immigration and the a4a Immigration Action Group, please contact Gail Frank ([email protected] (mailto:[email protected]) ). We'd love to have you join us for our zoom meetings on the 2nd and 4th Friday of each month (9:00 a.m. AZ time) and take our Calls to Action related to both the injustices and benefits of immigration.

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