A short to-do list
4 months in. Where do we go from here?
Hello team,
It’s been a rough few months and a lot of folks have been asking us what they can do. This week, we’ve got a few unusually important, time sensitive, and quick action items.
Friends in CA, AZ, or NM: Ask your governor to activate the national guard. There’s been concern that Trump may soon invoke the Insurrection Act, which would allow him to deploy the US military and federalized National Guard troops on US soil, against Americans, including protestors. On Friday night (timed to avoid media attention), he signed an Executive Order to deploy the military on federal land in border states, a notable escalation in the run up to April 20th, when he is likely to decide whether or not to invoke the Insurrection Act. If he does invoke the Insurrection Act, it is most likely to start at the border states, making AZ, CA, and NM very important in this fight. The National Guard technically cannot be invoked twice (once by a Governor and then again by the President). So if the democratic Governors of AZ, CA, and NM, activate the Guard (ideally to assist with efforts that have been impacted by the DOGE cuts, such as FEMA’s or the CDC’s work in those states) then they have control, not Trump.
For more info, check out Daniel Hunter’s great post on Waging Nonviolence.
Friends in NC: Check to see if your vote in the NC Supreme Court race is being challenged. Griffin, the losing candidate in the NC supreme court race, has challenged certain valid votes in the election, leading to a NC supreme court ruling requiring certain voters to complete a verification process or risk getting their vote discounted. While lawsuits are pending, it is vital that as many of the voters who are being challenged both contact their board of elections to ensure their vote is counted, and petition Griffin’s team to be removed from the lawsuit. For more information on steps to take if your vote is being challenged, please refer to this tool from the writers at University of North Carolina. You may also want to consider spreading the word to other people you know who live in NC.
For more info, check out Protect Democracy’s writeup on the current situation, how we got here, and what you can do.
Friends everywhere: Call your senators and tell them to vote no on HR 22. HR 22, or the SAVE act, is a mass disenfranchisement bill that would require every voter to show documents bearing their current name and proof of citizenship when registering to vote, a law that is completely unnecessary (voter fraud is exceedingly rare in the US) and places an undue burden on married women, POC, trans & nonbinary individuals, rural voters, and college students. The act, as expected, passed the house last Thursday but there is still a chance we can stop in the senate as long as we keep up the pressure on senators.
For more info, check out this NPR article on the SAVE act
Friends everywhere: If you’d like to receive personalized guidance on what opportunities are best suited to your skills or geographic area, we are excited to announce that our personalized recommendation form has been reopened! Fill it in here!
We’ll be filling in more recommendations in the coming week, so please stay tuned for more posts and recommendations!