Friends,
The first two weeks of November have been jam-packed. Not only have we celebrated Diwali (Nov 4) and Veterans Day (Nov 11), we’ve also held five Democrats Deliver Town Halls across the state.
The best news by far is out of Washington D.C. Late last Friday night, the United States House of Representatives passed President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal, bringing the country another step closer to a once-in-a-generation investment in our infrastructure.
This is a massive bill with positive impacts for every state, including Missouri. Infrastructure isn’t just roads and bridges, and the money coming to our state will reflect that.
Believe it or not, these are only the highlights! President Biden and the Democrats have also delivered on bringing green energy to Missouri. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal includes $99 million for the state to build and support the expansion of the EV Charging Network.
Our country is on track to help create millions of good-paying jobs, make critical investments needed for decades and continue our trajectory of historic economic growth following COVID-19. And this part has already started.
531,000 new jobs were added in October alone. Since taking office, the growth averages to about 620,000 jobs each month and over 5.6 million overall.
We’ve made tremendous progress in the last nine months. With the Infrastructure Bill expected to be signed into law on Monday, more Missouri jobs are coming down the pipeline*.
*The brand new pipeline.
Democrats Deliver: Town Hall Series
Thank you to those of you that joined us at our town halls in St. Louis, Kansas City, St. Joseph, Springfield and Cape Girardeau! We had informative speakers from various Health Departments to deliver a COVID-19 update, discuss the spread and how to encourage others in their communities to get vaccinated. At most of the meetings, our second speaker was from The Missouri Department of Transportation (MODOT) to update us not only on the region’s infrastructure, but talk about specific projects coming up in your neighborhoods.
Real jobs and real outcomes. In Springfield, we are extremely grateful for Steve Campbell, our nonpartisan MODOT Southwest region area engineer that gave an outstanding presentation and spoke frankly with us about the turnover at MODOT and how it effects upcoming projects and overall morale.
After the speakers, we were honored to welcome various elected officials for Q&A discussion on action in Jefferson City. Thank you Sens. Doug Beck and Barbara Washington, along with Reps. Ashely Aune, Yolanda Young, Marlene Terry, Richard Brown, Mark Sharp, Wes Rogers, LaKeySha Bosley, Trish Gunby, Doug Clemens and Betsy Fogle.
Do you have ideas for our next Town Hall series? Let us know if you want us to come to your community!
Redistricting Update
The final public hearing took place in Kirksville on Tuesday, following a hastily rescheduled hearing in Cape Girardeau on Monday.
Clearly, transparency is not important to the Republican Commissioners. Not only did they vote against holding more hearings in August, but in Kirksville they also decided to close the online portal available for written testimony. There is no reason the portal needs to be closed because testimony is still useful for map makers and judges.
It is unclear exactly when it will be taken down, but is expected to be today, Friday the 12th.
The reason? More testimony means more input. It means more community members will come out and stand up for their homes and neighbors and against gerrymandering and see the true lack of transparency the GOP boasts.
While the Legislative Redistricting Commission meetings have finished, we aren’t at the end. If the Commissions are unable to come to an agreement…a board of six appellate judges will be announced and the process continues:
Staff Update
We started a new segment recently to include what we are currently working on. Your support and donations give us the ability to do our jobs and we want you to feel adequately updated.
Our entire staff was pretty focused on the Democrats Deliver: Town Hall series for the last few weeks. We drove all around the state and are so grateful for all of the county committee help throughout the process – Andy Leighton, you are a rockstar! While this series is over, we look forward to using what we learned to make our next town halls even more successful.
Randy attended the Cole County Committee Meeting to provide a redistricting update, while both him and Andy have met with possible vendors to help with voter registration.
Andy’s number-brain is very excited because he received the first 2022 turnout projections of the cycle from Clarity Campaign Labs.
It’s infrastructure TIME! (imagine me singing that to get the full experience). As the Comms Director, I have been meeting with various DNC and White House officials to narrow down specific Missouri numbers and prepare detailed ways we can distribute this information in an accessible manner. I am preparing for the upcoming passage of the BBB Framework later this November.
We are one year out! Next November will be here before we know it. Help us gear up for the 2022 election cycle:
You can also purchase our new #MoDemsCare merchandise from our online store.
