Insider News from the Political Revolution!
HEADLINES: End of Quarter | New Endorsements! | Hitting the Streets with AOC | M4A Rally & Committee Hearing | Progressive Push in DNC | Workers vs. Amazon in NYC | & MORE!
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Our Revolution is making big moves right now – electorally, inside the party, and on policy fronts like Medicare for All. They want you to give up, but millions of us are coming together to take power for the people. Become a movement builder with Our Revolution today.
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END-OF-QUARTER RESULTS
Our Revolution just wrapped up the first quarter of 2022 and our members’ investment of time and treasure in this movement is producing results.
We’ve laid the groundwork through deep organizing in communities, built a groundswell for our policies, and honed our ground game to elect allies who partner with us for change.
Now, we’re poised to build on over five years of work and take our inside-outside strategy to the next level. We know what we’re up against, but we’re proving that organized people beats organized money. As we keep growing, so will our victories.
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Join us for our next Monday Night Organize to Win broadcasts with Andy Levin on April 11th and Ro Khanna on April 25th!
RSVP HERE
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NEW ENDORSEMENTS!
Last month, Our Revolution members made 180,000 calls, texts, and door-knocks, powering our candidates to victory in Texas. Greg Casar will be our next fighter in Congress, Jessica Cisneros is going head-to-head against corrupt US Rep. Henry Cuellar, and Jasmine Crockett advanced to the runoff for an open House seat.
Now, we’re rolling out endorsements for more truly great candidates who can win these primaries and build out our power at every level of government. With a monthly donation of $5 or $27, you can power our ground game and mobilize millions of voters to send reinforcements to our elected allies.
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Erica Smith would make an incredible partner in Congress, and Our Revolution is proud to back her in North Carolina’s 1st District!
Senator Smith is running a corporate-free campaign against a conservative fellow State Senator who too often votes with Republicans. She has a record of fighting for a living wage, Medicare for all, and an end to cash bail.
“We have a huge opportunity in North Carolina to send a bold progressive to Washington DC to represent communities and not corporations,” Erica told us on Monday’s National Organizing Call. “We can’t afford to lose this.”
Erica grew up working on the family farm in Eastern NC that her great-grandfather purchased as a sharecropper — the same land where his parents had been enslaved. “I have a vision for a unionized south where the dignity of work is recognized by a living wage and we invest in our people,” she said. “We need a Rural New Deal that meets this moment.”
This includes ending racial gerrymandering, providing rural healthcare and universal broadband, and creating good-paying, union, clean energy jobs. “We’re talking about breaking up big Ag, issues like Right to Repair, empowering small farmers, and taking on corporate monopolies and their price gouging.”
As Erica says, “Our communities deserve more than a GoFundMe healthcare system and a Dollar Store economy.”
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Our Revolution is ready to organize alongside Ana María Archila as Lt. Governor of New York! She and our endorsed candidate for NY Governor, Jumaane Williams, make a powerful progressive duo.
Ana María was co-Executive Director for the Center for Popular Democracy and helped found Make the Road NY. She came to the U.S. from Colombia at age 17 and has been a decades-long leader in the fight for human rights and worker justice.
“I cannot sit and watch the politics of business-as-usual in these moments,” she said, listing housing scarcity, lack of elder/child care, rising gun violence, failing public transit, and lack of unionized jobs as reasons she’s in the race.
“We are the ones who should strive to govern so we don’t have these huge battles with politicians,” Ana María told us on our Monday Night Call. “We must contest for power — in a serious way, rooted in our values and with the conviction that when we fight we win.”
Ana María may be best known for confronting former Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) just before the Senate vote on Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court appointment. She was also AOC’s guest of honor at the 2019 State of the Union.
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Our Revolution members voted and we’re happy to throw our support behind Jamie McLeod-Skinner to represent Oregon’s 5th District in Congress.
Like Jessica Cisneros in Texas, Jamie has a real shot to remove one of the biggest roadblocks to progress in Congress — in this case, US Rep. Kurt Schrader.
Jamie is a working-class, former union member and the first out-lesbian elected east of Oregon’s Cascades. She championed renewable energy and transgender protections as a member of Santa Clara City Council, and on Jefferson County School Board, developed statewide racial justice and equity policy.
She’s committed to climate action, protecting our democracy, and helping working families and our economy recover from the pandemic. Let’s make sure she wins.
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Nida Allam served as political director for Bernie’s 2016 presidential campaign, and Our Revolution wants to see her represent North Carolina’s 4th District in Congress.
On the Durham County Commission, Nida voted to raise the minimum wage for county employees to $15/hour and led the charge for low-income tax grant assistance during the pandemic. She also worked to secure funding for a Refugee and Immigrant Services Coordinator for the district.
Nida was moved to enter politics after three of her closest friends were shot and killed in a 2015 Islamophobic hate crime, which local police insisted on calling a “parking dispute.” She is the first Muslim woman ever elected to public office in North Carolina.
If elected, Nida will be a true champion for Medicare for All, a Green New Deal, and a living wage. Imagine what we could accomplish with Nida, Erica, and Jamie filling out our progressive ranks in Congress.
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Our Revolution members play a vital role in this movement for change. In return, they know they’re making an impact for a better world, but here are a few more reasons to SIGN UP today!
- Get the sweet membership card you see above
- Vote on Our Revolution candidate endorsements
- Have a say in crafting our platform and strategy
- Stay plugged into opportunities to take action
- Receive a quarterly letter report on our work/results
BECOME A MEMBER
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We have an excellent candidate in Zachary Parker and a clear shot to fill the open Ward 5 seat on D.C. Council.
Zach is laser-focused on improving life for the people who call the District of Columbia home, and he believes in community-based solutions.
“Economic violence is running rampant in this country. We must fundamentally disrupt the systems that perpetuate poverty,” he told us on our National Organizing Call on Monday. “The only way to beat organized money is with organized people.”
Zach is running a small-donor, publicly-funded campaign because he’s dedicated to serving district residents — not high-priced lobbyists. A fighter for affordable housing for working families and taking on corporate power — quite simply, we need him on D.C. Council.
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Congratulations to OR-NYPAN candidate Brian Cunningham on being voted in as the new Assembly Member of NY’s 43rd District with 62 percent of the vote. The people made their voices heard!
“I’m honored that the people of District 43 have selected me to serve them in Albany,” Brian said. “I’m ready to wake up tomorrow and get to work on all of the progressive issues we need to move forward. We have a lot to do to improve our communities, and I don’t want to waste a single second.”
NYPAN Executive Committee Member Anthony Beckford said, “our endorsement was based on his work in the community and the progressive drive.”
“As an Assembly Member, Brian will support NYHA, Good Cause Eviction, and many other bills that will be a great benefit to his constituents and New Yorkers as a whole,” Anthony said. “He’s shown he can unite people based on the issues and not be distracted by political divisiveness.”
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Join thousands of Our Revolution volunteers to help elect these working-class fighters into office and replace the corrupt politicians paid to obstruct the progress we need.
If you have an hour or two a week, you can power our movement as a caller with the 2022 Phonebank Force! Our crew will be there to help every step of the way so you can make calls, earn rewards, and help tip the balance of power!
We’re hitting the phones early and often — and we need YOU to SIGN UP!
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2022 POLICY FIGHT UPDATE
We’re battling on every terrain for our working-class agenda, and we’ve hit the ground running in these first three months of 2022!
Progressive pressure got us pro-labor Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown-Jackson! Bernie and elected progressives passed the Postal Service Reform Act, and we’re joining a push for 55 executive orders Biden can deliver ahead of the midterms. And, we’ve added to our Medicare for All Resolutions — 100 cities and counties nationwide!
Let’s keep this momentum going. Become a recurring donor to Our Revolution to advance our battle strategy on these important policy fronts.
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BIDEN MUST DELIVER BEFORE THE MIDTERMS
Democrats MUST deliver if they hope to earn trust and votes come November. The enthusiasm gap, Our Revolution executive director Joseph Geevarghese told Politico, is a “pretty significant challenge for organizers.”
“It’s, ‘What do we tell people that will motivate them to get out and vote?’ And the challenge is you’ve got at the national level a lot of frustration that a lot of the promises that President Biden made didn’t end up becoming actual policy,” he said.
Our Revolution is calling on Biden to exert real pressure on the obstructionists in his own party and sign executive orders to improve the material conditions of voters’ lives.
The last time the voter enthusiasm deficit for Democrats was this wide was after the Wall Street bailout in 2010 when Democrats lost more than 60 seats in the House and control of Congress.
How many times do we have to run this experiment? The party must listen to progressives and buck the donor class. While holding Congress and the White House, Democrats must show they can govern – and govern for the people.
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OUR REV RALLIES WITH AOC
Our Revolution activists spent the weekend rallying and petitioning with U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in New York City!
Our Revolution-NY Progressive Action Network co-chair Nancy De Delva spoke at AOC’s rally in Queens Sunday morning, and our national organizer Anna-Marta Visky took the podium at her Bronx rally that afternoon.
“Four years ago, Our Revolution was out here as one of the first and few national groups to back AOC — pulling off a huge shock to the corporate establishment,” Anna-Marta told the crowd. “Now, she’s running for her third term and we continue to advance our progressive mission forward - together.”
Our Revolution is partnering with AOC and the rest of the Congressional Progressive Caucus to push President Biden to sign executive orders that deliver for voters’ lives ahead of the midterms. We’re at a moment of converging crises that simply cannot wait.
“AOC is leading with us in this fight – despite what she is up against on the inside. We have to send her reinforcements,” Anna-Marta said. “AOC, we look forward to working with you as part of our inside-outside strategy to bring home dire policy wins for the people across the country.”
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Big corporate interests want us to go away, but we’re leveling up our fight to build more power up and down the ballot.
We need your help to keep growing our grassroots army of volunteers and galvanize more than 8 million progressive voters to the polls in the midterms. Become a sustaining member to put boots on the ground and progressive partners into office.
JOIN OUR MOVEMENT TODAY!
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WORKERS DEFEAT AMAZON TO FORM UNION
VICTORY! A handful of employees at Amazon’s massive JFK8 warehouse on Staten Island, operating without support from national labor organizations, took on one of the most powerful companies in the world and won.
By a wide margin, workers voted to form a union — the first-ever win of its kind at Amazon in the U.S. and the result of years of worker activism at the company.
Amazon will certainly fight this, and the workers have a long way to go to get to their first contract, but there’s no doubt that people-power can take on massive corporate interests — and in some cases, win!
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RALLYING FOR M4A ON CAPITOL HILL
Progressive pressure by Our Revolution and our allies inside and outside of Congress has put Medicare for All back on the table!
Our Revolution activists rallied outside the U.S. House Oversight Committee hearing on Medicare for All on Tuesday alongside Maryland Progressive Healthcare Coalition and activists from Whole Washington.
US Rep. Cori Bush (D-MO) co-led the hearing, while other progressive allies, including Reps. Katie Porter, Pramila Jayapal, AOC, Rashida Tlaib, and Jamaal Bowman championed M4A as members of the committee.
“We deserve a healthcare system that prioritizes people over profits, humanity over greed, and compassion over exploitation,” Cori told The Nation. “This policy will save lives.”
Analysis shows that hundreds of thousands fewer people would have died of Covid-19 in the U.S. if the country had a Medicare for All system.
Our push comes as the Biden administration moves forward on a Medicare privatization experiment hatched under Trump and as 15 million people are set to lose their insurance once pandemic protections expire, Common Dreams reports.
Our Revolution joined a coalition of 250 organizations across the U.S. in urging the Dept. of Health and Human Services to protect, rather than undermine, the future of Medicare.
Also, Our Revolution Northwest Ohio got a commitment from Toledo City Council to pass a Medicare for All Resolution on Wednesday during Democracy Day — the annual event we co-organized six years ago with Move to Amend, Toledo City Paper reports.
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BIDEN’S BILLIONAIRES TAX
The Biden administration’s 2023 budget includes a version of the Billionaires Income Tax that many of us have been advocating for!
It will require billionaires to pay a minimum 20 percent tax rate on all of their income, including income from wealth gains like stocks and other assets.
This is a big deal – a decision made by the President himself to help create a fairer tax system and raise $360B over 10 years to improve working families’ lives.
Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) created more problems for the Biden administration on Wednesday, telling reporters that he doesn’t support the president’s plan to tax unrealized gains.
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NEW POSTAL BANKING ACT
Our Revolution joins unions and other allied groups in support of the Postal Banking Act which was introduced Wednesday by Bernie and fellow Senator Kirsten Gillibrand.
Nonprofit banking would offer low-cost checking/savings accounts, ATMs, mobile banking, and low-interest loans, Sierra Sun-Times reports. Low-income and rural communities would have access to financial services at the post office, generating nearly $19B per year for the USPS.
“Our current banking system is failing more than 46M Americans, who often fall prey to predatory lenders taking advantage of them with high fees and interest rates,” Gillibrand said.
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BUILDING POWER IN THE DNC
Our Revolution and other grassroots leaders within the DNC are launching a push to make a more inclusive, transparent, and democratic party.
Since 2016, we’ve eliminated superdelegates on the first ballot, established the first-ever DNC Climate Crisis Council, and grown progressive leadership in state and local parties.
But we must go further, calling to end antidemocratic superdelegates altogether, make the DNC budget more public, invest in state and local parties, and more.
Ultimately, a democratic party requires a reversal of the DNC’s top-down power structure — driven by a greedy consultant class and corporate elites intent on undermining the progress we’ve made to empower the grassroots.
“When superdelegates are back on the table, that should raise alarms,” Our Revolution Board Member Jane Kleeb said on our National Organizing Call Monday. “We have to keep up our push from the outside, but a lot of change and relationships can be made on the inside — we have to get involved in the bylaws of this process.
The reform group is already 50-members strong, and we aim to recruit more than 100 before the fall meeting, when party rules and the 2024 presidential primary calendar will be set.
“People think of the DNC as something that party elites, insiders, and consultants do. But it is and should be made up of people who get elected up from the grassroots,” said Jane, who’s also the chair of the Nebraska Democratic Party. “It can’t all be consultants trading contracts.
“We need to invest more resources at the party levels closest to the issues, closer to the solutions,” she emphasized. “We know how to message to our communities, what we need is resources to get the work done — all the things we know win elections.”
This is about building institutional power for the grassroots. Change happens from the bottom-up, and we’re remaking politics from the inside out. “What moves the DNC is knowing we can bring these reforms to the floor for a vote,” Jane said. “We have to have votes that back up our words.”
So we’re asking you, the grassroots, to send this link to your state and local party chairs and other DNC members and kindly ask them to join this necessary, constructive effort.
TRANSFORM THE PARTY
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Join us as we make calls to help send Senator Nina Turner to Washington! Training is available and our Slack crew is there to help throughout the phonebank session. Help us tip the balance!
RSVP HERE
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Join Our Revolution Ohio on April 6 at 7 pm with special guests Senator Nina Turner running for Congress in CD 11, and Morgan Harper who will discuss her campaign for U.S. Senate.
RSVP HERE
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Our Revolution members play a vital role in this movement for change. In return, they know they’re making an impact for a better world, but here are a few more reasons to SIGN UP today!
- Get the sweet membership card you see above
- Vote on Our Revolution candidate endorsements
- Have a say in crafting our platform and strategy
- Stay plugged into opportunities to take action
- Receive a quarterly letter report on our work/results
BECOME A MEMBER
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