Time flies when you’re constantly standing up to the abuses of the Trump administration! We’re finally coming to the end of 2019. Next year may be one of the most important in our history—but let’s look back at what we did this year.
We made impeachment a reality. There’s no doubt that impeachment of Trump has been necessary since day one, due to his crimes, bigotry, ineptitude and maladministration. But Democrats refused to pursue it, even months after we elected a Democratic majority to the House to do that very thing. We held mass mobilizations like Impeach at the Beach, put out call scripts, and met with Speaker Pelosi’s staff. And thanks in large part to public pressure on all of our MoCs, they are finally acting on their constitutional duty to impeach.
We flipped seats in Kentucky, Virginia, Louisiana and other states. Our letter-writing campaigns, text-banking, and partnerships with Swing Left and Democracy Action were critical in these victories. And the seats we flipped - governorships and state legislatures - were incredibly important. Electing Democratic governors and state legislatures in Republican-held states is a way to redress voter suppression and gerrymandering, and paves the way for real reform at the state level. We will be ramping up these efforts in 2020, along with fighting hard to flip the Senate at the federal level.
We passed a number of progressive state laws in California abolishing private prisons, expanding reproductive care access, establishing public banks, restricting the use of force by police, and more! We accomplished this by participating in call-ins with CA State Strong. Additionally, your calls to Governor Newsom to sign these laws made a huge difference.
We met regularly with the staff of our MoC’s - Pelosi, Speier, Harris and Feinstein. In-person staff meetings are really important to get the ear of Congresspeople. We presented thoughts on our MOCs’ recent votes and activity, and made sure our voices as constituents were at the forefront of their minds. These meetings were crucial for changing the tide on impeachment, making sure must-pass bills did not include any poison pills, preventing the nomination of some particularly egregious judges, and more.
We helped put on a candidate forum for the District Attorney candidates in this year’s city election. DAs have a lot of impact in issues like investigation of police misconduct, criminalization of homelesness, and racial bias in prosecutorial decisions. The election for DA was hotly contested and neck-in-neck, and we’re happy to have been a part of it. We also created a comprehensive voter guide for this year’s city election.
We supported our partners in immigrants’ rights organizations, forced Wells Fargo and Chase to #DefundHate, and helped liberate local members of the community who were imprisoned by ICE. Our members conducted phone call campaigns, raised money, and packed court hearings for several people in NorCal who had been detained by ICE, including local activists in our partner organizations. We also participated in the national #DefundHate day of action and signed onto a Board of Supervisors resolution protecting asylum seekers. After our protests at Wells Fargo and Chase Bank, these banks ended their agreements to fund private prisons. We collated and spread information about DHS’s abuse of migrants at border facilities and in detention centers. When the Trump administration announced massive ICE raids, we raised money for local organizers and passed out flyers and know-your-rights cards all around the city. Finally, our members put their bodies on the line, and provided peacekeeping and event monitoring for our partners’ actions.
We FLOODED public comments for awful policy proposals from the executive branch. This year we’ve asked you to submit public comments for policy proposals that would leave millions in poverty, harm the environment, allow doctors to discriminate against their patients, and more. We know that unique, well-worded public comments have a real impact in grinding the passage of policy to a halt. Hundreds of comments flooded the public comment pages of these policies, and several of the policies were halted, delayed or abandoned. Thank you!
We were active in the politics of our San Francisco community. We vocally opposed the PG&E Bailout proposed by Governor Newsom earlier this year (before this year’s wildfires and power outages). We pressured our Supervisors to pass a resolution preventing law enforcement from enacting mass surveillance through facial recognition. We opposed the homeless sweeps the City was conducting early in the year, literally leaving homeless people out in the cold - pressuring our Supervisors and the Mayor to enact a moratorium on the sweeps. We fought for the enforcement of Prop C which was passed in 2018 to tax rich businesses and fund efforts to help the homeless. We also supported Justice 4 Mario Woods in their efforts to get the City to commit to better treatment and equal hiring of black city workers.
These are just a few of the things we accomplished this year. To all of our members who joined us in this year’s efforts, we’d like to extend a huge THANK YOU. You’re out here tirelessly, every day, making a difference in our community - both local and national. Make sure to pat yourselves on the back for giving your time and emotional energy to a good cause. And be sure to make time for self-care.
In that spirit, this is our last regular newsletter of 2019. We will still email you with event announcements as needed.
In the last few weeks of 2019, there are still a few more opportunities to help. If you feel like adding to our long, long list of wins this year, here are some things you can do!
#GivingTuesday (did we mention we write the newsletter on Tuesdays?): We’re all volunteers, but we do have expenses. Every dollar helps us rent out venues for meetings and other events and buy supplies, materials, and equipment. For more info on how you can give us money, check out our shiny new donation page.
Call your MoC’s to oppose NAFTA 2.0, a bad trade agreement that benefits corporations over regular people. Call your MoC and tell them,
I ask the Representative/Senator to please oppose Congressional ratification of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, or USMCA, also known as NAFTA 2.0. This is the wrong policy both for the U.S. and for its neighbors.
Our meeting with Sen. Harris has been rescheduled!!! The staff postponed our meeting originally scheduled for December 11th, and we haven’t settled on a new date yet. If you’re interested in joining our next meeting, whenever it is, fill out this form.
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Mark your calendars for our Holiday Party! It is currently being planned for December 14th, though this may be subject to change. Stay tuned - we’ll let you know about the details soon!
Next Indivisible SF General Meeting: Sunday, Dec 15, 1pm–3pm at the Women’s Building. This event is both for first-timers and regular attendees! At this meeting, a guest speaker from NARAL Pro-Choice California will update us on recent legislative victories and discuss state and national priorities for 2020. Come find out how Indivisible SF can help NARAL support people's rights to have children, not to have children, and to raise children in a healthy, supportive environment. Please join us. RSVP on Eventbrite.
Sunday, Dec 15, 4pm–6pm: Pints & Postcards at Standard Deviant Brewing! After our general meeting, we’ll write letters to voters in swing states to help them register to vote in key elections! $20 suggested donation, no one turned away for lack of funds. RSVP on Eventbrite.
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Keep Fighting,
The Indivisible SF Team
If you'd like to support our all-volunteer team:
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