Prior to our regular Democrats meeting Saturday morning, we had a special meeting with new Representative Debra Lekanoff. We assembled people representing the county council, the planning commission, public schools, the Comprehensive Plan, the Agricultural Resources Board, the Clean Water Advisory Committee, the Conservation District Energy Program, the Orcas Exchange, the Solid Waste Advisory Committee, the County Land Bank, the Friends of the San Juans, Friday Harbor Labs, Kwiaht, the Housing Advisory Committee, the SJ Islands Museum of Art, the SJ Local Integrating Association, the Friday Harbor and Lopez Port Commissions, OPALCO, and the Sound Defense Alliance/Quiet Skies. Debra had each of these entities share programs they are working on and asked how she could be helpful to them in her role in the legislature. It was an example of democracy at its best, our elected rep gathering input from locals about how best to represent them in Olympia. Debra is going to be amazing!
Also at this earlier meeting today, Stephanie Buffum of Shaw Island expressed willingness to become Shaw’s PCO. Therefore, this is hereby notice that we will vote on confirming her as a PCO at our meeting on Feb. 9.
The result of our reorganization conducted at the meeting are the following officers:
David Turnoy Chair Cindy Wolf Vice Chair
State Committee Man Learner Limbach State Committee Woman Sharon Abreu
Treasurer David Dehlendorf Secretary CJ Collier
Deputy Vice Chair San Juan Island Laura Jo Severson
Deputy Vice Chair Orcas Island Keara Axelrod
Deputy Vice Chair Lopez Island Bob O’Connell
SJC Liaison to the 40th Legislative District Bev Layman
If anyone interested in helping with our project to bypass the Electoral College with the National Popular Vote Compact, I welcome your contacting me. I have this all organized and am hoping several more people will volunteer. This simply involves a few phone calls and emails. Or if you have relatives or friends in Colorado, Nevada, Louisiana, Michigan, Minnesota, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Wisconsin, or Arizona, I can provide you materials for them to contact their legislators to ask them to sponsor appropriate legislation. Somebody has to do this, and it might as well be us.
This year’s women’s march will be in Friday Harbor from noon until 2:00 on Saturday, January 19. Please meet at the courthouse at noon. This will be the event for all the islands, and Rhea Miller will be the guest speaker.
If you haven’t heard the news, Senator Kevin Ranker resigned Saturday, January 12.
A replacement will be nominated by the local Democratic Party organizations and selected by the county councils of the legislative district.
Unions used to be one of the main constituencies of the Democratic Party. But as I am sure you know, private sector union membership is down to about 7%. Public unions are still hanging in there, especially as we saw multiple states’ teachers go on strike last year. The teachers in the Los Angeles schools, which is the second largest district in the country, will be going on strike this Monday to protest the district’s failure to use its massive reserves to address huge classes, abysmal building conditions, teacher pay, and many other issues. Our local party would like to be more attuned to union actions, and our Rick Rhoads will be writing a letter expressing our support of the teachers’ action to be sent to the union and the school district, with possibly a press release also.
How can you help support Democratic legislative action? Attend Environmental Lobby Day in Olympia. Cindy Wolf, our vice chair, is the one to contact if you are interested in attending. You can reach her at cwolf@seanet.com. She will be coordinating with Stephanie Buffum of Friends of the San Juans to make this happen.
Sharon brought to us a resolution that calls for the county council to support 100% clean, renewable energy. There is an effort to get county councils around the state to do this in order to show enough support to get the state legislature to do the same. We are sending the resolution to the county council. As it happens, Councilor Jamie Stephens was in attendance at our meeting and said that the council will actually be addressing this shortly.
It is time for the SJC Democrats to come up with an action plan for this year. We won’t be dealing with elections that much, so we have time to work on some other issues. As mentioned earlier, one of these issues is reforming the Electoral College. Another issue has to be moving away from fossil fuels and doing all we can to combat climate change including a Green New Deal. Other items mentioned today included recruiting more young people, looking at the Washington Military Alliance and its various impacts (environment, land use, war training zones, etc.) along with decreasing dependency on the military for employment, having a discussion of Israel/Palestine (possibly a talk by Sandy Strehlou and/or a showing of James Longley’s “Gaza Strip), more author or movie maker talks, ranked choice voting, flipping the national government in 2020, what to do if Trump declares a national emergency and/or martial law. If you have other ideas, feel free to bring them to the next meeting or send them to me. This is your party, let’s consider doing what you think we should.
Ken Crawbuck introduced a resolution related to making our income tax system more progressive. We discussed this at length today, and the net result is that we decided people should send Ken feedback so that he can re-craft his message. Looking at significant increases to income tax at the very high end of the scale is becoming much more mainstream, so this is no longer just a pipe dream. Ken’s email address is kenc@rockisland.com. Here is his resolution:
Bring Democracy back by taxing the wealth and income of the rich in accordance with Thomas Piketty’s economic research results.doc. Resolution on taxing the rich annually for both wealth and income in Washington state and also federally
Amendment “To bring democracy back by taxing the rich annually for both wealth (0.7% for wealth over $10,000,000.00) and income (83% for income over $1,000,000.00) in Washington state and federally.” By taxing the income and wealth of rich at such a high rate each year that they cannot use their money to undermine democracy, we serve to establish and maintain democracy as the political process across Washington state and across the country. This connection between democracy and taxation of the rich is now proven in economic research fact, along with other critical research results of our time for problems like global warming. Our recent decline into ‘inequality for all’ and economic proofs like that of Thomas Piketty prove this beyond a shadow of a doubt.
WHEREAS, our local, state and federal governments profess to support democracy and act as though they believe in the power of the vote,
WHEREAS, our local, state and federal governments acknowledge that “Money in Politics” presents problems for our democratic processes (e.g. the recent carbon tax initiative failure),
WHEREAS, there are many research papers that prove that our democratic processes do not support the agenda of the average person but clearly do support the agenda of the rich
WHEREAS if we continue down the path we are today, which will allow the world to be fried for profits while also supporting the defeat of a truly progressive agenda, which requires progressive taxation of the rich, that is designed to ensure the average Americans voice is reflected in a truly democratic political system,
WHEREAS the contradiction inherent in Washington States laws which both profess to support the notion of a democracy while also wrongly supporting a creative interpretation of a phrase in the state constitution that prevents the implementation of progressive taxation, as that notion is now defeated via challenges to the law in Washington State,
WHEREAS the connection between rising wealth and income inequality is now proven to negatively impact democracy by world famous economists like Thomas Piketty and Robert Reich,
THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, that the San Juan County Democratic Party send a message to the members of the Washington State Legislative delegation and the Federal Congressional delegation as well as the platform committees at the state and federal levels urging them to support the declaration of “support bringing democracy back” by Instituting wealth and income taxes on the wealthiest Washington State residents as detailed by Thomas Piketty which is 83% annually for income over $1,000,000.00 and 0.7% of wealth annually for wealth over $10,000,000.00.” Whatever the final tax rates are they should be defined to support the preservation of democracy by taxing the rich, and needs to account for federal income and wealth taxes that may also be applied. This resolution needs to become part of the Democratic Party Platform and legislation that is passed in the state of Washington legislature and signed by the Governor, passed federally as legislation and signed into law, and
THEREFORE BE IT FINALLY RESOLVED, that the SJCDCC urge the Washington State Democratic Committee to add this resolution into the WA state and national platform without delay.
Submitted by the San Juan County Democratic Convention to the (fill in the blank) (Date Submitted 1/2/2019)
The <fill in the blank> committee “RECOMMENDED A PASS” on this resolution at its <date> meeting <location>.
The <fill in the blank> committee “PASSED” this resolution at its <date> meeting in <location>.
Related to the above issue, Learner mentioned that there is now an economic equity committee as part of the state party. We have our next state meeting in two weeks, and a number of us who will be attending will check it out.
That’s all for now. Please join us at our next meeting at the college on Feb. 9 at 11:45.