February 16, 2022

Correction: the link for the Meet Cheri Beasley event has been fixed.

In This Issue

Election Integrity

On a Positive Note

A Lifetime of Activism: Judy Norisigian

Save the Dates: CGB State of the Union Watch Party; Crimsom Goes Blueprint Portfolio Presentation

Other Upcoming Events

Election Integrity

Kathy Goodman

This year, Crimson Goes Blue needs your activism in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Georgia, and Michigan to keep U.S. democracy in 2024 and beyond. Here is why:

We believe in democracy. We believe that every American’s vote should count. That used to be uncontroversial, non-political, and non-partisan. However, Republicans are undermining basic principles of our democracy to hold on to power, and we must take action to defend our democracy now. Republicans are using old pre-election tricks to rig the process and hold onto their minority rule: gerrymandering districts and passing restrictive voting rules to confuse, intimidate, and discourage voters.

Since 2020, Republicans have embarked on new POST-election tactics to attempt to hold on to minority rule: putting in place new laws and electing officials to manipulate vote counts and swap out legitimate electors AFTER Americans have cast their votes.

Crimson Goes Blue is committed to ensuring that this challenge to election integrity does not go unanswered. To counteract Republican election subversion efforts, we are launching an effort to take action in key state-level races in the states where election integrity is most at risk: Pennsylvania, Georgia, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Arizona.

Why take action at the state level?

Because elections in the U.S. are run by the states. Ensuring that those who administer elections are committed to election integrity is, therefore, key to the survival of U.S. democracy. By working to elect Democratic governors and Secretaries of State, and flip state legislatures from red to blue, we can cut the proliferation of election subversion and voter suppression laws designed to undermine our democracy.

In most states, elections are administered by either the elected Secretary of State (as is the case in Georgia, Michigan, and Arizona), by an appointed Secretary of State (as is the case in Pennsylvania), or by an appointed board of elections (as is the case in Wisconsin).

In states with an elected Secretary of State, paying attention to that race is key to preserving election integrity. In states with an appointed Secretary of State or board of elections, the key official is the Governor, who is usually the official with appointment power. A Democratic Governor can also veto election subversion legislation that a Republican-dominated legislature may attempt to enact. Finally, Democratic (and therefore, democratic) control of state legislatures is key to keeping these election sabotage laws from arising in the first place.

In Pennsylvania, CGB will focus on keeping a Democratic governor. Then, when Pennsylvania maps are finalized, we will work with local partners to identify state legislative races that could help flip the state legislature blue.

In Arizona, Georgia, and Michigan, CGB will be taking action in the Secretary of State and Governor races to preserve our democracy.

In Wisconsin, CGB will focus on keeping the Governor’s seat blue. The Governor appoints members to the election board. 

We believe in democracy. We now understand even established democracies like ours are fragile and can become autocracies. This often happens not through thunderous revolution, but by small sequential actions that go unnoticed until it is too late. We hope that Republicans will put country over party and not make democracy a partisan issue, but meanwhile, we must fight to preserve our valued democracy.

Join Crimson Goes Blue in our effort to defeat election sabotage in these states, and help defend our democracy everywhere.

On a Positive Note

President Biden has been in office for a year. As we noted in the February 2 newsletter, there has been tremendous progress in the job market, health coverage, stimulus checks, unemployment insurance, school funding, and the enhanced child tax credit.

Here is more good news to share in your circles of influence:

• Employers continue to report near-record numbers of job openings: The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported some 10.9 million job openings in January.

• The EPA will resume enforcing a rule limiting power plant emissions of mercury and other hazardous pollutants. The rule was first enacted in 2012 and was credited with a range of public health benefits, including reducing neurological damage in children, lowering the risk of heart attacks and cancer, and preventing thousands of premature deaths.

• In January, the Internal Revenue Service expanded the criteria to qualify for the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), to permanently include people at least 19 years of age without children, as well as 18-year-olds recently out of foster care or facing homelessness. 

• The Department of the Interior is spending $1.15 billion to cap abandoned oil and gas wells across the United States. This will create immediate jobs addressing the pollution and build a foundation for future job growth once sites are cleaned up.

• Redistricting is turning out better than we feared. So far, FiveThirtyEight predicts that new maps will result in +11 Democratic-leaning seats, -3 Republican-leaning seats, and -8 highly competitive seats.

A Lifetime of Activism

Judy Norsigian

In the late 1960s, as the women’s movement was growing in the U.S., I was at Radcliffe College, unaware of the feminist activism across the country. I played cello in the Harvard-Radcliffe Orchestra and the Bach Society Orchestra and majored in Social Relations.

In 1969-70 I was involved in student activism that led to the Harvard Strike. In my senior year of college, I joined the intentional community movement and lived off-campus in a commune in Arlington. After graduation, I lived on a commune in upstate New York, with people from Boston and New York City, including faculty and students from Fordham University who had established Bensalem, an experimental college on that campus.

Although deeply aware of social injustices (especially because of all I knew about the Armenian Genocide and other historical examples of state-sponsored cruelty), it was during my early 20s that I better understood the social and political obstacles to racial, economic, and social justice. Through friends, I met the members of the Boston Women’s Health Book Collective (still our legal name). Meeting this group of feminist, activist women was transformational and shaped the next half-century of my life.

In the early 1970s I also worked with teenagers at a North Cambridge housing development, and I co-directed a newly established teen center funded by the federal Law Enforcement Assistance Administration to prevent juvenile delinquency. The racial tensions in the community occasionally caused clashes between teens and the police, including an angry protest against police brutality. I also facilitated discussions with the teens about sexuality, contraception, and STDs (the result of my involvement with the Our Bodies, Ourselves group).

Over the years, I became more involved with later editions of Our Bodies, Ourselves and in advocacy and activism for women, health, and sexuality. The group members became some of my closest friends (we even played trios and quartets together). Our collaborations taught me the value of working together to effect meaningful change.

As I saw how “the personal is the political” and how dialogue must begin “where people are,” I thought about how better to raise consciousness and expand the consumer-oriented feminist critique at the core of Our Bodies, Ourselves. I felt that a careful examination of American society’s power relations, unbridled profit-making, and intrinsic conflicts of interest was necessary to counterbalance the misleading narratives in the media and other societal institutions.

Recently I have become more active with groups addressing the climate crisis and voting rights, two arenas I see as central to preserving a functioning democracy, a livable world, and even reproductive justice. Black Lives Matter and other movements, where advocates work across generations to protect voting rights and civic engagement, continue to inspire me. I believe we must better address the legacy of slavery that is possibly the greatest impediment to meaningful change in so many arenas. At the age of 73, I try to remain optimistic in the face of a gloomy present reality.

Save the Dates

Other Upcoming Events

Wisconsin Spring Voter Assistance Hotline Training
Tuesday, Feb 22, 6 -7:30 pm ET / 3 - 4:30 pm
Register

Meet Cheri Beasley, Democratic candidate for Senate in North Carolina
Wednesday, Feb 23, 7 - 8 pm ET / 4 - 5 pm PT
Hosted by Force Multiplier
Register & donate 

Crimson Goes Blue Georgia Phone Banks
Thursday, Feb 24 & March 10, 6 - 8 pm ET / 3 - 5pm PT
Sign up

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