INDIVISIBLE CEDAR MILL OREGON

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OUR MISSION: Rebuild and maintain a progressive majority in every level of government – federal, state and local.

 

Resistance Letter #60
January 8, 2019
Day 754 of 1461 days

Dear Co-defendants –

Emphasis on State Legislature

Despite the fatal attraction of the circus maximus going on in Washington, we will avert our eyes. There will be occasions when we need to take some action at the federal level, but mostly we will focus on the legislature with some resources listed below. The voters have given Oregon a Democratic governor and a super majority (enough members to take action on both taxes and spending). With a super majority, it will take some restraint to keep the legislatures from going overboard: so far, Tina Kotek (House) and Peter Courtney (Senate) have been keeping their heads on target. There will likely be some bill passed on carbon emission; Kate Brown has put her weight behind a carbon cap-and-trade this year and it might well be passed. California legislated a cap-and-trade bill a few years back, and it doesn’t seem to have ruined that state’s economy! If adopted, this would be a very significant move towards taming global climate change.

 

Mitch Greenlick to Retire

Our representative in the Oregon House is Mitch Greenlick, and, after 18 years representing us admirably,  he has announced his intention to retire; this will be his last session and, at age 83, it seems like a reasonable time for his departure. He has represented District 33 for 17 years, and currently chairs the Health Care Committee among others. He is very active on all health matters, working to get some form of single payer system passed and, recently, to remove the philosophical exemption from the measles/mump vaccine. Quixotically, he wants to see all tobacco products banned with severe penalties for use! Not likely to happen, but we applaud his intent.

The question then is who is going to replace Mitch on the ballot in 2020? This chapter has quite a few members who could take this challenge and represent us as well as Mitch has. Any hand raised out there?

 

Bonamici Tuesdays

Along with a few other progressive groups in the area, Hillsboro Indivisible and Beaverton Indivisible among them, we will plan on meeting with Bonamici and/or her staff, at her office in the Beaverton City Hall by the Round. Bring your questions, demands and signs to make this as effective as possible. Bonamici is a friend of ours and she has just been named to a green-energy oversight committee. The meetings are at twelve noon on second Tuesday of each month – Mar 12, Apr 9, May 14, June 11 and July 9 for a start.

 

Neighborhood Leaders

Washington County had a very vigorous and effective get-out-the-vote campaign last year, stressing neighbor-to-neighbor contacts to encourage voting. Remarkably, voting overall hovered around 60% participation and, with Neighborhood Leader contacts, it pushed response close to 90% . This is a remarkable jump and we plan on continuing it in 2020. Indivisible National has a VAN listing of all voters and we will be using that in conjunction with Washington County Democrats.

 

Legislature Goings-on

There are a bewildering number of computer apps available to keep track of The Oregon Legislature Here are a few of them:

State Legislative Calendar – https://www.indivisibleor.org/events/or-state-leg/This URL gets you to a calendar of action days for organizations for causes such as Carbon Reduction, Tenant’s Rights, 1000 Friends, Land Use, etc.

Actions Page – https://www.indivisibleor.org/actions/This URL gets you to a specific set of actions needed with all the information necessary to make those calls and meetings.

Legislative Actions – https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1LbRsABs9kqPMo8fm8Hf2Q7iEBFyK4iRl . This tortuously complicated URL gets you to a huge amount of information about the legislature – committee assignments and meeting dates, votes, research, etc.

 

Meeting Speakers

District Attorney Kevin Barton will be the featured speaker at our next meeting on March 4^th, The County Attorney General is responsible for large policy areas – hiring, investigating, charging, alternative sentencing, etc. When we talked with Attorney Barton before the campaign he had a large number of areas which he recognized needed reforms.  Next month we will get a chance to hear him talk about these things and a q&a will follow his talk.

 

 MONTHLY MEETING 
The next official meeting is set for Monday, March 4, 2019 at 1750 NW 131^st Ave, 97229.   Doors open at 6:30PM and the meeting starts promptly at 7:30 PM. Refreshments, both adult and juvenile. will be provided along with a few tasty snacks.

L’audace, encore l’audace, et toujours l’audace!

Thank you.

John Fox