With 34 days left to register voters for the midterm election, let’s take a moment to reflect on everything that Democrats have achieved over the last few months, and the work that we still have to do.
President Biden’s administration has had several wins over the last few weeks. After passing the Inflation Reduction Act, Biden announced up to $20,000 in school debt cancellation for federal borrowers making under $125,000 a year. Both of these moves drummed up a lot of excitement for our younger population, who are facing a climate crisis and rising cost of living in their immediate future. Make sure to talk with any high schoolers that you know about these issues and why it is so important for them to vote. National High School Voter Registration Week starts on September 19th, and that would be a great time to get their registration up to date if they will be 18 before or on November 8th, 2022.
The office of Pima County District Attorney Laura Conovor and Planned Parenthood have worked together to file an injunction in Pima County to make Arizona’s near total ban on abortion unenforceable. Keep an eye out for the final Pima Superior Court ruling that will be released later this month.
Unfortunately, the Arizona GOP-stacked Court ruled that the Free and Fair Elections (FE) campaign fell about 1,458 signatures short, despite the fact that FE spent months collecting over 475,000 signatures which was more than twice the amount needed to qualify.
Leading the effort to throw out signatures was the Free Enterprise Club (a dark money group determined to throw out initiatives that return power to the people), the Honest Elections Project and RITE (Restoring Integrity and Trust in Elections), an organization headed by former Trump White House counsel Derek Lyons; RITE was founded by former George W. Bush adviser Karl Rove, and its board includes former U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr.
FE is asking voters to vote NO on Propositions 128, 129 and 132, all of which if passed would make the initiative petition process even more difficult to maneuver than it is now.
Our community in Pima County was devastated by the news of Constable Deborah Martinez-Garibay who was killed while serving an eviction notice in early September. The Pima County Democrats officially moved not to appoint a replacement for her on the November ballot. It is very likely that soon the position of Constable will no longer be Elected and instead appointed by a body like the Pima County Board of Supervisors.
Although I only met her a couple of times, to me Deborah was a positive force of energy who inspired me to get more involved in my own community. I hope we can all learn from the passion she had for life.
Please remember to get your petitions for the Stop Universal Vouchers campaign signed, notarized, and returned to PCDP headquarters by 4pm on September 16th. If you turn it in afterwards, we cannot guarantee that your signatures will make it to Phoenix on time!
Can you believe we are already halfway through 2022? With less than six months until the midterms, I wanted to take a moment to thank all of you for the work you have done this year.
Through our office’s efforts, we have not only ensured that Pima County will have 425 elected Democratic Precinct Committee members for the ‘22-’24 cycle, but we are leading the charge in regards to fighting for reproductive rights by being the center of petition activity in Pima County.
Our volunteers who staff the office are our civically-minded librarians who greet visitors and answer their questions using a wide variety of resources. Keeping all of our volunteers organized can be tricky, but our new Team Leader volunteer program is making it a lot easier!
Team Leaders will help to train new volunteers, learn our office opening and closing procedures, assume a managerial role during their shifts, be the main point of contact for volunteers, and will have special access to PCDP data systems.
Because of this extra help, I have been able to work on launching our Discussion for Democracy forum series with Democratic candidates running for offices up and down the ballot. You can check our D4D page here, where we have posted all of our recordings of these forums. Our last forum will be in person this Saturday, June 11 at 1pm at the Steward Observatory at the University of Arizona. You can go herefor more information.
In addition to candidate forums and volunteer leadership, I’ve also been working with our fundraising team to launch our First Wednesday fundraisers, and to prepare for our Fall Udall dinner on September 17th at the Desert Diamond Casino.
June is expected to be one of our busiest months here at the office because of the ballot initiative deadlines; people will be relying on our office to get their petitions notarized and to turn in their signatures. Right now we have five different ballot initiatives, all of which will need hundreds of thousands of signatures to qualify for the ballot. If you haven’t already done so, please consider circulating these petitions among your friends and family. You can either stop by our office or check out our website for more information.
I’m so glad to be serving as your Director, and I’m looking forward to the excitement of such an important election year!
What a great turnout we had for PCDP’s Democratic Mayoral
Candidate Debate at Rincon University H.S.! Nearly 900 people showed up to
listen to our three candidates: Regina Romero, Randi Dorman, Steve Farley. Arizona
Public Media’s Christopher “Buzz” Conover moderated a lively round of
questions and answers. Check out our FB Live post to see the entire debate if
you missed it.
The Mayoral Candidates.
The audience got scorecards to rate the candidates’ performances. See the results on Facebook. KGUN, KVOA, and KOLD were present and featured us on the news that night! This took a team effort so many thanks to all who contributed to a great evening.
Great turnout at the debate.
Our PCDP Monthly Speaker Series kicked off with Civics 101,
and What does the City Council Do? Classes. This is all part of our
larger effort to offer training and education at HQ to make us all more
civically and politically- savvy voters.
HQ is now preparing for a Primary Night Party at Reilly Craft
Pizza & Drink, 101 E. Pennington St., on August 27. Please join us to
celebrate our general election candidates for Tucson mayor and city council
that night.
Hard to believe summer is drawing to a close. Red for Ed will
continue, the Outlaw Dirty Money campaign forges ahead, and Sanctuary City will
be on the Tucson ballot. HQ will continue to support and gear up for November
with slate mail pieces going out and a full court press to support our
candidates in the General Election.
All of this work is fueled by our fabulous corps of volunteers. And
so, we need to focus on fundraising not only to keep our doors open but to arm our
volunteers with the tools and supplies needed to execute events, canvasses,
phone banking, mailers, rallies, debates, and training programs.
Thank you all for your continued support with your time, your check
books or both. TOGETHER WE WIN!
