Help Pass AB249! Money Out of Politics Workgroup

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By now, all ED Progressives should have heard of the California Disclose Act, AB249 (formerly AB14). What you may not understand is how important passage of this bill is to holding clean elections in 2018. If passed, it goes into effect January 1, 2018 and will be in place for the 2018 elections. Affecting only ballot measures, it requires that the true funders over $50,000 of political ads will be disclosed on those ads, in legible font. Remember in 2016 we had no less than 17 ballot measures for voters to figure out? And 95% of the time, whoever spends the most money, wins. Is this what we call democracy?

We have until September 15 for the bill to pass. It now faces a vote on the full Senate floor and then goes back to the Assembly for a concurrence vote. It requires a two-thirds majority vote--very hard to achieve. After that, Governor Brown has until October 15 to approve.

AB249 has support of over 300 organizations and leaders, including California Democratic Party, and the Justice, Green, and Peace and Freedom parties. Also, League of Women Voters, Common Cause, and other “good government” organizations.

Who isn’t supporting it? The California Republican Party has not stepped up for transparency and disclosure, unfortunately. But several free-thinking individual Republican representatives are considering supporting the bill.

Though it seems a no-brainer (who wants to go on record to continue deceiving and confusing voters??), this bill will pass ONLY WITH THE LOUD SUPPORT OF GRASSROOTS CITIZENS. Over 90,000 Californians have already signed petitions in support (including over 45,000 paper petitions).

What can EDP folks do in the next one-and-a-half weeks to get this vital bill passed?

  1. Go to www.yesfairelections.org and sign the AB249 petition, even if you have signed it before. (This triggers an email to your representatives).
  2. While at the website, sign up to volunteer (consider training on CallFire to make phonebanking calls to Clean Money supporters in key districts).
  3. Go to facebook.com/California Disclose Act and sign the AB249 petition, even if you have signed it before.
  4. Call your Assemblymember/Senator and demand he support AB249. While all three ED County representatives are Republican, Assemblyman Kiley (District 6) is open-minded and considering supporting the bill. Assemblyman Bigelow (District 5) and Senator Gaines (District 1) just need to know their constituents are demanding transparency.

Please join the small but mighty EDP Money Out of Politics activists in passing AB249!

EDP Members: Our County, State, and Nation Need Your Energy and Your Ideas

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If you’ve ever said to yourself, “El Dorado Progressives could do great things!” or “Gee, why don’t these people...” then YOU are a person we need to hear from. We need you to share your ideas, your dreams, your hopes and your energy.  We will be conducting a short series of meetings over the next few weeks to brainstorm with people just like you who are eager to see change, but not able to abandon their family or career to pursue. Together, we can move mountains...and political goalposts!

There has been an amazing explosion of membership in El Dorado Progressives. In a mere ten months, we’ve grown from two to over 1,800 Facebook like-minded adults! Our founder, Sean Frame, has been the principal sparkplug that ignited this fire, and he has picked a few people to form a steering committee. But, these few leaders are overwhelmed by the potential we represent. We’re living in a world full of opportunities to make a major and distinct difference but there are so many opportunities we’re overwhelmed. WE NEED YOU to share your dreams and aspirations with us, to help us focus on what we should be doing FIRST, what we should be putting MORE of our effort into, and what we should just leave to others to achieve.

Here’s how it will work:

1) Identify yourself as a thinker and/or a doer. Send a simple email to EDPbrains@gmail.com and give us name, phone number, and best time(s) to call.

2) Someone will call and ask you a few questions, and perhaps recommend a face-to-face meeting. We’re looking for important nuggets of ideas (aka “partly-baked ideas”) that we can collaborate on to evolve.

3) We’ll start a series of meetings, where we will all explore the most exciting, productive, and engaging ideas together, look at the pros and cons of each, and build a list of principles that we will hone into action items.

4) We’ll publish those action items for all the membership to see; begin the process of building the resources needed to implement those ideas; and forge our EDP into the best model of success. This will be our road map to the future. It will be public, it will engage as many members as possible in the implementation and execution, and your best ideas will emerge into the light of day.

Be part of the EDP “revolution.” Send a short message to EDPbrains@gmail.com and let us call you back. Let’s start our baby steps toward rebuilding our democracy together!

EDP Stands with Standing Rock #noDAPL

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On August 26 in Nevada City, our own Nick Kalbach interviewed a prominent leader in the Standing Rock #noDAPL effort. Chase Iron Eyes' daughter was one of the youth who began what is now an international movement against extractive technologies. Chase speaks eloquently, himself threatened with five years' imprisonment, in 7 minutes of Chase Iron Eyes.

If you were or are moved by Standing Rock Opposition to the Dakota Access Pipeline, please sign the petition to free the 863 Water Protectors at the General Meeting on September 10th or online. They are innocent of these trumped-up charges. "Trumped-up" indeed. Native Americans’ and their allies' bold efforts to stop pipelines is worth our support, especially since renewables can replace fossil fuels.

The seven minutes of clarity between Chase and Nick bring us up to date as to why Standing Rock #noDAPL is significant for the world. When a private paramilitary company joins with a governmental agency, they can call protesters "terrorists." The heinous North Dakota's police actions against unarmed water protectors resulted in the 863 arrests that the lakotalaw.org petition is designed to overturn. Please sign and ask your personal network to sign, too.

We STILL Have a Dream - Placerville, CA

Here's a video of our march and vigil, featuring a great rendition of Woody Guthrie's "All You Fascists" performed and recorded by KateFrances Hege.

El Dorado Progressives hosted a march and vigil in Placerville in solidarity with the people of #Charlottesville and a memorial for Heather Heyer on the 54th anniversary of Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream speech".

Music: Kate Hege doing her own rendition of "All You Fascists" by Woody Guthrie.

Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon’s announces a Select Committee on Universal Healthcare:

They're not having a hearing on SB 562 specifically, but a more general hearing on getting to universal health care, including single payer options or filling in the gaps in the current system.  Here's Lara's response:  http://sd33.senate.ca.gov/news/2017-08-24-statement-senator-ricardo-lara-assembly-speakers-creation-select-committee-universal  (He's the original author of SB 562.)

Assemblymember Wood's statement is also worth looking at to see where some of the issues may be https://a02.asmdc.org/news/close-home-path-universal-health-care 

Assemblymember Arambula didn't issue a statement, though he has spoken positively of single payer in the past.

At least they are all talking to each other . . .

EDP General Meeting, with Richard Kimball

Aug. 13, 2017 at 3 p.m.
Edwin Markham Middle School Large Gymnasium
2800 Moulton Dr., Placerville

Richard Kimball

Our guest speaker, Richard Kimball of Votesmart.org, will present "Facts Matter". What is an informed electorate? What are current trends in how candidates affect and motivate voters' choices? How can we get accurate information about a candidate? How can voters discern between facts and truth versus distortion and "fake news"?

EDP-ers will have the opportunity to sing along with and be serenaded by the New Freedom Choir of Placerville. Founded in 1991, the NFC is an amateur, community, recreational, and strictly secular women's chorus. The NFC specializes in singing songs about social issues, peace, justice, the environment, love, and equality.

Environmental Work Group - Public Lands Workshop July 20, 2017

Public Lands Enemy 14 - Tom McClintock

El Dorado Progressives, along with the El Dorado Chapter of the California Native Plant Society (EDC CNPS) and the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD), hosted a workshop July 20th in Cameron Park on "Defending Our Public Lands," led by CBD's Public Lands Campaigner Ryan Beam. 

Over 50 people attended the workshop, which included an overview of what constitutes "public land," what threats they face from the present administration and Congress in Washington DC, and particularly, what the role of Dist. 4 Congressional Rep. Tom McClintock is. 

 

McClintock has been named "Public Lands Enemy #14" in CBD's Public Lands Enemies report. Indicative of making this list, McClintock recently introduced legislation to allow bikes and other mechanized transport into designated "foot only" wilderness areas.
 
As stated in the CBD report: "Despite the irreplaceable value these places hold, in recent years, a concerted effort has been driven forward by certain senators and U.S. representatives to seize, dismantle, destroy, and privatize our public lands. These lawmakers are backed by fossil fuel corporations and other extractive industries that already squeeze massive profits out of America’s public lands and only want more."
 
CBD is spearheading an ongoing campaign aimed at blunting these GOP-led efforts by asking people to send letters to the editor and opinion articles to local newspapers and to also send targeted letters and petitions expressing strong opposition to McClintock and the other "Dirty 15.” At this time, Sequoia National Monument is facing an immediate threat, with the boards of supervisors of two California counties siding with Trump and McClintock and proposing a two-thirds reduction in acreage for the monument. By shrinking it to less than 100,000 acres, approximately 200,000 acres of "big trees" would be made available to timber sales.
 
Other national monuments "under review" by Trump appointee Secretary of the Interior Zinke include Giant Sequoia, Bears Ears, Carrizo Plain, Basin and Range, Mojave Trails, and more. With almost half of El Dorado County being public lands, we have a lot at stake here in the foothills and mountains of El Dorado County. We all partake of their beauty and abundant resources for recreation, hunting and fishing, our livelihoods, the all-important water provision and protection, and natural habitat for native plants and animals. Our public lands are neither Red nor Blue, but an important legacy ALL of us share.
 
To become involved in the effort to protect and defend our public lands, sign-up with EDP's Environmental Working Group (contact: Frank Baker, fbhikku@gmail.com) and/or the CBD action network (http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/action/ or PublicLandsWorkshop@gmail.com).