Happy Friday, Activists!
We hope you're having a good week!
Today we have an explainer about the April 24th mailing date for our postcard project and some actions you can take to improve and save (!) our democracy and clean up the ethics problem on the Supreme Court.
And a piece about Indivisible in the Washington Post! Thanks for being in this with with us!
WOO-HOO! QUITE A SHOUTOUT!
You may have missed this fantastic opinion piece in the Washington Post by Perry Bacon,
Biden is learning that being progressive is good policy — and good politics. It was also featured in Ezra's newsletter a few days ago.
The piece argues that there are at least four significant influences on the Biden administration and describes the policies resulting from each. Bacon goes on to say that "so far, at the start of his reelection campaign, the president is leaning into the two more progressive presidencies and playing down one of the more centrist ones." Indivisible is one of them! The text about Indivisible is excerpted below and you can read the entire piece at this link.
This highlights, through all our hard work together over the years, the significant political influence on policy that our group has built, not only on the White House but all around the country. It is no small feat, and you all are a huge part of that success. Read and enjoy!
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"Third, there is the Indivisible presidency, referring to the liberal group that helped organize much of the “resistance” during the Donald Trump years. Indivisible has been pushing Biden and Democrats to prioritize fighting the radicalism of the Republican Party, casting Trump and his allies as enemies of abortion, democracy and freedom."
"Biden doesn’t have many legislative accomplishments on this front, because Sens. Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.) and Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) wouldn’t waive filibuster rules to make it easier for a major voting rights bill to pass. But since the Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization ruling, Democrats have prioritized these issues on the campaign trail."
And later in the piece --
"Second, the election results from 2022 and 2023 (and 2018 and 2020 as well) suggest that the Indivisible approach is electorally useful. When voters perceive Republicans as antiabortion and anti-democracy, they are more likely to back Democratic candidates."
POSTCARDS MAILING DATE -- EXPLAINED
We have received a LOT of questions about why we changed the postcard mailing date to April 24th, so here's a quick explanation about the new date. Some background -- we always consult Indivisible's legal counsel before we use printed materials. The lawyers advise us on how we can spend our funds so we stay on the right side of election law. Here, they have advised us that we need to be careful not to appear to endorse a candidate in the primary election. So we had to change our send date to right after the primary.
The other question we've received is why we would wait to mail the cards until after the voters have voted. That is because this is an educational message to the voters, not a Get-Out-The-Vote message. We'll have the GOTV message later in the year, so you can write those cards too!
Thank you for all your hard work writing these cards! We'll be back to you with the new phase for the cards soon!
CALL TO ACTION - SCOTUS ETHICS!
We need to push for Congress to pass legislation to pass the Supreme Court Ethics, Recusal, and Transparency Act (SCERT). This bill would impose ethical rules on all Supreme Court justices to ensure that the highest court in the land is not held to the lowest ethical standards. We know the Court has an abysmal ethics record to the point they are losing their credibility. So we need this legislation to correct the ethical problems they refuse to correct themselves. Let's call our senators and ask them to co-sponsor the SCERT Act.
Click here to see more details and fill out a form that sends a letter to your senator.
CALL VOTERS ABOUT MAIL-IN BALLOTS
You can sign up with our friends at Promote the Vote PA to call Philadelphia voters to request their mail-in ballots ahead of this year's primary election. The phone banks are on Wednesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays, starting at 6:00 PM on weekdays and Noon on weekends. And all on zoom. As always, there will be trainings and support throughout.
The data show that mail-in voting increases turnout. And this year's PA Primary coincides with Passover so for any voters who observe, we'll let them know mail-in voting will allow them to vote when their schedule permits.
BE A NEIGHBORHOOD LEADER!
You can sign up and help save democracy! Join our 35 Doors Project and canvass to some doors right in your neighborhood. We give you everything you need for success! You can reply to this newsletter to learn more.
It's the very most effective and important work you can do to get voters to the polls. And we have fun!
You can find more information about how this works in our earlier newsletter at this link.
And One More Thing: