June Meeting Tuesday 6:30 pm, Sherrill Brook Park

June 3, 2022 Alan Cole

IMV Member Meeting Tuesday @ 6:30 pm

You're invited to our June 2022 Meeting at Sherrill Brook (New Hartford Town Park (4191 Route 12). We have a pavilion (and hopefully good weather!) for our 6:30 pm meeting. We'll clarify who is running for which office in each district and organize our timeline for electoral work and advocacy for the next few months. Plus, we have a lot to celebrate including our five year anniversary as Indivisible Mohawk Valley, school board election wins, and a successful #BansOffOurBody march last month! Bring a friend, and join us on Tuesday evening!

Utica March for Our Lives Saturday June 11

IMV is hosting a local March for Our Lives solidarity event on Saturday, June 11th from noon to 2 pm. You can see the policy agenda of March for Our Lives (started by youth after the Parkland, FL school shooting) HERE. Indivisible is a supporting partner in this national mobilization.

You may have seen the viral video of Indivisible Houston's Benjamin Hernandez confronting Ted Cruz after his appearance at the NRA. It's a powerful moment, because career politicians like Cruz are used to repeating their outrageous, deceptive talking points, and not being held accountable on camera by their own constituents. As Ezra Levin of Indivisible wrote in a message earlier this week, "The strategy here is simple: we are in the majority of Americans. They are extremists out of touch with the public. Make them account for their radicalism on camera for the world to see."

Indivisible Houston ran a training webinar last night covering everything we need to know to birddog our Republican MoCs (that would be Tenney (and Stefanik), and you can click here to watch the recording of their training now -- it's a great resource to begin thinking about how you can confront our MoCs here in central NY. As Benjamin explained, "We have to speak truth to power. We have to challenge these elected officials."

Here is what Indivisible national advises for actions in the Senate and the House, and details about the 8 bills in the Protecting Our Kids Act. It's time to take action. In fact, let's take every action we can to reduce the more than 40,000 gun deaths in the US each year.

1. Please start making your signs and sign up now for the June 11 march. We'll be starting at Oneida Square and marching to the State Office Building on Genesee Street.
2. Use this tool to call Sen. Schumer and Sen. Gillibrand and ask them to keep fighting for universal background checks.
3. Stand with us in front of Tenney's Utica office (430 Court Street) at 4-5:30 pm today

Utica Pride Celebration June 25th

Please mark your calendar for our Utica Pride celebration on June 25th, 1-3 pm. We'll be at Oneida Square and Kopernik Park (317 Genesee Street), with music and lots of fun for all ages! More details to come.

Zoom with Sen. Schumer

Thanks to all who attended our meeting with incumbent Senate candidate Chuck Schumer on Tuesday. That was the first time One NYS Indivisible has met with him as a candidate rather than as our Senator and the Senate majority leader. Sarah Reeske worked her magic once again to get nearly 200 Indivisibles nearly an hour with him, and Jill Farnham-Us facilitated the discussion. There were excellent questions on abortion rights, gun legislation, student loans, keeping the Senate, and much more. As always, we learned what's going on moving priority legislation in a 50-50 Senate where two Dems are not reliable supporters of President Biden's Democratic agenda.

This was certainly not our last conversation with Senator Schumer. He knows how important our grassroots progressive groups are all across the state because we organize and mobilize, and push him from the outside of Congress to do more.

It's Not Too Late to Comment on the Climate Act's Draft Scoping Plan

Although Albany's legislative session ended yesterday, it is still important to submit comments on the Climate Act's draft scoping plan. The period for comments has been extended to July 1st, so there's still time to have an impact. A very simple one step (name, email, click submit) toolkit listing topics with suggested comments is found on the NY Renews website. Please take a minute to do the one step submission for each of the different topics. If you prefer you may modify the comments or submit your own written comments through July 1, 2022, on the online public comment form or via email to scopingplan@nyserda.ny.gov.

Busy Summer: Stay Together

No doubt about it. We're looking at a very busy summer. We'll be protesting SCOTUS when their decision comes out. We'll be pushing for gun reform. We'll be fighting for #AllTheThings: health care, climate protections, human rights, and much more. And so that we can start winning on these issues, we will need to knock doors and make calls to win seats in the House and at every level of government in November. It's a lot to take on, and our hearts are still heavy with the sadness of so many losses in Buffalo and Uvalde.

During her introduction last week for our Indivisible national Grassroots Leadership Network call, Sarah Reeske shared a quote with you from an Indivisible activist named Rudy, with Inwood Indivisible, that moved everyone on the Zoom deeply:

“Part of the price of being socially conscious is bearing the weight of injustice. You are doing more than most to affect change, so be kind to yourself. Continue to pursue initiatives that can transform the social and geopolitical climate with love.”

Take a deep breath and enjoy the sun, the earth, the birds, the leaves, the beauty. Be with family and friends and rest and restore. And please join IMV in whatever way allows you to pursue social and political transformation with love. We'll be on Zoom this morning for CAFE, at all the rallies and other events in the calendar below, and especially our June member meeting on Tuesday.

Democracy is not a spectator sport.
Breathe, then push.