2022 – Thanks for a Year of Advocacy and of Midterms
National advocacy began the year focused on the January 6th insurrectionists, locally, that was commemorated with over 300 folks congregating in Central Park at our rally co-sponsored with the League of Women Voters Davis area and joined by Congressman Garamendi.
The push for voting rights and the calls for ending the filibuster to pass S-1 For the People Act and John Lewis Voting Rights persisted throughout the year ultimately coming up short. Ultimately, efforts on pushing the fight on climate change forward bore fruit in the IRA even as many progressive elements we had fought hard to win the Blue Trifecta to pass, also failed to overcome the filibuster.
Locally, however, we continued work to promote democracy, equal human rights and social and racial justice here in Yolo County. After endorsing Cynthia Rodriguez for DA, our volunteers canvassed, called voters, wrote LTEs and postcards and engaged in social media to fight for a DA that would deliver safety while also ensuring justice for all. In a county where the Black sentenced prison population is 7x higher than its percentage of the general population, it is clear we (still) do not have a progressive DA.
After the DA race, the Local Action Team initiated a neighbor-to-neighbor campaign to discuss our progressive values with neighbors and friends, inviting more people to join us in building progressive power locally. In August, the team pivoted to voter engagement and turned its attention to national election work highlighted below.
State Strong Yolo continued IY’s advocacy at the State level in 2022 leading to significant successes at California’s State Capital. Most of the 30+ bills identified as priority bills by the Indivisible statewide coalition (CASS) and supported by Indivisible Yolo were passed by the Legislature and signed into law by the Governor, including:
- Democracy Reform: Top financial supporters and opponents of ballot initiatives must be disclosed
- Economic Justice: Fast Food Workers rights
- Climate Justice: Higher GHG reduction targets
- Criminal Justice: Incarcerated persons have a right to free phone calls
- Healthcare and Reproductive Rights: Reproductive Health Equity and abortion services
To advocate for these bills, Indivisible Yolo members
- Joined the statewide coalition’s workgroups to guide Indivisible’s legislative policies and strategies
- Contacted our representatives regularly
- Wrote advocacy scripts and shared them with others such as Indivisible’s weekly Action Coffee
- Commented at legislative committees
- Attended and presented at meetings with legislators during Indivisible’s Lobby Week
- Contacted the Governor to urge him to sign (or veto) legislation.
About the Midterms
Indivisible gave us the meta message – fight MAGA extremists and election deniers, keep abortion and reproductive rights front and center and don’t pay attention to the pundits predicting a Red tsunami.
And, just like in 2018 and 2020, we dug in and we did the work.
Our Electoral Team built on the lessons we learned in 2020 and improved our organizing such that we could effectively deploy a smaller number of volunteers with a strategy to focus our efforts where we could make the biggest impact – AZ, NV and Central Valley CA – because they were in our region, so we could register voters in person, as well as call, text, and canvass voters in reachable districts.
Working with our partner, Sister District Yolo, and aligned local groups from Planned Parenthood, Moms Demand Action and the League of Women Voters, we kicked off election season with Midterm Rally for Democracy at Central Park engaging over 100 volunteers to step up and take action. And then, we got to work!
We created a new Walk Team, starting from scratch, and did a total of 105 “person-days” of voter registration and canvassing
- 10 volunteers contributed a total of 396 hrs of voter registration effort in northern Nevada, critical to delivering for CCM.
- 40 volunteers contributed a total of 768 hrs of canvassing – walking door-to-door – in the communities of Reno, Stockton, and Tulare.
Our joint Call Team Yolo called for both Sister District Candidates and Senate races in AZ and NV, then developed a call-on-your-own-campaign and developed stronger partnerships with organizations like Activate America by participating in their GOTV call-a-thon, which drew in callers nationally.
- 79 volunteers recorded 21,710 calls
- 10,479 calls to Nevada voters
- 3,930 calls to California voters
- 3,516 calls to Georgia voters – after Nov 8!
- 3,129 calls to Arizona voters
- 656 calls to voters in other states
Text Team Yolo developed more effective communications tools with texters through a text team slack account and google calendar to post up-to-date texting opportunities.
- 20 volunteers sent 2,627,709 texts
- 158,047 texts to California voters
- 107,280 texts to Arizona voters
- 76,648 texts to Georgia voters
- 54,611 texts to Nevada voters
- 2,231,123 to other states
And we also expanded into election protection activities such as voter protection hotlines in Nevada & Georgia, ballot curing in Nevada & CA13, and on-site poll observers in Nevada.
In the end, we won some critical races to expand the Senate majority; we lost some close US races here in CA. We stopped the Red Wave – you can look no further than it taking Kevin McCarthy 14 more roll-call votes than any speaker in modern history to become Speaker. And we built a community we’ll need to tap in 2023 to resist the most extreme MAGA election deniers who have McCarthy on a very short leash, and continue to grow that community to be a defining grassroots force again in the 2024 elections.
There’s a lot to be very thankful for – namely each of you, our volunteers. Thanks so much!
New Indivisible Guide!
Download and read: “A Practical Guide to Defeating MAGA”
This Thursday, Jan. 26th at 5pm PST on Zoom: RSVP for a deep dive into the Guide to Defeating MAGA:
“At Indivisible, a new Congress means it’s time for a new Indivisible Guide. Join us for the formal launch of Indivisible: A Practical Guide to Defeating MAGA, where we’ll break down just exactly how to activate on our new strategy in 2023, whether you live in a community that’s red, blue, or something in between.”
Register here: https://indivisible.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZItce-qrTotHd3cP7B4Wk7M3xQGytuWBnry
To our Members of Congress: don’t negotiate with MAGA hostage-takers- raise the debt ceiling now
California’s 2 Senators:
- Sen. Feinstein: 415-393-0707 (SF) 202-224-3841 (D.C) (email)
- Sen. Padilla: 916-448–2787 (Sacramento) 202-224-3553 (D.C.) (email)
A lot of Indivisible Yolo members have a new representative! You can find out whether your representative is Rep. Mike Thompson or Rep. Doris Matsui here.
- Rep. Thompson (530) 753-5301 (Woodland) (202) 225-3311 (D.C) (email)
- Rep. Matsui (916) 498-5600 (Sacramento) (202) 225-7163 (D.C.) (email)
Hi, my name is [your name] and my zip code is [zip code]. I am asking you to lift the debt ceiling using a discharge motion in the House. We can’t let Republicans use the economy as a hostage to achieve their dream of gutting Social Security and Medicare. The [Senator/Representative] must protect our nation by raising the debt ceiling now, because discharge petitions take time and time is running out. Will the [Senator/Representative] act now to raise the debt ceiling? Yes or no?
State Strong Yolo
A lot happens at the State Capitol in Sacramento….are you paying attention?
Here’s your chance! State Strong Yolo is part of a large coalition of Indivisible groups throughout California working to promote progressive legislation in Sacramento. Join us on February 1 at 7 p.m. to find out more about this important and fun work at our 2023 Kickoff State Strong Yolo Team meeting. Contact indivisibleyolo@gmail.com to sign up for the meeting and/or tell us of your interest in State Strong Yolo so we can contact you.
Interested in getting involved in Indivisible Yolo?
- To learn more about joining one of our Indivisible Yolo action teams and to see how you can volunteer to help win elections, fill out this quick interest form so we can connect with you!
- And check out our calendar for upcoming Indivisible Yolo events.
