Compiled by RADC Members - Tracy Wise and Jeff Poggi

#GetInvolvedGetInformedTakeAction

#RedlandsDemsAct

Welcome to this week’s Call to Action, where you can find some of the latest events and news to help you take part in the issues that matter to our communities. With special thanks to Lisa Olson and Solidarity Sundays – Redlands Chapter for two of this week’s action items.

If you have a call to action that you would like us to highlight, email us at: [email protected] 

ACTION ITEM

For Wednesday, July 13, 2022


1. From Solidarity Sundays - Redlands Chapter:  Expose Fake Clinics

“Crisis Pregnancy Centers” (CPCs) present themselves as medical clinics and often receive state funding, but they are actually anti-abortion propaganda centers.  As the vast majority do not have medical licenses, they are not regulated by medical boards nor do they have to comply with federal healthcare privacy regulations.  Instead, they are considered religious outreach organizations protected by the first amendment.  

Pregnant people deserve to know what type of clinic they are walking into, but CPC websites are typically quite deceptive, advertising “abortion information” and counseling on “all choices.”  We can help by writing Google and Yelp reviews about these clinics to help potential clients seeking abortion care understand what type of services they actually offer.

Go to https://www.exposefakeclinics.com/list-of-states and pick a state and a city.  Find a Crisis Pregnancy Center on the list and look at their website; then look at their Yelp and Google reviews. If there are already critical reviews that explain that it is a fake clinic, upvote those reviews (you can do this even without an account!).  If there aren’t any critical reviews, you can write one.  Based on looking at the clinic website and/or other info you can find online about the organization, you could write something like this:

“This clinic claims they offer information about all options, but in fact they are an anti-abortion organization.  Know that Plan C pills can be obtained in any state!”


2. From Solidarity Sundays – Redlands Chapter: Write Senators about codifying Roe, eliminating the filibuster, and expanding the court.

Alabama, Arkansas, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas, West Virginia, and Wisconsin have already banned abortion, and a dozen more states are expected to follow in the next few weeks.  Biden’s executive order on Friday won’t do that much to help.  We need Democrats to take drastic action, including codifying reproductive rights into law, eliminating the filibuster, and expanding the Supreme Court (the latter two actions are necessary to make the first one effective).  Even reliable pro-choice Senators are waffling on the latter two, afraid of looking too radical.  The Senate already tried to codify reproductive rights in May, but it was a vote for show because of the filibuster. 

From https://www.takebackthecourt.today: The last time Congress changed the size of the Supreme Court it settled on 9 justices to match the number of judicial circuits. But while the number of circuit courts has increased over time to keep up with an increased caseload, the same isn’t true of the number of justices: today we have 13 circuit courts but only 9 Supreme Court justices.

The Judiciary Act of 2021 would add 4 seats, taking the size of the court from 9 to 13 justices to match the number of circuit courts, while also directly countering Republican efforts to pack the Court. 

There is no requirement in the Constitution for a fixed number of justices. Congress has actually changed the Supreme Court’s size 7 times through legislation, previously having set the number of justices on the Court to as few as 5 and as many as 10. And of course, it had only eight justices for a time when Senate Republicans violated all historical norms to hold the late Justice Antonin Scalia’s seat open until it could be filled by a Republican president.

Write Senators to demand eliminating the filibuster and expand the Court.  None of the Senators below have expressed clear support for these two things, although Feinstein has said she’d consider eliminating the filibuster for certain causes (including reproductive rights).  Manchin and Sinema were the holdouts that caused the carve-out of the filibuster for voting rights legislation to fail in January. Sample script (it’s best to adapt with your own wording):

Dear Senator X,

Please cosponsor S1141, the Judiciary Act of 2021, to rebalance the court, and support eliminating the filibuster so that reproductive rights can be codified.  We can’t just concede these fights to the Republicans who stole Supreme Court seats.  We must fight with every tool we have. 

CONTACT:

Senator Joe Manchin, who was also the only Democrat to vote against the Women’s Health Protection Act of 2022 in May, which failed 49-51.

306 Hart Senate Office Building, Washington D.C. 20510

Senator Kyrsten Sinema, who has been censured by Arizona Democrats for voting to protect the filibuster

317 Hart Senate Office Building, Washington, DC 20510

Senator Dianne Feinstein, 11111 Santa Monica Blvd., Suite 915, Los Angeles, CA 90025 (if you write to her, please thank her for supporting eliminating the filibuster for abortion rights)

Senator Alex Padilla, 11845 West Olympic Blvd., Suite 1250W, Los Angeles, CA 90064 (if you write to him, please thank him for supporting eliminating the filibuster)


3. 2022 Midterms: Supporting Candidates

As we begin the countdown to the November midterms, please start carving out time in advance to support local and state-wide candidates.  For example, Senator Alex Padilla, Rep. Pete Aguilar, Derek Marshall for the House, Eloise Gomez Reyes and James Ramos for the California State Legislature, and Denise Davis and Mario Saucedo for Redlands City Council (Loma Linda and Highland folks—let us know who we should be supporting in your City Council races!). We will continue to share information with you as info and events come up.

Also begin to think about adopting a candidate in a state governor’s race. Some initial flagged races to consider:

  • The eventual Dem nominee in Florida
  • Stacey Abrams in Georgia
  • Josh Shapiro in Pennsylvania
  • Beto O’Rourke in Texas

For example, if you want to sign up to phonebank for Beto now, just go to: http://www.betoorourke.com/call 

Let's give a helping hand to our fellow citizens who live in states that are trying to take away their basic civil and human rights. Think of it as our coming together in a national barn-raising, because that’s what Americans do.

STICK A PIN IN THIS

  • Support Organizations Working to End Gun Violence in the U.S.
  • Moms Demand Action:  https://momsdemandaction.org/ 
  • Brady United Against Gun Violence: https://www.bradyunited.org/ 
  • Everytown for Gun Safety:  https://www.everytown.org/Act 
  • Sandy Hook Promise:  https://www.sandyhookpromise.org/ 
  • Giffords:  https://giffords.org/ 
  • The January 6th Committee is holding its July public hearings. We are anticipating the final hearing of the summer will be held during Primetime the week of July 18th. Check C-SPAN or PBS for recordings of past hearings, as well as the J6 site itself: https://january6th.house.gov/ 
  • Advocating for a vibrant downtown Redlands with a re-use of the site of the current derelict Redlands Mall:  The Planning Commission and the City Council held a joint meeting on Tuesday, May 10, 2022.  Lasting over 5 hours, the result was a unanimous vote by the City Council in favor of the developers’ design for the Redlands Mall project. This is an important step forward in building a sustainable and resilient downtown Redlands for the future.

The City Council is continuing to work on this project along with the University of Redlands project.

  • Learn about the City Council Candidate Running in the New District 3: Mario Saucedo! Go to https://mariosaucedo.com/ to learn more about this native Redlander and community activist and the issues he is prioritizing in his campaign. We will be sharing future events for Redlands Dems to attend!
  • Learn about the City Council Re-election Campaign for Denise Davis in District 1!  https://www.deniseforredlands.com/ for more information.