County Democrats Meeting, Nov. 14, 2020
We had two guest speakers, Erin Lake and Janae Lopez, founding members of the San Juan Social Justice Collective. This is an organization that formed recently, and its members are mostly on San Juan Island. They have been holding biweekly discussion groups that often are related to a podcast, and on the first Saturday of the month they have been having demonstrations/conversations at the courthouse. They recognize that white supremacy is a problem and needs to be largely solved by white people; they are committed to undermining white supremacy and divesting from the current justice system that treats people of color unfairly. They want to provide help to homeless local people, so it was suggested they work with the community resource centers. It was also suggested they look at supporting local native people. Bob suggested a pledge from local law enforcement to treat people of color equally. They have a Facebook page, but they said they could use some help with tech and social media stuff. If anyone reading this would like to help, please email them. To get on their email list, go to sanjuansocialjusticecollective@gmail.com.
Lots of our members did phone banking during the election campaign, and a few of us did lots of texting. Most of our endorsed and recommended candidates were elected. At the local level we were disappointed that Ryan didn’t win the council seat from San Juan Island, but Cindy was elected from Orcas. We were also disappointed that Gael Tarleton did not win the race for Secretary of State, and while Marko Liaas did really well in our county running for lieutenant governor, he did not win statewide. Otherwise, all our state and federal candidates won.
Beth shared about the current trouble being caused by Trump in trying to stay in office. She is pretty sure he will not be able to get enough state legislatures to agree to appoint their own electors for the Electoral College vote. And really, Trump has no plan, just causing chaos.
As we look ahead to the Georgia senate runoff, where control of the US Senate is at stake, we heard about a number of ways to help. Beth and Geri each talked about their letter writing campaigns on San Juan and Orcas respectively for Vote Forward, and they plan to do it again for the Georgia senate runoff. If you would like to get involved in doing this, go to votefwd.org.
Other ways to help in Georgia are the following:
Movement Voter Project is registering new voters in Georgia – go to movement.vote
Donate directly to Warnock and Ossoff – https://warnockforgeorgia.com;
https://electjon.com
Fair Fight: https://fairfight.com – This is Stacey Abrams’ group.
New Georgia Project: https://newgeorgiaproject.org
Black Voters Matter: https://blackvotersmatterfund.org
I have been getting lots of good information before the general election and now during the run-up to the Georgia runoff from Consumers United For Fairness (CUFF). Their website doesn’t seem to yield a good place to go, so the best contact would be to get on the email list of Susan Madrak, the head of the organization. She is at info@cuffnow.com. They already had phone banking and text banking this weekend, and it continues this week.
We spoke about wanting to have some input on the appointments that the Biden transition team will be making. We are particularly concerned about the potential Defense Secretary Michele Flournoy, of whom I have written earlier this week. Probably the best place to go is the Biden Facebook campaign site. We can also contact our senators, as they are in the position of approving appointments or not.
We discussed our party’s role in the recent election and considered any changes we might want to make. Almost all of us agreed that endorsing in the technically nonpartisan county council race was the appropriate thing to do, and Cindy expressed that our endorsement really helped her. A number of other questions were discussed, and it was decided that it would be good to survey our membership. We could send out a survey to the broader membership asking what worked and what did not and what suggestions they have for the next election cycle. We could put together the results, discuss them with the PCOs and active members and make a final report with recommendations for any bylaws changes needed or any policy points and tips for planning we think would be useful. We can also include any institutional memories we think would help whoever is running the SJCDC next time a Charter Commission is elected. It might be the kind of thing that goes in a box of stuff that gets passed along whenever there is a new Chair in office. This was an idea that resonated with many. The suggestion was made to have the Endorsement Committee look into doing this.
On January 9, we will have our reorganization meeting that happens every two years. At that meeting, all officer positions are open for voting. These include chair, vice chair, deputy vice chair for each of Lopez, Orcas, and San Juan, secretary, treasurer, state committee persons (2), and 40th LD vice chair. If you have an interest in being considered for one of these positions, please contact me so I can put you on the ballot.
We are planning a meeting for December, either on the 12th or the 19th. The thought was shared that it would be nice to meet after the Electoral College meets and votes, and this is happening on Dec. 14. Then we could celebrate Biden’s win by raising a glass. So I will let you know later on as to the date of our meeting once it is certain.
And if you want to celebrate some more, tune in to the livestream of Cindy’s inauguration on Jan. 4 at 4:00. As soon as I have the link, I will send it out.
Thanks for reading,
David Turnoy
Chair, San Juan County Democrats
360-376-4165
davidgeri@rockisland.com