Tuesday, September 29, 2015

Get Ready for the Big One

Dems for Equality to Consider Endorsement in SD 39 at October Meeting

A downside of having a much larger membership base than what we've had in the recent past is that the number of members required for a meeting quorum is much larger too. Because of other meetings (both other Dem Clubs and other community groups) drawing from our regular attendees we ran into that issue head-on at our September meeting. We had a great discussion of the US Senate race, with former State Senator Denise Ducheny speaking for the campaign of US Representative Loretta Sanchez and Craig Roberts speaking for Attorney General Kamala Harris's campaign. Because we were just shy of a quorum, we did not endorse in the race. We also had a

good discussion of the Club's friendly incumbent endorsement process.

October's meeting is unlikely to suffer from the same fate. We will be considering endorsements in the San Diego City Council District 7 race and the California State Senate District 39 race. Because October is traditionally our last meeting of the year we will also be electing our

delegates to the State Party's Pre-endorsement Conference in January.

The State Party awards one Pre-endorsement Conference delegate to Democratic clubs for each 20 members of that club in an Assembly District. Based on our membership as of July 1st of this year, that means Dems for Equality will get about 12 delegates in the 78th AD, and 1 delegate in both the 79th and 80th AD. This number represents a large block of all the votes at the Conference which proposes endorsements in area Congressional, State Senate and Assembly District races. If you are a Dems for Equality member in one of these Assembly Districts who would like to represent the Club at the Pre-Endorsement Conference, let us know HERE. The Conference will be held in San Diego and our By-laws bind delegates elected by the Club to support the candidates endorsed by Dems for Equality.

The Club's October 22nd meeting will be held at Joyce Beers Uptown Community Center, 3900 Vermont Street in Hillcrest. (Please use the underground parking structure behind Trader Joe's to avoid ticketing).

Social Half-Hour 6:30 PM

Business Meeting 7:00 PM

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No Club Meeting, What Will I Do?

The Club doesn't meet in November or December. That doesn't mean we won't still be getting together to make plans and swap stories.

We will be celebrating our 40 years of activism with a party in November. We're still finalizing special guests and venue, but please mark it on your calendar and plan to attend.

Likewise, we're also working on our annual Holiday Party. We'll let you know when in December it will be and what you can bring, but it's always a lot of fun and we hope to see you there.

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Celebrate 40 Years of Activism by Joining the Club

Democrats for Equality had a very successful 1st half of 2015 and we're well on our way to our goal of 400 members to celebrate our 40th Anniversary. Much of the progressive change in San Diego and in our community can be traced directly or indirectly through the work of our members.

We're not finished and we need you to get the job done. If you've let your membership lapse, NOW would be a good time to renew. If you want to be a part of the change, join NOW. Our members make history. Join us.

The Club depends on membership dues to keep the lights on and promote our

candidates and issues to the community. A large number of community members depend on our Voters Guide to help them make an intelligent choice when marking their ballots so your membership renewal is critical to ensure those Guides get into those hands. At the risk of sounding like a Public Television pledge drive, if you depend on our endorsements, Voters Guide, newsletters, social media posts and programs, you should be a member!

If your membership has lapsed or if you know your membership is soon to expire, please re-up now. You might also consider upgrading your membership to a higher level.

Our accounting software supplier recently decided to upgrade their product and made our online credit card processing unusable. We can get your money, but we don't have any way of knowing who paid the dues so, while we're working out the solution, please try to drop us a check to the address below.

You can find out more about the Club's membership levels and benefits online HERE. If you would prefer to use a check, send the check, made out to Democrats for Equality to:

San Diego Democrats for Equality

PO Box 33050

San Diego CA 92163

Note that in order to comply with Federal and State election laws, please include your full address where you are registered to vote and your job title/employer with your check. Telephone number and email address would be nice too!

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Like Us, Really Like Us

San Diego Democrats for Equality's Facebook page has been number 1 among County Democratic Clubs for a while now. Even so, we've got quite a few new members so we're putting this out again. Please Like Us! Facebook includes the number of likes on a page as part of their complex algorithm to decide if our posts should be widely distributed or not. If you like us now, more people will see our Voter's Guide in their timeline next year. Twitter has different rules, but the effect is the same. The more people who follow us on Twitter means more people seeing our Tweets.

If you are on Facebook or Twitter and you haven't already liked/followed us, please do it now.

https://www.facebook.com/dems4equality

@SDDems4Equality

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Dems for Equality Endorsed Candidates 2016

President

Hillary Clinton

Congress

CA-53 Susan Davis

CA-52 Scott Peters

California Assembly

AD-78 Todd Gloria

AD-79 Shirley Weber

Board of Supervisors

Dist 3 Dave Roberts

San Diego City Council

Dist 3 Chris Ward

Dist 9 Georgette Gomez

SDUSD

Sub-Dist D Richard Barrera

Sub-Dist A John Lee Evans

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Suzie and Mike Could Use A Hand

Mike Thomason and Suzie Ditmar have been two of the most stalwart parts of Democrats for Equality, the County Party and many other Democratic Clubs throughout the County. They're always there, offering a helping hand and making sure we get the job done.

It's time to offer a helping hand to get the job done for them now.

You may have heard that Suzie and Mike suffered the complete loss of their home to a fire over the weekend. We've been able to raise about $5000 to help them with food, clothes and a roof while the insurance gets sorted out. They have been told that it may be nine months until they are able to move back to a permanent home.

Because we don't know how the long term solution to their crisis is going to look, we realized that we could help now with some money so, we're asking you to help out with a donation to the GoFundMe campaign we've set up for them HERE. Suzie has also let us know that their temporary housing (in a hotel) will end soon. They've requested that anyone who knows of a house sitting situation - or an inexpensive efficiency apartment for rent get in touch with them. If you know of a solution, you can contact us and we'll pass the info along. Likewise, it's easier for them to access the GoFundMe money with a computer rather than a cellphone so if you have an extra laptop, let us know HERE.

Please donate to help Mike and Suzie out right now and send out this appeal to other Democratic family members for whom they have worked so hard over the years.

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As we work toward a better future for our community and Country, take a couple minutes to remember what we've already done with a short history of the our accomplishments.