IMV is Hosting the IONY Phonebank on Monday

Can you volunteer for two hours, 6-8 pm on Monday, March 1st?  Sign up here. You can sign up for other Mondays in March as well, but our official IMV hosted event is March 1st.  We'll be calling fellow New Yorkers, along with our Coalition allies from across the state, and asking those frequent voters to call their state legislators about the Invest in Our New York Act.  IONY is a package of six bills that end tax breaks for the wealthiest New Yorkers and raises more $50 billion to invest in our housing and healthcare, our schools and teachers, our towns and cities, our workers and youth.  Please sign up NOW to join the virtual phonebank on Monday. 
 

Time to Petition for Candidates

As you probably know, candidate petition season looks very different during this pandemic year. Here's what you need to know:

• Petitioning for each district is reduced from 5% to 1.5%, which means that candidates need 70% fewer signatures than usual.

• The petition period is reduced from five weeks to less than three weeks.

• Petitioning starts March 2 and all petitions are due to the Democratic committee chairs by March 18th.

• Walk packets include phone numbers (although they are from the voter registration file and may be out of date) to assist in making safe signing appointments, rather than going door to door.

• If you are not on a Democratic committee but would like to assist with petitioning, please email IndivisibleMV@gmail.com and we will get petitions for you.

• If you are a registered Democrat in Oneida County and are not collecting signatures yourself, please email IndivisibleMV@gmail.com so we can make sure someone in your district collects your signatures in a safe manner.

Thank you to everyone who is collecting signatures in the weeks ahead.

NAACP Closes Out Black History Month Tomorrow

The Utica / Oneida County Branch of the NAACP will celebrate Black History Month 2021 at 1-2:30 p.m. on Saturday, February 27 by presenting a virtual program hosted online by the Oneida County History Center in Utica.  This local celebration follows the 2021 national theme: "The Black Family: Representation, Identity, and Diversity" which encourages exploration of how the black family has been reverenced, stereotyped, and vilified from the days of slavery to our own time in many disciplines — history, literature, the visual arts and film studies, sociology, anthropology, and social policy. 

The program will feature guest speakers, as well as spoken word, poetry and music, including presentations by local students.  To access this virtual program, click here.  
 

We have a Trump Republican MOC, What's Next?

NY22 is now stuck with a Republican MoC in this Dem trifecta, but we're not alone. The Indivisible Policy team just released this new resource about working with Republican MoCs.  Check out the section on Trump Republicans. If you have feedback on what else you would like to see included in it, please be sure to share with our NY State Organizer, Sarah Reeske, sarahr@indivisible.org.  
 

Concerned about Insurrectionists with ties to upstate New York?

Sign up for a special presentation by Malcolm Nance about fighting domestic terrrorism in our own backyards. Whether you have Oath Keepers in Columbia, Bugaloo Boys in Putnam, or the KKK in Oneida county, learn more about what to do by attending. Thank you Indivisible ColumbiaNY for organizing this event on Saturday the 27th at 4pm. Register here. Over 200 people have already registered. 
 

Take Action on Climate

Help us pass the THRIVE Agenda by writing, e-mailing or calling President Biden (wow that sounds great!) in support of THRIVE: Transform, Heal, and Renew by Investing in a Vibrant Economy. For more information go to www.thriveagenda.com "The THRIVE Agenda presents a bold new vision to revive our economy while addressing these interlocking crises of climate change, racial injustice, public health, and economic inequity with a plan to create dignified jobs for millions of unemployed workers and support a better life for the millions more who remain vulnerable in this pivotal moment.”   

To take action on THRIVE: 

White House comment line: 202-456-1111; Email comment: whitehouse.gov (Contact Us comment form)

Mail: The White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., N.W., Washington, D.C. 20500 

Senator Schumer: D.C. office, 202-224-654
Senator Gillibrand: D.C. office, 202-224-44512

Also, please call your Senators in support of Deb Haaland's confirmation as Interior Secretary. This appointment is extremely important.

Please keep a look out for more to come on the union of NY Renews and NYS Indivisible in support of CCIA and THRIVE for the week of April 5-9. 

Also, if you want to learn more about Alternative Energy Sources please click here.

If you would like to donate to the Proctor Park Peace Garden project please make checks payable to CNY Conservancy; Peace Garden in memo, Mail to Deborah Wilson-Allam 2 Laurelwood Dr. NH, NY 13413.

The next Climate Crisis Working Group Monthly Meeting is March 29th. Save the date!
 

Thank You, IONY Letter Writers, Donors!

All the letter packets except one were picked up, and IMV members contributed $995 and hundreds of stamps to support the IMV's IONY letter writing project toprint, write, and mail 1500 letters, and build up our financial resources for future actions. If you can tackle that one remaining letter packet (about 55 letters to write) please email:IndivisibleMV@gmail.comtoday and let us know. Way to go, IMV! Democracy is not a spectator sport.

For the People Project

Last night a few IMVers participated onIndivisible's National Campaigns Network (NCN) call, and we heard about theFor the People Project.If you want to know more about how we can push for HR1, HR4, DC Statehood, and ending the Filibuster. Please take a look at thedocumentso you know more about this critical national agenda. Just in the past week,Indivisiblesin NY mobilized and pressured Sen. Gillibrand who was looking very weak on ending the filibuster, and pushed her into a strong position.

The democracy fights that we are in are hard and they will be long--federal, state, and local. Remember four years ago that we were in a battle to save the ACA and we almost lost it? In the end it wasIndivisiblesand our progressive allies-- holding rallies and pickets and die ins and calling legislators and doing lobby visits-- who moved Congress to the point where John McCain could show up and vote no repeal.The work was done by the people, for the people. It was done by us, for us.

We have one month of action left to Invest in Our New York. Also in the month of March we need to petition for local Democratic candidates. Climate crisis advocacy is going to be huge in April, and it is clear that we will have more work to do on federal democracy bills then as well. Fired up, ready to go!