ECHO BASE

Hello! We have a shot at real nonpartisan redistricting in Minnesota. Let me break this down into as simple terms as possible. GOOD: A new nonpartisan redistricting bill called HF1605 is making its way through the state legislature, and needs our support. This bill is a true bipartisan effort, protecting the process from partisan interests and allowing direct participation by public members as commissioners. It does not protect incumbents.. NOT SO GOOD: A competing bill has been introduced that creates a commission consisting solely of five retired judges, excluding any other members of the public, and containing principles that ultimately protect incumbents. Senator Ann Rest and Representative Jennifer Schultz have introduced the bill, SF582 in the Senate and HF1018 in the House. You can link to their bill here . For more background on this issue, see this blog's previous entry . TAKE ACTION 1. CALLS Please call Reps. Dehn, Freiberg, and Hortman and tell ...

From a friend: please call/ email today if you can on behalf of non-partisan redistricting in Minnesota. See action item below. IMPORTANT TIME SENSITIVE REQUEST FOR MINNESOTA FRIENDS-- PLEASE READ AND SHARE THIS POST! All voices matter in Minnesota, and all votes must count. However, Minnesota’s current process for drawing voting maps removes legislators’ accountability to their constituents. Our legislators, both Democrats and Republicans, draw voting maps with the intent of protecting their incumbency and their party’s control of our government. When issues important to you and your community aren’t given hearings at the legislature, this is why. Protected legislators have no incentive to respond to their constituents. They are “safe.” The good news is that it is within our power to change this practice to protect you and your vote and not legislators. Every ten years, following the census, the voting maps are redrawn. Now is the time to enact legislation to put Minnesota voter...

Something to keep in mind as you vote in the primary: Current Hennepin County Sheriff Rich Stanek is an enabler of 45's nativist immigration policies. Stanek must be replaced . A DFL-endorsed candidate for Hennepin County Sheriff, Dave Hutchinson offers an opportunity to rein in ICE at the local level, increase communication between the Sheriff's office and the community, and to update obsolete approaches to policing. WHO IS DAVE HUTCHINSON? Dave “Hutch” Hutchinson is a 15-year law enforcement and public safety professional. He's served with the Metro Transit Police Department since 2006. He's currently a sergeant, working on the north side of Minneapolis and surrounding suburbs.  He also supervises the Peer Support Program, Crisis Intervention Training (CIT), and Community Engagement Team. More on Hutch's background WHAT HUTCH STANDS FOR Hutchinson's platform reimagines policing for the 21st century, disposing of an "us vs. them" model...

Dean Phillips is a DFL-endorsed Democrat running for the U.S. House of Representatives in Minnesota's 3rd Congressional District , aiming to repeal and replace Republican Trump enabler Erik Paulsen. WHAT DEAN STANDS FOR Given incumbent Erik Paulsen 's atrocious record of supporting 45's agenda , getting rid of him might seem its own reward. But Dean Phillips offers not just an alternative, but a lot of great ideas . He supports the expansion of Medicare as a public option for all Americans, and has a lot to say about  climate change prevention, campaign finance reform, and gun violence prevention. On the gun control front he supports reinstating the assault weapons ban, funding CDC research into gun violence, and commonsense measures to keep guns away from domestic abusers, violent criminals and suspected terrorists (including so-called ‘no fly no buy’ proposals). HOW YOU CAN HELP -- Volunteer for Dean by knocking on doors and phone banking. -- Make a don...

When Al Franken vacated his Senate seat earlier this year, Tina Smith moved from Lieutenant Governor of Minnesota to serve as the state's junior U.S. Senator as appointed by Governor Dayton. She's running to keep the seat this November, first in a primary (you can vote early starting Friday, June 29th) and then (preferably) in the general. She deserves our support in both races. WHAT SHE STANDS FOR A former Planned Parenthood executive, Tina Smith has earned the support of Democrats with an aggressive policy agenda . She supports single payer health care.  She's the cosponsor of bills  to ban the sale of bump stocks, assault weapons, and high-capacity magazines, as well as to expand background checks. She's also working with Senator Amy Klobuchar to ban people convicted of stalking from having firearms. She's co-sponsoring the Paycheck Fairness Act to help close the gender pay gap. And she introduced the HELP Separated Children Act to help force ICE to de...

Angie Craig is a Democrat running for the U.S. House of Representatives in Minnesota's 2nd Congressional District, challenging incumbent Republican and Trump enabler Jason Lewis. She has a real shot at flipping the district. Let's help her out! WHAT SHE STANDS FOR Raised by a single mother in a mobile home park, Angie Craig stands with working and middle class people. She champions prioritizing funding for public education, the rights of teachers to organize and collectively bargain (and paying them more-- hey, there's an idea), fighting climate change with renewable enrgy initiatives, overturning Citizen's United, equal pay and full reproductive rights for women, common sense gun control, reining in the costs of the pharmaceutical industry, and moving away from a fee-for-service healthcare system toward universal health coverage. Find out more about her policy positions . Please consider supporting Angie's campaign any way you can! HOW YOU CAN HELP ...

Please re-post this entry! Gina Haspel, 45's new nominee to lead the CIA, personally helped torture detainees in a secret CIA-run prison during the Bush administration. She then made sure the video evidence was destroyed. More info about Gina Haspel from the good folks at Indivisible. Haspel has no place in the federal government. Please call your reps and ask them to refuse her confirmation to the cabinet. SENATE ACTION: WHAT TO DO: Call your U.S. Senator. Find your Congressional representatives here: https://www.govtrack.us/congress/members If you're in Minnesota: Senator Amy Klobuchar: (202) 224-3244 / 612-727-5220 Senator Tina Smith: (202) 224-5641) / (651) 221-1016 SCRIPT, if you need it (if you know your rep already supports what you're asking for, adapt your script as a thank you— yes, this is important to do too!): "Hello. My name is _______. My zip code is _____. I don't need a personal response. I'm calling to encourage Senator ______...

Please share this post! Urgent call to action: Anti-protest + Trespass bill (HF 3693 / SF 3463) This nefarious bill is sailing under many a civic activist's radar. It’s already passed committees in both houses and will soon be voted on or slipped into an omnibus. This bill increases the penalties for trespass on “critical infrastructure.” It also, incredibly, expands liability to the groups that those convicted of trespass or damages belong to. (The bills extend “civil and crimi nal liability to a group or organization that recruits, trains, aids, hires, or conspires with an individual to commit criminal trespass or damage to property,” according to a House Research summary.)  The environmental groups point out that this is a GOP, pro-fossil fuel maneuver aimed at pipeline protesters and the organizations that support their work. According to the ACLU, “this bill is unconstitutional, undemocratic, and unnecessary.” It's unnecessary; there are already ...

Please re-post this entry! 45 has nominated CIA director Mike Pompeo to replace Rex Tillerson as Secretary of State. Not a good idea. Wall of Us has a good summation of why Pompeo is unfit to serve in the American government:  "While in Congress, Mr. Pompeo argued for domestic surveillance on a wide scale , insisted that waterboarding was not torture and dismissed a hunger strike by detainees at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, as a 'political stunt'...  Pompeo also denies climate change and has said that the Paris Climate Agreement amounted to “ bowing down to radical environmentalists ”... and he is unapologetically and consistently anti-Muslim." It's time for us to raise our voices and make sure our reps know we don't want Mike Pompeo as the nation's top diplomat. SENATE ACTION WHAT TO DO: Call your U.S. Senator. Find your Congressional representatives here: https://www.govtrack.us/congress/members If you're in Minnesota: Senator ...

Minnesotans! Our state legislature is considering important new legislation. They could vote on these measures at any time, as they don't schedule votes in advance. Please call your district reps; script is provided below if you need it. If you like, you can use the script when you make these calls, and take our word for it that you'll be opposing legislation curtailing the free speech of protestors, rolling back environmental regulations, and locking the media and watchdog groups out of agricultural research data, while supporting legislation strengthening sexual harassment law. Or consult more background by Watch Your Reps MN (from whom we've received this info, as we're often fortunate enough to do). = = = = = WHAT TO DO: 1. MN HOUSE Call your MN House Rep (find him or her using this link ). Script, if you need it: "Hello. I'm a consituent of Representative ________. I'm calling to urge the Representative to oppose HF3280, HF3162, HF31...

As ever, thanks to Watch Your Reps MN for the good word here... The Minnesota House of Representatives is hearing 2 bills on Thursday 3/1 that will help keep guns out of the hands of criminals and people who are a danger to themselves and others. Please share this ACTION ALERT broadly! Actions: 1. If your representative is on the committee ( http://www.house.leg.state.mn.us/comm/committeemembers.asp?comm=90019 ), contact them and tell them to support these bills. If they are not, contact the committee chair ( http://www.house.leg.state.mn.us/members/members.asp?id=15403 ) and tell him to support these bills 2. Sign up to testify about these bills in person, contact the committee administrator at Mike.Valleau@house.mn or 651-296-9115 3. If you cannot testify in person, email Michael Valleau Mike.Valleau@house.mn (mailto: Mike.Valleau@house.mn ) and copy the DFL Minority Lead Debra Hilstrom rep.debra.hilstrom@house.mn ( http://www.house.leg.state.mn.us/sendmail/mailt...

UPVOTE is a new feature on Echo Base focused on campaigns and organizations that can help Democrats gain ground in the 2018 elections, icluding info on how to get involved. Conor Lamb 's candidacy represents yet another potential Democratic gain where once it seemed unthinkable: this time in Pennsylvania's 18th Congressional District , which Trump won by 19 points. The spceial election will be held on March 13th. Recent polls show that the race is tightening, and very much winnable by the Democrat. HOW WE CAN HELP 1. Donate to Conor Lamb's campaign here . 2. If you live in Pennsylvania, please consider traveling to the district to volunteer for Conor Lamb. 3. If you know anyone who lives in Pennsylvania, especially in CD18, contact them and encourage them to get involved . Conor Lamb campaign home page = = = = = Echo Base on Facebook Echo Base on Twitter

Thanks to ACLU of MN (not affiliated with Echo Base) for the good word on how to support DACA recipients in Minnesota: 1. TELL CONGRESS YOU WANT A CLEAN DREAM ACT WHAT TO DO: Call your U.S. Senator. Find your Congressional representatives here: https://www.govtrack.us/congress/members If you're in Minnesota: Senator Tina Smith: (202) 224-5641) Senator Amy Klobuchar: (202) 224-3244 / 612-727-5220 SCRIPT, if you need it (if you know your rep already supports what you're asking for, adapt your script as a thank you— yes, this is important to do too!): "Hello. My name is _______. My zip code is _____. I don't need a personal response. I'm calling to encourage Senator ________ not to vote for any long-term budget resolution that does not include a clean DREAM Act. DACA is worth a government shutdown. If you could pass my concerns along, I'd appreciate it." If you care to, throw in a request for similar support of the Children's Health ...

The Constitution requires the United States to conduct a census every decade. And so, in 2020, we'll do our 24th national headcount. The United States Census Bureau, an office under the Department of Commerce, oversees the project. The census is much more than a headcount. It is the most influential data the government gathers. The numbers determine how many members of the U.S. House of Representatives each state is allotted and how congressional districts are drawn within states. It's used to allocate government funding, conduct crucial research and set public policy. And the 2020 census will be used for all of this until the next census is taken in 2030. Making sure the census is conducted fairly and impartially, therefore, is crucial for good governance and for fair elections. Tom Brunell is set to become a deputy director of the census bureau—and he would be a disaster. As just one example of the philosophy he would bring to the job, Brunell, a polit...

Thanks to Watch Your Reps MN (not affiliated with Echo Base) for the info here, reprinted almost verbatim. Read on for how you can get involved to oppose an unconcstitutional attempted power grab by the GOP. (Encouragements to contact Sen. Fischbach via Facebook and Twitter are Echo Base embellishments.) = = = = Last week, Tina Smith went to Washington as the new US Senator from Minnesota. That left the Lt. Governor position open and, according to the succession laid out in the MN Constitution, the President of the Senate becomes the Lt. Governor. This should be easy, but of course it isn't. Despite knowing that one of the possibilities when you take the role of Senate President is that you might be called up to Lt. Governor, Senator Fischbach is refusing to be sworn in, isn't taking the salary of the Lt. Governor and is trying to keep her position as Senator. She's calling herself an "acting" Lt. Governor and claims she can do both roles....

There are two special elections coming up on February 12th here in Minnesota. One is in the State Senate, one in the State House. Both are due to resignations stemming from harassment allegations. One is an opportunity to flip a seat; the other is a chance to keep a seat blue. Both races offer a chance to elect a Democratic woman. Both need your support. Time is of the essence. Here is the DFL-endorsed candidate in each race:    Melissa Wagner for MN House 23B   Karla Bigham for MN Senate District 54 = = = = = HOW YOU CAN HELP: = = = = = 1. MAKE DONATIONS Donate to Melissa Wagner Donate to Karla Bigham + send office supplies to Karla Bigham's field office at 1594 Hastings Av, Newport MN, 55055 2. VOLUNTEER Volunteer for Melissa Wagner There's a postcard writing event for Melissa Wagner at the Golden Valley Lunds/ Byerly's on 1/4/18 at 7:30 PM. Melissa Wagner's campaign is also hosting a door knock kickoff a...

Hello! Here are two things you can do to fight the GOP's authoritarian agenda today. 1. No DACA? No CHIP? Then no CR Demand that your reps refuse to vote on a continuing resolution without clean resolutions to the DREAM Act and the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP). WHAT TO DO: Go back to this previous entry and repeat the steps therein. Everything is the same; we need to keep up the pressure on these fronts. 2. FIGHT THE GOP TAX SCAM If you've got some more time today, please sign up to make some calls to oppose the appalling tax legislation that's within a hair's breadth of passing in the Senate. WHAT TO DO: The good people at Indivisible have set up a nifty peet ro peer dialing tool that allows people to contact progressive voters in key states with a swing Republican Senator. These folks are your friends—they attended the Women’s March, they’re standing up to pass a #CleanDREAM, and for other progressive causes. Sign up to ma...

Let's keep up the pressure on our legislators to demand a clean Dream Act , reauthorize the Children's Health Insurance Program , and (if your Senator is a Democrat) refuse to vote for a continuing resolution unless these issues are resolved first. In the next two weeks, 1,708 Dreamers will lose their protection under DACA. Last week, both the House and Senate passed a “continuing resolution” (CR) to keep the government open for another two weeks-- without including a clean DREAM Act.  Here's a list of Congressional Democrats who didn't demand a clean Dream Act. Minnesotans: the list contains Franken, Klobuchar, Walz, and Collin Peterson. Take action by letting your reps know that you want DACA restored before Congress moves forward. SENATE ACTION: WHAT TO DO: Call your U.S. Senator. Find your Congressional representatives here: https://www.govtrack.us/congress/members If you're in Minnesota: Senator Al Franken: (202) 224-5641 / 651-221-1016 S...

Thanks for the info from the good people at Protect Minnesota ! And by the way, they're hosting a rally concerning this very issue at 11 am on 12/6/17. The Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act of 2017 is opposed by law enforcement leaders across the country because it will put officers at risk and make communities less safe. Concealed carry reciprocity (CCR) threatens public safety by forcing states with stronger concealed carry laws, like Minnesota, to honor permits from states with weak or nonexistent concealed carry laws, like North Dakota, undermining current state permitting standards. The House is expected to vote on this legislation as early as this coming Thursday. Congressman Jason Lewis is a co-sponsor of this dangerous bill, as is Congressman Tom Emmer and Congressman Collin Peterson. Please call your rep in the U.S. House of Representatives and ask them to vote no on this legislation. WHAT TO DO: Call your U.S. Representative. Find your Congressional rep...

The Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) ensures nearly 9 million children have health insurance. CHIP is a federal-state partnership where the federal government provides most—or in some cases, all—of the funding necessary to cover uninsured children. No one thought Congress would let CHIP funding expire on September 30, but that’s exactly what they did. And Republicans still have not found the time to reauthorize CHIP. Here's more info on the issue. WHAT TO DO: SENATE ACTION: WHAT TO DO: Call your U.S. Senator. Find your Congressional representatives here: https://www.govtrack.us/congress/members If you're in Minnesota: Senator Al Franken: (202) 224-5641 / 651-221-1016 Senator Amy Klobuchar: (202) 224-3244 / 612-727-5220 SCRIPT, if you need it (if you know your rep already supports what you're asking for, adapt your script as a thank you— yes, this is important to do too!): "Hello. My name is _______. My zip code is _____. I don't...