#33: Our Seven Non-Perishable Holiday Gifts to America

This is the next of our series of missives on our unfinished work to restore the promise of our country and its government. Each will focus on a single element of the many opportunities and challenges that lie ahead. Each will provide three steps we can all take to build upon our huge victories winning back the House in 2018 and the Presidency in 2020. 

If you are not already receiving our email blasts, please click here to be added to our list. You can also follow me on Facebook where you can read and share these messages. The more people we can reach, the more we contribute to this growing movement. We share these posts on our blog, Our Unfinished Work, every three to four weeks.

The future is promising, for all sorts of reasons. Republicans are split in at least three ways, with pro-Trump and non-Trump MAGA-its and those who don’t want MAGA to be the definer. There is every reason to believe their conflicts will intensify, including in the House of Representatives. Joe Biden just achieved the most successful two-year legislative record since The New Deal. Independents are estranged from Republican candidates. A woman’s right to choose will be with us aas a driver of votes until that right is again guaranteed. Inflation is abating and gas prices are lower. Biden has created and sustained an impressive international coalition to protect Ukraine. 

There is little chance that Donald Trump will be nominated and no chance he will be elected to the Presidency in 2024. There is a distinct advantage to Democrats anytime Donald Trump does or says anything. It is a huge understatement to say the release of his tax returns and his impending criminal charges have worsened his situation. That doesn’t reverse the huge damage he has caused democratic systems, nor eliminate further threats to election integrity. Nonetheless, it is not lost upon Republicans that continuing to lie about the 2020 presidential election is to their great disadvantage. What a gift to Katie Hobbs, Gretchen Whitmer, Raphael Warnock, and countless others.

On the Democratic side, Joe Biden will decide not to run for re-election, because he knows even better than you that he will not have the stamina at age 82 to run and serve. This means the monumental movement to win back America that has had great success from 2018 on will have to generate its energy while multiple candidates seek to become its leader.

We are up to the challenge. Whatever “woke” could possibly mean, we are wide awake. We are aware and proud of what we have accomplished and are not even close to satisfied. We wouldn’t mind at least a temporary decrease in requests for money from candidates, but we are otherwise ready to do everything we can in 2023 to make certain we get the right results in 2024. Here’s the list of seven things we could pin on the refrigerator or next to the nightstand.

1) Attend to Your Community
	Perhaps you live someplace where the attention to the Bill of Rights seems unabated and where elected officials are continually exploring what government can or should do with and for the people. Even in those places, the need for vigilance is ever present. Are local governments reaching out to citizens, or creating antipathy? Are books protected in the library, and patients and their choices protected in the hospital? Are good candidates emerging for local positions? Should you be considering running for local office, or recruiting a candidate?
2) Maintain Voter Registration Efforts
	For a long time, you have been meaning to examine the extent to which young people turning 18 are registering to vote, and whether there are systems to connect with people who have not done so? Are local high schools, community colleges and four-year colleges administering programs that register people as they become 18? Which of any partners are engaged? Check and see if the League of Women Voters is active or start your own voter registration group. It would not be difficult to do your own “audit” or what is happening in your area. Get on the mailing list of the national organization When We All Vote, to which Michelle Obama has devoted her time. As important, check to make sure your own legislators support easy registration and voting by mail. The National Vote at Home Institute keeps a scorecard of state practices. You can examine it and/or offer to help.
3) Boost Underrepresented Groups
	Organizations bent on improving Latino registration and voting had an enormous impact on the positive outcomes in Nevada, Arizona, Georgia, and New Mexico. One premier organization is Mi Familia Vota, which for years has used energy and inventiveness to have an outsized impact. You can make charitable contributions to the Mi Familia Vota Education Fund If you are 72 or older, you can send them part or all of the Required Minimum Distribution (RMD) from your Individual Retirement Account.

4) Defeat the Deniers
	Election deniers were themselves denied on November 8. Four Republican candidates for Secretary of State in swing states (Michigan, New Mexico, Arizona, and Nevada) featured their rejection of the 2020 presidential election results, even though these positions include the supervision of elections! All four were defeated. Our movement needs to stay on this path by blocking corporate contributions to the 147 members of the House of Representatives who sought to block certification of the presidential election in 2020. The excellent organization Accountable US which monitors uneven and sometimes sordid corporate behavior is an outstanding resource for you or your organization to hold companies responsible. After promising after the insurrection not to support these members of Congress, several well known technology companies have forgotten their pledge. You can use Accountable US to keep you informed or to figure out how to put some pressure on individual companies.
5) Keep Choice in the Forefront
	Six states had choice on the ballot in November, and the pro-choice position prevailed in all six. Pro-choice forces are already evaluating which states to emphasize for ballot initiatives in 2024, since some states have statutes that limit initiatives and referenda, and others may have a legislative or legal path to victory before then.  Initiatives have already been filed in South Dakota and Oklahoma! It's time to use NARAL Pro-Choice America to understand where your state stands and time to provide some new energy if initiatives and referenda are permitted in your state.
6) Fight Voter Suppression
	There is a myth that there was no voter suppression in Georgia since there was a record turnout that re-elected Senator Raphael Warnock. Even otherwise commendable Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensberger has maintained the position. However, as Senator Warnock has emphasized, if restricted Saturday voting (meant to reduce the African-American vote) means that voters have to stand in line for hours, it is still suppression, it just wasn’t entirely successful. We can stay focused by making sure we receive updates and alerts from the anti-suppression efforts of the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University.

7) Recharge Reluctant Republicans

The weaker Donald Trump gets, the more Republicans show up to say things like they can’t understand why their party isn’t more intent on getting their supporters to vote by mail. How could that possibly have happened? We might want to stay on the alert for the Republicans who pretend they are in the forefront in protecting the Constitution when they are still peeking out from behind the curtain. But it is still good to recognize that there is a home in the House for Republicans who would not themselves storm the capitol. This is the Republican Governance Group (RGG) of 40 or so members, some of which are moderates. They plan to serve as a counterpoint to the Freedom Caucus, but time is about to tell whether they have what it takes. RGG member Nancy Mace of South Carolina has passed the test. She had the courage to decry Trump’s role in the insurrection. She was subsequently challenged in the Republican primary by a Trump endorsed candidate and won. Use this handy form and ask her to use the Republican Party’s bare four seat majority as a reason for her to expand her reach across the aisle.

It isn’t besmirching you as a part of the movement to protect America to say that around now after six years your energies start to flag. This has been a long haul. Please keep it up.

David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington

#32: They’d Take Your Soul if You Let Them

This is the next of a new series of missives on our unfinished work to restore the promise of our country and its government. Each will focus on a single element of the many opportunities and challenges that lie ahead. Each will provide three steps we can all take to build upon our huge victories winning back the House in 2018 and the Presidency in 2020. 

If you are not already receiving our email blasts, please click here to be added to our list. You can also follow me on Facebook where you can read and share these messages. The more people we can reach, the more we contribute to this growing movement. We share these posts on our blog, Our Unfinished Work, every three to four weeks.

Nothing wrong with a little reveling and joy-jumping that there was no Republican surge. When someone is trying to drive a stake through the heart of Lady Liberty, it is a delight to help make them miss. It is an obligation too, which we have fulfilled in 2018, 2020 and now 2022. Each of those three election cycles, we have generated a historically impressive voter turnout. We are part of a huge resistance movement, and we demonstrate the necessary energy and commitment every week. And we will be right where we need to be in 2024 as well.

With pending indictments and dispiriting November 8 results, the con man known as Donald Trump is sliding downhill, but not as fast as many Republicans would like. The Republican leaders like Chris Christie and Asa Hutchison and Pat Toomey who are criticizing him now are still selected from the ranks of those he can’t execute.

By now it is obvious to most sitting Republican Senators and Governors that if Trump stays around until 2024, he will select their awful candidates, rally Democratic voters, deny election results, and display relentless, intense, voter repelling self-admiration. They know that the very approaches he deploys to win the allegiance of his declining base are the strategies that drive independent voters away. But they can’t quit him. They still fear that an open break with him would cause him to burn their houses down, perhaps only metaphorically.

A seat Republicans lost in Southwest Washington tells everything one needs to know. In the primary, Republicans threw out their member of Congress, Jamie Herrera Butler. She had not only voted to impeach Trump, but she had sinned by disclosing what Trump said to Kevin McCarthy. Pleading with Trump to send troops, McCarthy told him that the insurrectionists were “F---ing trying to kill me! Trump said “Well, Kevin, I guess these people are more upset about the election than you are.”

The Trump led forces offered up a candidate who hired one of the Proud Boys as a campaign consultant, pledged to investigate the FBI, and called for Anthony Fauci to be charged with murder. So small business owner and Democrat Marie Gluesenkamp Perez won, to the surprise of the New York Times and the Cook Report. On election night, stories like this played out across America. Republicans proved that they’d take your soul if you let them, so don’t you let them. (Carole King, You’ve Got a Friend)

Other than the astonishing round of candidates kissing at least the hem of Trump’s robe, these things happened of special note:

• The post-Roe pro-choice vote emerged. It was high in virtually all the swing states, and huge in states like Michigan where a pro-choice constitutional amendment won 57-43%. Michigan Democrats hold the Governorship and both houses of the State Legislature for the first time in 40 years. Pro-choice measures also won in every other place they were on the ballot, including Montana, Kentucky, California, and Vermont.
• Joe Biden’s last-minute reminders that democracy was on the ballot resonated, especially in light of the attack on Paul Pelosi. The pre-election worry was that Republican candidates who denied Biden’s 2020 election would win their races for Secretary of State and thus manage future elections in Arizona, Nevada, Michigan, and New Mexico. All four of these candidates found denial was the path to defeat.
• The media got overly fond of the narrative that inflation concerns were prevailing and presaging a Republican surge. David Brooks and Chuck Todd were flat out suckered by Republican affiliated polls that pushed the anticipated Republican advantage in the generic Congressional vote to 3%. In the average of non-partisan polls, Democrats and Republicans were tied.

The monumental legislation that Joe Biden secured in the past year included the largest climate protection, infrastructure investment and child poverty reduction efforts ever. During the lame duck session, they will get a bi-partisan coalition to codify and thus protect gay marriage and sharpen the election certification process. 

After that, the bare Republican majority in the House will make everything more difficult. The good news and the bad news is that Kevin McCarthy will look for red meat for his House members by trying to close down the government over fiscal issues. As usual, their efforts will include overreaching that will play to the Democrat’s longer-term advantage.

Beyond ultimately passing budgets and raising the debt ceiling, the next two years will be about securing judicial appointments (which require only a bare Senate majority), defending Ukraine, and setting up for the 2024 election. At 82, Joe Biden will end up not being a candidate, and there will thus be a generational shift.

Let’s make some more momentum by doing these three things:

1) Win With Warnock
	We are not out of time to help Revered Raphael Warnock. Even though we already have the majority, Rev. Warnock winning will decrease Joe Manchin’s influence and give us a head start toward 2024, when we will be defending 23 of the 34 seats up for election. Rev. Warnock winning will keep us from having to adjudicate Herschel Walker’s findings on whether a werewolf would defeat a vampire. Postcard-senders, time to redouble! There is also a way to make a donation that will fund critical campaign efforts immediately. Georgia’s population includes one million Latinos!  Our extraordinary success in Arizona and Nevada has been hugely dependent on Mi Familia Vota and other Latino political organizers. Mi Familia Vota has the proven infrastructure in place in order to make a tangible difference and turn out the votes in critical elections like this because their presence in Latino communities is year-round, not just when elections happen. In Georgia, they are already knocking on 20,000 progressive Latino doors to get out the vote. Paired with a comprehensive 300,000 phone calls, 300,000 texts, TV, radio, and digital program (in English and Spanish!) – they are ready. Making certain they have all the resources they need is a gift to our country.  And here is the handy link.
2) Talk to Nicki Haley About Lowering the Temperature
	During the final days before the November 8 election, former South Carolina Governor and United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley said Raphael Warnock “should be deported” over her differences with him on immigration issues. Raphael Warnock was born in Savannah, Georgia in 1969, the eleventh of twelve children of two Pentecostal preachers. Nikki Haley, herself the children of immigrants, knows better than this.  This is a contact form for Nikki Haley’s Stand for America. Please fill it out and calmly tell her what you think about her offensive statement.
3) Focus on One More December Runoff
	Activist Bill McClain emphasizes that there is a second consequential runoff going on in December. The battle to reduce dependence on fossil fuels and increase renewable energy has reached the Louisiana Public Service Commission. The runoff between Devante Adams and fossil fuel advocate Lambert Boissiere will be close, and even a small check now would boost Adams. The Commission has enormous power to approve energy projects. If Adams wins, renewable energy advocates will have the majority of the five-member Commission. If you are wondering what little thing you could do on climate change could turn out to be a big thing, this is it.

We have been at this since 2016. The unexpected results of November 8 have lifted us, and we are ready to start fighting to retain the Presidency in 2024.

David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington

#31: Georgia on our Minds

There will be an Unfinished Work missive on the November 8 election next week. Meanwhile as Katie Hobbs defeats Kari Lake in Arizona, we revel that we defeated prominent election deniers across the country. 

Our eyes turn to Georgia, where Reverend Raphael Warnock needs all of our help to beat a man who is unqualified to be a United States Senator.

Please keep up your postcard-writing and all of your other efforts. And then help Mi Familia Vota expand their reach with the one million Latinos in Georgia!

Our extraordinary success in Arizona and Nevada has been hugely dependent on Mi Familia Vota and other Latino political organizers 

Mi Familia Vota has the proven infrastructure in place in order to make a tangible difference and turn out the votes in critical elections like this because their presence in Latino communities is year round, not just when elections happen. 

In Georgia, they are already knocking on 20,000 progressive Latino doors to get out the vote. Paired with a comprehensive 300,000 phone calls, 300,000 texts, TV, radio, and digital program (in English and Spanish!) – they are ready. Making certain they have all the resources they need is a gift to our country. 

And here is the handy link.

David Harrison 

Bainbridge Island, Washington 

#30: We're Not Going Away

This is the next of a new series of missives on our unfinished work to restore the promise of our country and its government. Each will focus on a single element of the many opportunities and challenges that lie ahead. Each will provide steps we can all take to build upon our huge victories winning back the House in 2018 and the Presidency in 2020. 

Please click here to be added to our list. You can also follow me on Facebook where you can read and share these messages. The more people we can reach, the more we contribute to this growing movement. We share these posts on our blog, Our Unfinished Work, every three to four weeks.

A lot of unusual things have happened in American politics and government. Donald Trump is not even our first ignoble insurrectionist. After nearly becoming President in 1800, Aaron Burr killed Alexander Hamilton in 1804. In 1807 he was tried for insurrection over a plot to take over much of the Southeastern United States. 

But Burr lost his following early. Is there anything more astounding politically that J.D. Vance and Ted Budd and Mehmet Oz declaring their deep and abiding love for Trump after he sought to prevent the peaceful transition of power? Not only have they done this, but they also know that they would not be the party’s nominee if they had not. At one time, spearheading an attempted coup or even supporting it would have been disqualifying. That this is not presently the case shames our country.

We have suffered some significant damage to our democracy. This damage does not come over deep divisions or strident views, but primarily from the discrediting of the means through which we select our leaders. Working our way back to where we were in 2016 will be difficult, to say nothing for building a society where our better angels are more visible.

What we need now is to be heading in the right direction, every month. It is self-evident that a considerable number of those who will be populating the halls of Congress in January don’t see it our way, and do not acknowledge the danger that is so vivid to us. Because we have the Presidency we will prevail, especially if we manage to keep it in 2024. However, it matters very much who controls the House and Senate, who has the majority and the gavel.

It is said that we have a good chance to maintain the majority in the Senate, and a considerably smaller chance to maintain our majority in the House. That we are this close in an off-year election is testimony to the quality of our candidates, the scale and relentlessness of our collective efforts, and the Supreme Court’s galvanizing overturning of Roe v. Wade.

At this point, it is not wise to view either leading or trailing in a race as the inevitable result. In the hugely significant polling on the “generic Congressional race” there was news a week ago that there had been a shift toward voting Republican. David Brooks reported this a bit too breathlessly. But since then, polls by Politico/Morning Consult and Gallup have called those findings into question or signaled a change from those polling periods. Midweek, the Politico polls showed Democrats at +5%. There will be final sand shifting even though ballots are already being cast.

Let’s have the election. Let’s keep our sights on every House member who is in play. Let’s focus on John Fetterman, Cheri Beasley, Tim Ryan, Val Demings and Mandela Barnes to take back a Senate seat and Raphael Warnock, Catherine Cortez-Mastro, Mark Kelly and Maggie Hassan to defend their seats. 

On the morning of November 9, there will be races that will be agonizingly close, where the winner has not been declared. What if we anticipated one of those races and jumped on the scale one more time, right now? Let’s do this one thing.

1) Support Mi Familia Vota Radio Ads in Nevada
	Ten days before the election, donors need to make sure that any support they provide can be put to immediate use. That is exactly the case in the extremely close Senate race in Nevada, where Democratic incumbent Catherine Cortez-Mastro is polling even with the mean-spirited Adam Laxalt. It is difficult to believe this man is the affable Pete Domenici’s son. This apple fell far from the tree. Mi Familia Vota is running Spanish language radio ads in Nevada. The more we can help them, the better Catherine Cortez-Mastro’s chances. They are a proven organization which played a key role in Democrats winning in Arizona and in Nevada two years ago. The funds that are provided to them in the next three or four days will bolster this important advertising campaign, designed to influence the voter’s choices but also to get them to the polls. As one of the last things we are doing before voting, we can help win Nevada today, by clicking on this handy link!

There are many millions of us, and we aren’t going away.

David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington

Last Chance to Act

Dear friend,

As you know, my blog called Our Unfinished Work follows political changes and identifies opportunities. I am writing to you and a thousand other blog recipients because one door is closing.

We already know that the November 8 election results are going to be agonizingly close. November 9 joy and sorrow are just an inch apart. We know that in addition to our organizing and postcard-writing and campaigning efforts that financial donations matter. And we know that if donations are received too late in the cycle they may end up not being spent or not having the sought impact.

A month before election day is our time to act. That is now. Our Senate races are promising. We still have a longer but real shot at keeping our House majority. We may take back State Legislatures in several states. Polls say the Dobbs decision has given us a higher level of energy than the Trump led forces of malevolence. We have to close the deal.

Here are six places you can send a check (or click online) today and put dollars immediately to work. 

1) Respond to Trump's Racist Insults

Trump's fresh racists insults of his former Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao have boosted the Political Action Committee focusing on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPI). The AAPI Victory Fund is where to go to support carefully selected candidates and demonstrate that what Trump did is unacceptable. 

2) In Wisconsin, Your Gift Keeps on Giving

Wisconsin is evenly split, giving Democrats an opportunity to utilize the Dobbs decision as a way to get over the top. Democratic Governor Tony Evers is defending against Tim Michels and Lieutenant Governor Mandela Barnes has a great chance of unseating Ron Johnson and thus expanding our Senate majority. We can narrow the gap in the state legislature, and all by giving to the spirited PAC started by State Treasurer Sara Godlewski. It is appropriately called Women Win Wisconsin. 

3) Bet on an Unexpected Opportunity

In Washington's Third Congressional District, Republicans unseated their own able member of Congress Jamie Herrera Butler for the MAGA-felonious act of voting for impeachment. Instead they are running far right candidate Joe Kent, creating a chance for us to flip the seat. This New York Times feature underscores the compelling candidacy of Marie Gluesenkamp Perez who can be sent money at this link.

4) Support Latino Voter Power

Mi Familia Vota registers voters and increases turnout in Arizona, Nevada, Texas, California, Florida, Georgia, and Colorado, Among other things, they are focused on defeating election results deniers who are infesting politics in Arizona. They are nimble and can immediately utilize whatever boost you can give them. This is their political fund.

5) Put Volunteers Into the Field

There isn't anyone better at recruiting, training and deploying campaign volunteers than Seattle based Common Power. They target key races and find campaigns and organizations that need their help with this commitment to local action: "Our Boots, Your Ground". If you can't go yourself, you can help send someone else.

6) Remember North Carolina

North Carolina isn't first on anyone's flip a seat list. However, we would have won a Senate seat two years ago if our candidate Cal Cunningham hadn't been found to have been focused on other things. This time we have an excellent candidate for an open seat in former State Supreme Court Chief Justice Cheri Beasley. 

You already know what I am going to say. Don't wake up the day after the election wishing you had reached back a little further and had done a little more. Let's give whatever assistance we can today.

Thanks for your help,
David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington

#29: How to Show Donald Trump the Door

This is the next of a new series of missives on our unfinished work to restore the promise of our country and its government. Each will focus on a single element of the many opportunities and challenges that lie ahead. Each will provide three steps we can all take to build upon our huge victories winning back the House in 2018 and the Presidency in 2020. 

Please click here to be added to our list. You can also follow me on Facebook where you can read and share these messages. The more people we can reach, the more we contribute to this growing movement. We share these posts on our blog, Our Unfinished Work, every three weeks.

You wake up in the morning and you think that nothing has changed. You sense that Donald Trump and his possible heir Ron DeSantis have the same following as Trump did in 2016. You find it more than a little disconcerting that any of your fellow citizens have fallen for his con. That many millions have done so is unbelievable. 

For a long time, your greatest fears have been motivating you. You have been a part of America’s great resistance for six years. You have done whatever you could do to sound the alarm. You put your time and money into taking back the House in 2018 and the Senate and Presidency in 2020.

Because it is an off-year election, holding on to the House and the Senate in 2022 may be the hardest task so far. It seems even more difficult because it is not your only worry. You have been deeply concerned about election deniers prevailing in swing state elections. You’ve read persuasive articles that our democracy is in serious peril. You want to be less of a worrier about all that, but the January 6 hearings have not provided comfort. It seems astonishing that all of that could have happened in our country in modern times.

The insults to the Constitution are taking their toll on you. So is the malevolence of the miscreants, the rabidness of their followers, and the willingness of Republican party leaders either to enable the destruction, or to look the other way.

And then you suddenly recognize that the story is not that these awful things are happening, but that we have prevailed against an attempted coup! Certainly, vigilance is liberty’s price. But it isn’t true that we are in greater danger of a coup in 2024 because Donald Trump no longer controls the Executive branch of the federal government, and the defenses have been built stronger and higher. And it isn’t even close to the truth that Trump enjoys the same level of support no matter what felonies he commits.

The events of September 21 showed you that the longer Trump has been away from the White House, the more his legal jeopardy grows. New York Attorney General Letitia James filed a $250 million civil suit after Trump invoked the fifth amendment 450 times in a deposition. The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the bizarre ruling of the Federal District Court, restoring the FBI’s control over the classified documents Donald Trump purloined, leaving Trump open to felony charges. Trump and Sean Hannity were left fantasizing that Trump could declassify the government’s secrets by “thinking about it”. 

The truth is that he has been draining supporters on a regular basis since 2016. The problem is not just an Achilles heel, but his whole body. His “it’s all a witch hunt” response to everything has resonated with his MAGA hat wearers. But the insurrection and the stealing of classified documents have been anathema to independent voters, 67% of whom do not want Trump to run again. By 54% to 38%, voters believe that Trump’s post-election denialism “went so far as to threaten American democracy.” 

Most importantly, his deep self-admiration necessary to retain the 30% of voters who are his core are the very approaches that are driving independents away. He has been a campaign aide to us for some time, at least since he helped us elect Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock to the Senate. His selection of J.D. Vance and Mehmet Oz as 2022 Senate candidates is appreciated as well. 

As the Department of Justice proceeds, we need to walk away from the narrative of the Teflon Trump to the understanding that he is a tired old huckster. He is not done tormenting us, but he is done “leading” our country. Ironically, given that Trump declared himself “Very Pro Choice” in 1999, the Supreme Court’s decision overturning Roe v Wade could impact the 2022 elections in a way that will keep the House, expand our majority in the Senate and accelerate Trump’s ongoing demise. 

The key word is could. Nearly everything that we knew in March would have to happen for this to be possible has since taken place. The Ukrainians fight on with our strong support. Gas prices have dropped by more than a dollar a gallon. The pandemic has waned, and Manchin and Schumer surprised us with a major investment fighting climate change. Even with the Federal Reserve Board dampening the economy, the job market remains strong.

The number one way to change the likelihood of positive outcomes from could to will remains taking the fight over a woman’s right to choose into every precinct in America. The Dobbs ruling overturning Roe v Wade has energized our voters and made our claim with independents. The Kansas referendum proved that we are reaching and motivating those voters. Women are outpacing men among new voting registrants. What falls to us now and every day until November 8 is the obligation to take additional advantage of the court’s awful ruling.

As we do that, let’s remember that our rights under the Constitution go to the heart of the matter. As Dr. King emphasized, the arc of history bends toward justice. Sometimes that arc does not bend as significantly as we would like, but our progress has been real. The removal of the right to choose is new. A fundamental right afforded to generations of American women has been removed. This is about not standing for that at all, and not resting until we have righted a wrong. Let’s do these three things:

1) Review All Current Activity
	The need to turbocharge the right to choose as a campaign issue requires each of us to take a fresh look at all our current activities. If we are donating to state legislative candidates, are we evaluating which states are amid current battles over choice, or where the majority is in the balance? If we aren’t focusing on states like Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Michigan, and Arizona, we aren’t doing it right. Are the postcards we are writing, the calls we are making, the doorbells we are ringing and the donations we are making going to candidates who understand the importance of this battle and how it can be key to their victory?
2) Give Wells Fargo Your Counsel
	After the Dobbs decision, 41 major American companies pledged to pay the travel costs of their employees if they need to go to another state to receive an abortion. Open Secrets has discovered that despite that commitment, a number of these companies have provided campaign contributions to candidates who voted against the House effort to codify Roe v Wade. Among these is Wells Fargo. It would be good to email them and tell them this could affect your future business. Write Wells Fargo independent board member Celeste Clark, who has had a distinguished career and who is chair of their Corporate Responsibility Committee. She can be reached at boardcommunications@wellsfargo.com.
3) Target Wisconsin Today
	Since it is late in the campaign season, one must be careful to only send money to organizations or candidates if there is certainty that it can be spent well between now and November 8. You can’t find greater certainty than the Political Action Committee organized by Wisconsin State Treasurer Sarah Godlewski. She was a candidate for the Senate before she yielded to Lieutenant Governor Mandela Barnes, himself an excellent candidate to beat the malevolent Ron Johnson. Now Godlewski has organized Women Win Wisconsin, a PAC supporting Barnes’ effort and the campaigns of six women running for the state legislature. This is an outstanding place to click and send your donation, which you should do at this very moment.

There are a thousand of us who receive this e-blast, and a thousand Facebook followers, and all the friends with whom we share these hopes and schemes. Followers of Our Unfinished Work just sent $13,000 to Mi Familia Vota in Arizona to defeat an election-results-denier running for Secretary of State, where he would supervise elections! Let’s keep it up and ensure that the arc always bends toward justice.

David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington

#28: Kansas She Said Was the Name of the Star

This is the next of a new series of missives on our unfinished work to restore the promise of our country and its government. Each will focus on a single element of the many opportunities and challenges that lie ahead. Each will provide three steps we can all take to build upon our huge victories winning back the House in 2018 and the Presidency in 2020. 

Please click here to be added to our list. You can also follow me on Facebook where you can read and share these messages. The more people we can reach, the more we contribute to this growing movement. We share these posts on our blog, Our Unfinished Work, every 3-4 weeks.

As it turns out, the munchkins in the Wizard of Oz were correct. Kansas was at the center of the movie, and it certainly is now. The election results in their reproductive rights referendum were stunning. It would be hard to recall a boost to Democrats three months before an election that was as unanticipated and consequential.

Prior to the referendum, pundits were saying that the pro-choice movement would celebrate if they got 46% of the vote. They got 58%, due in part to a huge turnout. Months after it was hard to say what the Dobbs decision would kindle in November; it isn’t hard to say at all. America is going to fight back for choice. Consider these tiers:

The first tier, which Kansas exemplified, is a state which has the right to choose on the ballot, unimpeded by the Legislature. The New York Times analysis says given that opportunity, proponents of choice would win in 42 states. This fall Colorado has such an initiative. Among other things the choice-related turnout will bolster Democratic Senator Michael Bennet’s re-election.

The critical second tier is states where we were already bent on flipping legislative control in one or both houses, and where the upcoming legislative session is already scheduled to debate what if any level of choice they provide. This very juicy list includes Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Arizona, and Pennsylvania. The Kansas vote signals a significant increase in the number of competitive state legislative races, and an all-new motivation to get to the polls, especially for the younger voters whose participation normally falls off during the mid-term.

The third tier is promising as well. These states are battlegrounds over the right to choose where the Governor will or will not rein in Republican legislatures bent upon the worst possible outcomes, even precluding a woman’s choice in cases of rape or incest. We must re-elect Democratic Governors in Michigan, Wisconsin, Kansas and Pennsylvania and elect Democratic Governors in Georgia and Arizona.

For all of us who are obsessed about the future of the country, this is an unprecedented opportunity. Since it would take 60 votes in the Senate, Congress is not going to pass a law codifying the protections of Roe v Wade. Even so, the above states where the debate over choice will be especially intense have everything to do with us expanding our majority in the Senate and the longer shot of maintaining our majority in the House. Kansas can be our jumping off point.

Given the activity in the above states, the Kansas outcome shows we can protect Raphael Warnock in Georgia, Maggie Hassan in New Hampshire, and Marc Kelly in Arizona. It will help John Fetterman win the Senate seat in Pennsylvania and make it more likely that Mandela Barnes will beat the startlingly acidic Ron Johnson in Wisconsin. And that’s just the minimum, with Cheri Beasley in North Carolina, Tim Ryan in Ohio, and Val Demings in Florida all expecting to get a boost.

The Republican response to all of this has been bewildering. The people in Kansas were misled and bedeviled! In the face of Clarence Thomas’ threats in the Dobbs decision, we would like to protect contraception and gay marriage, but we just can’t! Also, we are going to make it a point to vote against giving assistance to veterans who got cancer from burn pits! Sure, we support this bill, but we need to show that we are mad, at least for a week! Don’t you see we are making a point!

Of course, they were angry because of inside baseball. Mitch McConnell had said Republicans wouldn’t pass the bipartisan bill they helped write to strengthen the semiconductor industry if Joe Manchin and Chuck Schumer got America to invest in fighting climate change. Then they thought Manchin and Schumer were estranged, so Republicans helped pass the CHIPS and Science bill. Right after that, Manchin and Schumer reconciled and cut a mammoth climate change-fighting, drug price-reducing, corporate tax-increasing deal. Mitch McConnell thinks the Manchin/Schumer estrangement was a ruse. Accordingly, he was more dour than usual, which is a difficult standard to meet.

For Democrats, the pieces are fitting together. As is his practice, Donald Trump has weakened the field of Republican candidates. And there are signs that inflation is coming under a modicum of control. Meanwhile, as David Axelrod pointed out, Joe Biden may have compiled the most impressive legislative record of any president since FDR. Thanks to Robert Hubbell, here’s the evidence:

• 03/11/2021 American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, a sweeping $1.9 trillion relief to address the continued impact of COVID-19 on the economy, public health, state and local governments, individuals, and businesses.
• 11/15/2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, $1.2 trillion investment in “hard infrastructure” including roads and bridges.
• 03/29/2022 Emmett Till Antilynching Act, 120 years after an anti-lynching bill was first introduced and after failing on nearly 200 prior occasions, Congress passed a bill designating lynching as a hate crime. 
• 06/25/22 Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, extended background checks for gun purchasers under 21, funding for state red flag laws and other crisis intervention programs, and partial closure of the “boyfriend” loophole.
• 07/29/2022 CHIPS and Science Act, the most significant research bill passed in a generation, including a $56 billion investment in American semiconductor production to incentivize companies to move chip production back into the United States.
• 08/02/2022 Honoring our PACT Act of 2022, provides healthcare and other services related to veterans who were exposed to toxic substances during military service.
• 08/07/2022 Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, the largest climate investment in US history, lowers prescription drug prices by giving Medicare the power to negotiate the prices of certain prescription drugs and extends expiring health care subsidies for three years.

Of course, there are countless things to do. If spurred by the Kansas result, one was in the activist mode, one could support NARAL Pro-Choice America, the premier advocacy organization for choice. You could strengthen Sarah Longwell’s Republican Voters Against Trump, even if you are not necessarily a Republican voter. The States Project is focused entirely on state legislative races, trying to create a post-Kansas fervor. And you won’t find a better set of field coordinators than Common Power and the grassroots organizations with which they partner. 

For the first time since the inceptions of these messages in the darkest hours of 2016, we are going to underscore just one thing that each of us should do:

Arizona houses the most bizarre set of election deniers in the country. That might be okay, if one of them wasn’t the Republican candidate for Secretary of State, who supervises elections! This is quite unbelievable that a major political party would nominate Mark Finchem, an Oath Keeper who after multiple recounts and election audits continues to call for the decertification of the Biden victory. Finchem’s Democratic opponent is former Maricopa County Recorder Adrian Fontes.

Mi Familia Vota did extraordinary work in the 2020 election. It is no exaggeration to say that Joe Biden would not have won Arizona without them. Among other quests, they are dedicated to registering and rallying Latino voters to beat Finchem, saying “to have this person be the states’ top election official is truly frightening.”

Mi Familia Vota has budgeted $20,000 for targeted digital ads to beat Finchem and elect Fontes. Adding $10,000 immediately is our new special project. Many of us have been together in this blog world for six years. For this $10,000 campaign, we proudly have our own ActBlue link, which underscores our goal! You can make your mark for election integrity by watching this $10,000 boost to Mi Familia Vota grow, and making it grow.

David Harrison

Bainbridge Island, Washington

#27: Americans Declaring Independence from Donald Trump

 This is the next of a new series of missives on our unfinished work to restore the promise of our country and its government. Each will focus on a single element of the many opportunities and challenges that lie ahead. Each will provide three steps we can all take to build upon our huge victories winning back the House in 2018 and the Presidency in 2020. 

Please click here to be added to our list. You can also follow me on Facebook where you can read and share these messages. The more people we can reach, the more we contribute to this growing movement. We share these posts on our blog, Our Unfinished Work, every three to four weeks.

And then one day, the worst was over. The chances that Donald Trump would again become President vanished in a round of Congressional hearing revelations.

The narrative that no evidence or action could diminish his support had never been the case, at least not since the 2018 Congressional elections, in which millions of independent voters deserted him. From that point on the very tactics that he used to maintain his core support have been anathema to the other voters he would need to win. The House Select Committee investigating the attempted coup on January 6 is delivering in a manner not accomplished by the two previous impeachment trials. They are setting things up for felony indictments.

Mitch McConnell, Bill Barr, Kevin McCarthy, Mick Mulvaney, and countless other Republican leaders have known for some time that Trump was unable or unwilling to fulfill his oath. They kept supporting him for two reasons only. First his presence made them more able to advance their agendas. Second, he was able to execute politically many of those who challenged him. For a time, there seemed to be no insult to the Constitution that his own party would challenge.

The hearings on the January 6 coup attempt have provided cover to Republicans who have longed to move away from Trump, a few since 2016. Whether or not he is convicted of a felony, Trump is a distance from his last tweet or his final lie-laden rally since those are his oxygen. But Nikki Haley, Ron DeSantis, Asa Hutchison, Glenn Youngkin and a pride of others don’t need any further signal to fire up their campaign consultants. The Wall Street Journal and Washington Examiner have washed their hands. Bill Barr, Betsy Devos, and Mark Esper will say more about how their service as Cabinet secretaries was marked by determined challenges to the President, not obeisance. Almost everyone who has a story will tell it to the media. 

Cassidy Hutchison is the Republican truth telling hero for now. The witness tampering charges related to her testimony will not go away. Offended by the clumsy witness tampering attempt, former White House Counsel Cipollone has agreed to testify under oath. And there are other shoes out there wanting to drop. There will be additional disclosures about fraudulent electors. Trump will insist on having the stage back to his detriment, saying that he doesn’t know any of these people, since at this point, he barely knows Ivanka. His endorsement of gun-toting Proud Boys and Oath Keepers charging the Capitol will offend Republican members of Congress.

There is some thought that Trump will announce his candidacy for the Presidency as soon as this summer to turn people away from the present criticisms of his soullessness. Of course, that won’t work, but announcing his candidacy will temporarily back off DeSantis and Haley. It will also set up a claim once he is indicted that Democrats are using the courts to try to keep him from running. 

The truth is he will be indicted because he has engaged in flagrant felonious actions that sought to overthrow the government of the United States. Absolutely, it would be unprecedented and even a little scary to indict a former President for actions he took while he was in office. In the face of the evidence, it would be worse not to indict. If you can’t or won’t indict someone for trying to block the peaceful transition of power, where does that leave you as a country?

Trump will not be criminally charged with grifting his donors out of $250 million in his appeals after the election, wherein he said such funds would be used for election cases. Instead, in order of their likelihood of emerging, the country will focus on these three charges:

• Fulton County, Georgia Prosecutor will charge Donald Trump with criminal solicitation to commit election fraud. Trump is on tape asking Brad Raffensberger for 11,780 votes and threatening criminal sanctions if he does not respond.
• The U.S. Department of Justice is extremely likely to charge Donald Trump with criminal conspiracy to defraud the United States. This charge stems from the scheme to select fake electors and to use the Justice Department to falsely establish their legitimacy.
• The U.S. Department of Justice might well charge Donald Trump with obstructing an illegal proceeding of Congress. This charge relates to working with the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers to assault the Capitol, including Trump rejecting the concern that some were armed, and his subsequent rejection of Republican pleas for him to send help to the Capitol.

While these actions unfold, it’s important to address the place where the Trump-led damage to our constitutional rights has been greatest, the Dobbs decision to overturn Roe v. Wade after almost fifty years. Let’s do these three things.

1) Take the Signal that Brett Kavanagh Provided
	On his way to providing the critical vote to overturn Roe, Brett Kavanagh filed a concurring opinion with huge implications for protecting the right to choose. He said that states may not ban their residents from traveling to another state to obtain an abortion because there is a constitutional right to interstate travel. He said this constitutional question “is not especially difficult.” Neither Kavanagh nor Chief Justice Roberts will provide the fifth vote to permit states to block the travel of their citizens to other states where abortions will remain legal. This is a very important signal to Planned Parenthood and other providers. It is up to us to find a Planned Parenthood or other clinic that needs our financial assistance to increase their service to women from out of state. Clinics in Virginia, New Mexico, Southern Illinois, Eastern Washington, and Eastern Oregon are all a good bet. In terms of service provision, this is a more effective way to contribute than sending money to Planned Parenthood’s national fund, where these service needs are not the only target.
2) Pick One of These Six States
	The fall elections will determine the extent to which the right to choose will be protected in at least six states: Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and Kansas. Following up on your current activity in any of those states would be excellent. One great option for your support is recognizing how great it is to have a Democratic governor who will protect abortion rights in Kansas. Laura Kelly won four years ago when Republicans nominated a Trump flunky, and her race this year is very tight.
3) Connect With NARAL Pro-Choice America
	Pro-Choice America now has four million members. They are the place to go if you are looking for the nation’s exceedingly focused choice advocate. You can go there whether you have money to give or not. You can sign up to receive texts on late breaking news, volunteer, find out what is happening in legal and legislative actions in each of the fifty states, and make even a small contribution to become a member.

Constant turmoil is where we are right now, and it isn’t going to change anytime soon. But something profound has changed, nonetheless. Watching Donald Trump’s influence continue to fade will be one of the great joys of our time.

David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington

#26: How We Will Win More Senate Seats

This is the next of a new series of missives on our unfinished work to restore the promise of our country and its government. Each will focus on a single element of the many opportunities and challenges that lie ahead. Each will provide three steps we can all take to build upon our huge victories winning back the House in 2018 and the Presidency in 2020. 

Please click here to be added to our list. You can also follow me on Facebook where you can read and share these messages. The more people we can reach, the more we contribute to this growing movement. We share these posts on our blog, Our Unfinished Work, every three weeks.

We feel numb. Our heart aches for the families in Buffalo and Uvalde. And then it aches for our country in its distress, battling for equilibrium and jolted every single week. By far the greatest obstacle to getting our footing is those that have an alternative view of what we are and should become. The other obstacle will be our own selves if we lose our will.

Polls show a strong majority of Americans want what we want--- the protection of a woman’s right to choose; new initiatives to significantly curb carbon emissions; prohibitions on the sale of assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, and a political system that examines and recognizes facts and devises and implements solutions. We have functioned for six years now with truth on the scaffold. Lying about elections (and lying about most everything else) is not going to fall out of fashion on its own. It needs to be pushed out.

In Congress, Trump’s grip is weakening, but Republicans are still locked into their Faustian bargain, trading their souls to avoid being “primaried” by whatever maniacal, election result-denying person Trump selects. Thus, they will agree to some gun control measures, increasing “red flag warnings,” but will fall far short of what the nation needs to stop the carnage. 

If the November election were held today, we would lose the House. But we have a few more months. Between now and then, the Supreme Court will overturn Roe V. Wade. This will meaningfully increase our turnout and sway some independent voters, including suburban woman. It will help us hold onto a score of seats we narrowly won in 2020. There is no basis to the claim that the decision will help both sides equally.

Republican position on the right to choose and failing to restrict sales of assault weapons and high-capacity magazines give us an all-new boost in several closely contested Senate elections. As much as Democrats have criticized Joe Manchin and Krysten Sinema, it has been hugely significant to have 50 votes in the Senate, especially in approving judicial appointments and passing the COVID-related American Rescue Plan and the infrastructure law known as the American Jobs Plan.

The goal is to go from having 50 Senators caucusing as Democrats to 54 or 55. This will keep Mitch McConnell out of the Majority Leader’s office and make Charles Schumer less dependent on Manchin’s assent. It could seem so, but this goal is not outlandish. We are fortunate that there are contests for open Senate seats in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Missouri and North Carolina and strong candidates against vulnerable Republican incumbents Marco Rubio in Florida and by now stone crazy Ron Johnson in Wisconsin.

We have already received some help from Donald Trump, and he has promised some more. He is testing out suppressing the Republican vote, saying that his supporters may stay home in November rather than voting for Republican Brian Kemp, who pulverized Trump’s candidate David Purdue. Trump’s legendary petulance will not only help Stacey Abrams in Georgia, it will hold back Republican Herschel Walker in his effort to unseat Democratic Senator Reverend Raphael Warnock.

The Trump grievance traveling road show is a swell party for Democrats since it accelerates our turnout and pushes independent voters to us. Trump requires that the candidates he supports dwell on his lies about the 2020 elections, Thankfully, his ego will not let him recede. We should take up a collection to support him traveling to swing states as often as possible. 

In addition to defending Warnock’s seat, we need to win Catherine Cortez Masto’s re-election in Nevada and Mark Kelly’s in Arizona. Then we need to go out and win ourselves most, or all, of these six Senate races:

• In North Carolina, we are set up nicely. We would have taken back a Senate seat there in 2020 if our candidate Cal Cunningham had stuck to the fine idea of having one woman in his life at a time. This time, Republican Senator Richard Burr is retiring, and we have a very strong candidate in the former Chief Justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court, Cheri Beasley. She will be running against the Trump-supported election denier Ted Budd. She should be able to pick up some support from those who voted in the primary for former moderate Republican governor Pat McCrory.

• Pennsylvania is very promising as well. Our candidate is Lieutenant Governor John Fetterman, who has caught attention due to his 6-foot 8-inch height, his tattoos, his service as mayor of Braddock, and most of all, his unflinching nature. The Republican Candidate will likely be Dr. Mehmet Oz, who will beat Doug McCormack by a thousand votes out of more than a million cast. Oz is not a wizard. We will benefit from the upcoming recount, which is sure to generate some additional bad feelings among Republicans.

• We hope to be helped in Ohio by the long warfare among Republican candidates, including a threatened fistfight on their debate stage. J.D. Vance won the race, overcoming the delicious fact that he accurately referred to Trump in 2016 as “noxious”, and “reprehensible”, and said “My God, what an idiot.” Our candidate is long time blue collar focused Congressman Tim Ryan, who is polling even with Vance.

• The open seat in Missouri would not be in play at all, except there is a chance that on August 2 Republicans will nominate Eric Greitens, who resigned the Missouri governorship in 2018 after his hairdresser accused him of blackmail over their sexual affair. Democrats will nominate Busch beer heiress Trudy Busch Valentine on August 2.

• Wisconsin is not an open seat, since COVID, climate change and insurrection denier Ron Johnson occupies it in his own special way, in which facts are no consideration. He is a bit more vulnerable than he would otherwise be since he had initially promised not to run again. The race is even more attractive because Democrats hold the governorship and the other Senate seat. Our candidate (to be determined in the August 9 primary) will be Lieutenant Governor Mandela Barnes or businessperson Alex Lasry.

• Florida will not be easy, since Marco Rubio is less vulnerable than Ron Johnson. However, former Orlando police chief Val Demings is running a very competitive race and is an ideal candidate. She distinguished herself during the second set of Trump impeachment hearings and was on Joe Biden’s list of potential vice-presidential candidates.

Our candidates are being selected with considerably less drama than the Republican candidates. It will take a lot, including Trump’s miserable behavior and a strong response to the Supreme Court’s likely decision to overturn Roe V. Wade, but we can pull this off. We can defend in Georgia, Arizona and Nevada and win the majority of the six races above. We can do it all with the formula tested in 2018 and 2020, starting with these three things:

1) Help Organize in Each of the Six Targeted States
	Our targeted candidates will raise huge amounts of money, as they did in 2020. This makes donating to grassroots organizers an even more attractive option than it otherwise would be. These groups will make certain that new voters are registered, suppressed votes get freed and cast, diverse populations are reached, and voter turnout is increased. These are all things that we do at scale when we want to win. David Domke’s Common Power is excellent at identifying effective on the ground partners.  Common Power’s grassroots organizer recommendations in four key states are: Pennsylvania - NextGen Pennsylvania North Carolina - You Can Vote Florida - Forward Florida Action Ohio - Ohio Organizing Collaborative
2) Support the Young People Who Are Obsessed with Voter Registration
	For a long time, large organizations like Rock the Vote have gotten most of the attention when new voter registration gets its due. Now, an all-new organization, Voters of Tomorrow, founded by immigrant Santiago Mayor and led by college students is spreading across the country. They need a boost.
3) Give Your Counsel to John Cornyn
	It is self-evident that whatever gun restrictions that Republican Senators agree to will be too little. They won’t agree to increase the age for purchase from 18 to 21, which would match the age one can legally buy a cigarette. They won’t agree to banning assault rifles. But they might well agree to universal background checks and “red flag” warnings, both steps worth taking. Help them along by calling their chief negotiator, Senator John Cornyn of Texas, at 202-224-2934.

In the midst of the most awful news about gun violence, Donald Trump lost in Georgia. We need to build upon the bit of momentum that gives us. It is now that attention must be paid.

David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington