Launching, merging, lobbying and next steps - DNC Reform Blog

It has been a busy 3 weeks since I last posted on the reform blog so there is a lot to catch you up on in the saga to disrupt the system with political revolution.

We launched on Dec. 1, had our kickoff meeting and have been collecting member names to build up our database/network. I also learned that another group is already calling themselves the Northern Illinois branch so I've been fortunate enough to get to know Bob Babcock and Rich Rodriguez, local OR organizers. We are sorting through what merging looks like for us, I'm excited to build a strong OR coalition in Illinois and confident we will work together effectively. More to come on this as it develops.

Moved by the wonderful work at the Sunrise Movement, which has been in the spotlight thanks to Representative-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, we undertook our first attempt to lobby our rep in support of a Green New Deal. We began our call on Representative Raja Krishnamoorthi to back the select committee and so far all we've received from his office is his standard form letter on the environment. That's not good enough. The fight for a liveable envornment cannot be put on hold. the IPCC report tells us we have to move swiftly and so we are pushing back on Raja to commit to meaningful change.

While we may not have moved him yet, we have had a ton of engagement on the advertisements! More than 600 of his constituents have seen our ad and many have engaged in our campaign to lobby for a Green New Deal as a result. Help keep the pressure up by reaching out to him to to be on the right side of science, to take the threat seriously, and to protect our future.

We will be shifting our organizing efforts now to prepare for National Nurses United's call for barnstorm events and a week of action in support of Medicare for All. They had an AMAZING organizing call asking all affiliated groups to prepare to push HR676. I did that write up summarizing the call and have already seen some local FB groups picking it up and posting it, which is super exciting. I'll be speaking with Bob and Rich about how we can begin the efforts to build a coalition of local groups interested in working together on this. If you are interested in joining this effort reach out to us via the contact us section of our site.

I'm currently in development of a strategy based on the one Ben Day (Healthcare NOW ) used to lobby Representative Joseph Kennedy into support for the bill. I've reached out to Ben in an email asking what exactly his coalition letter said so we can better understand how to move forward. Here is how he did it:

Ben's group "adopted" Rep. Joseph Kennedy, who sits on the Energy and Commerce committee, a key target. Ben and his team lobbied Rep. Kennedy directly within the community of his district and took him from no position, to "absolutely" supports the idea of single-payer. He is stalling them a bit over language and has not officially signed on, but they've gotten him on record in support. [Source] Here is how they did it:

• Built a coalition in his district - Created a sign-on letter asking him to support HR676 and reached out to other organizations within the community, as well as national resources like unions that they knew financially had backed Kennedy in the past, and asked them to join. Result? No response. But it did help them build a network for the next step.

• Social Media day of action - All the groups that signed the letter had all their members spam his Facebook and Twitter for one day with a unified hashtag and direct, meaningful messaging. Result? Still no response, but they have started the buzz leading into...

• In person canvasing at supermarkets - For two weeks they stood outside grocery stores in his district and just asked people to call his office right there on the spot, generating over 250 in those two weeks. Result? That is when he got in contact with them and began negotiation with Rep. Jayapal.

On the actual DNC engagement and reform front, I've had some progress as well. No one emailed me back from the DNC (shock) but I was able to do some research locally and have some info to share.

I popped on the Cook County Democrats page to see what events might be coming up that I could show up to and get involved in. I'm reasonably new to following Cook County politics, and when I started glancing around the site I was greeted by this:

Yuck. That's not a good start. Anyway, they don't have any events on the calendar for the rest of the year, so I'm going to let that action chill till after the holiday when I will check again.

Next I moved on to Wheeling Township Dems, and I used their sign up thing to mark that I was interested in every possible position of leadership out there. They have an upcoming event in January to send off some elected officials to Springfield, I may join in on that to try and get more involved. I've gotten on their newsletter and Facebook to stay dialed in.

The biggest progress in this sector has been getting introduced to Bob and Rich. Finding other progressives that understand the system is going to be a huge help in this exploratory work. I've let them both know I want to start pushing the party left, and they've let me know that they know how haha. More to come as we continue to talk through our work together.