PEG 12th Congressional District Newsletter 291
Thursday, November 17, 2022
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Glass Ceilings were broken on November 8!
10 candidates who made history –The Hill
Wes Moore (D)
Army veteran, former CEO of one of the nation’s largest anti-poverty organizations and best-selling author, he was elected Maryland’s first Black governor and becomes only the third Black person to be elected governor of a state.
Maura Healey (D)
She was elected as the first female governor of Massachusetts and the nation’s first openly lesbian governor.
Sarah Huckabee Sanders (R)
Becoming governor of Arkansas, she became the first woman to govern the state.
As former White House press secretary, she broke fundraising records in the state and is the highest-profile figure from Trump’s administration to win election.
Maxwell Frost (D)
At 25-years old, he became the first “Generation Z” elected to Congress. Winning the seat vacated by Rep. Val Demings (D) in Florida, he is expected to become a new member of the “squad.”
Becca Balint (D)
She became the first woman and the first openly gay person to be elected to Congress from Vermont, the last state in the country to send a woman to Congress.
Anna Paulina Luna (R)
She become Florida’s first Mexican American woman elected to Congress. She joins 12 Latino members of Congress from Florida: 10 of Cuban descent, one of Puerto Rican descent and one of Ecuadorian descent.
James Roesener (D)
From New Hampshire, he became the first transgender man elected to any state legislature. There are only eight openly transgender state lawmakers in the country, according to Victory Fund, with just six openly transgender men serving in elected office.
Anthony Brown (D)
He will be Maryland’s first Black attorney general. He said he would expand the office’s civil rights division, protect abortion rights and work to reduce gun violence.
Summer Lee (D)
She is the first Black woman elected to Congress from Pennsylvania. She is expected to become a member of the “squad.”
Delia Ramirez (D)
Representing the third Congressional District in Illinois, she is the daughter of immigrants who has made history as the first Latina elected to Congress from a Midwestern state.
December 6 – Georgia Runoff
Black Georgia voters say the runoff leaves them with a burden to ‘save the Senate’ again
“This is disappointing because one candidate is a qualified senator. The other is Herschel Walker,” said Aaron Jones, 47, an auto body repair supervisor in Atlanta.
One of the major takeaways from the Georgia races, according to Ariel Martin, 55, was that Black voters do matter.
“There’s power in our votes. If 2020 hadn’t happened, this race would seem like any other old midterms to Black people,” Martin, a tax attorney in suburban Atlanta, said Wednesday while shopping at his local grocery store. “But we realized our power two years ago, and now, despite voter suppression, we voted in big numbers because we know our votes matter now. Black people have made it so Republicans have to be accountable.”
“And now it’s back on us to save the Senate,” added S. Dorian Hampton, 41. “We did it once. We can do it again.” – NBC News
Why does one more Senate seat make a difference??
A Democratic victory in the upcoming Senate race between Sen Raphael Warnock and Herschel Walker has the potential of giving the Democratic party a clear 51-seat majority in the Senate. The majority will not only put the Democrats in control for passing legislation, but it will also allow them to continue to reshape the federal judiciary by confirming President Biden’s nominations for the next two years, including the Supreme Court should an opening arise. –NBC
Equally important is the fact that a 50-50 split requires a power-sharing agreement, i.e., all Senate Committee have equally divided memberships and requiring more time and effort to move nominations through committees without any GOP support. In the majority Democrats would be able to move nominations, set the floor agenda and ignore bills that Republicans send over from the House. In addition, Democrat-controlled Senate could make sure that their chamber’s committees didn’t focus hearings on issues such as investigations that may be generated by the House.–Vox
Finally, in the 2024 map for Senatorial elections, Democrats will be defending the seats of Sen. Joe Manchin (WV), Sen. Jon Tester (MT) and Sen. Sherrod Brown (Ohio), all states that voted for Trump in the last election. Additionally, several other Democrat-held seats will be up in states like Arizona, Michigan, and Maine. According to Vox News, “Essentially, the more seats Democrats can win in 2022, the better position they’ll have to withstand any shake-ups two years from now.”
Help Georgia in the fight to defend democracy. If you would like to volunteer to make telephone calls on Sen Warnock’s behalf, click here. Contributions would be welcomed by organizations such as the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, Senator Warnock’s campaign and Focus 4 Democracy.
Things to Read, Watch, and Listen to
Under the Radar: Armenian National Coalition helped defeat Mehmet Oz
Armenians, Greeks, Jewish, Kurdish and other allied Americans formed a strong coalition to help defeat Mehmet Oz – a denier of the Armenian Genocide of 1915. The Genocide was recognized by the US Congress in 2019 and by Joe Biden in 2021. Oz has aligned himself with Turkish president Recep Erdogan, not a bastion of democracy or human rights. John Fetterman ran on decency, the rule of law and inclusion of all – in other words principles of democracy.
Working quietly behind the scenes, this coalition made a difference for Pennsylvania and all of us; while they were not headliners on national talk shows or in print media, their coalition confirms the power of committed grassroots efforts to uphold the principles of democracy. Despite being “behind-the scenes,” the coalition demonstrated there is strength in working across belief systems and backgrounds. It supports the old adage that it takes a “village” to maintain a democracy. –ANCA
