Tuesday, January 5, 2016

City Attorney/District 1 Take Center Stage

January 28th Endorsement Meeting

Our next Club meeting will be Thursday, January 28th, 2016 and we've got a very big agenda for the evening.

We will be opening nominations for Club officers (see the offices up for election below). Nominations will be at the January 28th meeting

with elections at the February meeting - and the elected officers will begin their terms in March. We will also be considering a few technical By-laws changes to meet the County Party's requirements.

In addition we will be considering endorsements in two high profile election races up in 2016 - San Diego City Attorney and San Diego District 1 Council member. Candidates have been sent invitations and the Club's Candidate Questionnaire for completion (and scoring/copying before the meeting). Following Club procedure, the complete Questionnaires will

be made available for study at the meeting but will not be distributed to members, candidates or guests before, or after the meeting.

We have invited Barbara Bry and Joe LaCava, both candidates for San Diego City Council District 1. We've invited Gil Cabrera

, Rafael Castellanos and Mara Elliott as the known candidates for City Attorney. If you are aware of other candidates for these offices, please let us know so that invitations/questionnaires can be sent. Our By-laws do not permit us to endorse a non-Democrat.

The meeting will be held at Joyce Beers Uptown Community Center, 3900 Vermont Street, San Diego, CA 92103. Social Time 6:30 PM - Meeting at 7:00 PM.

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President Obama/Representative Peters Step Up

In advance of today's announcement of executive orders to tighten background checks and gun safety regulations, President Obama met with Congressman Scott Peters and a few other Congressional supporters of common sense gun regulation.

Representative Peters issued the following statement:

"Americans are being gunned down in public places all across this nation while members of Congress go to work in buildings secured by police at every entry and do nothing because Republican leadership is afraid to stand up to the gun lobby.

"Today's meeting was about refusing to accept everyday gun violence as normal and taking steps to keep guns out of dangerous hands. I'd much prefer Congressional action, but if Speaker Ryan cannot summon the courage to call a vote on gun safety legislation, the President is left with no choice but to take executive action in order to save American lives.

"While these actions are an important step in the right direction, they do not let Congress off the hook. I will continue to remind Speaker Ryan and House leadership of the human cost of their inaction until they allow a vote on bipartisan measures to permanently close deadly loopholes in our background check system."

In November, Rep. Peters signed a letter along with 114 of his colleagues to the President asking him to close loopholes in our background check system through executive action. Specifically, the letter urged the president to clarify the term "engaged in the business" as it pertains to federally licensed firearms dealers to require more sellers to obtain a license and conduct background checks. Currently, loopholes in our federal gun safety laws allow many firearms purchases online or at a gun shows to proceed no questions asked and without a background check.

Last month, Rep. Peters began reading the names of mass shooting victims since the tragedy at Sandy Hook in a series of speeches in front of the House of Representatives to remind Speaker Ryan of the human cost of his inaction to curb gun violence. Rep. Peters is an active member of the House Gun Violence Prevention Task Force and a co-sponsor of the bipartisan King-Thompson background check legislation, which he has been urging leadership to bring up for a vote.

Congressman Peters serves the 52nd District of California which covers much of central San Diego County including Poway, Coronado, and large portions of the City of San Diego. He is a member of the House Armed Services Committee and House Judiciary Committee. The Congressman is a former environmental attorney, City Council President, and Port Commission Chairman.

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WE MADE IT!

We told you last week that we were within 10 "likes" of reaching 1000. We made it! As of last week we were at 990. We actually got 15 new likes this week but for some reason four people chose to unlike us so we stand at 1,001. Because of that, we're not taking anything for granted. Please like us...

If you haven't liked us yet, do it today at https://www.facebook.com/dems4equality. If you have liked our Facebook page, tell your friends to like it. The way Facebook works, it's a really bad bet to buy likes the way the County Republicans have, so it's important that as we grow our influence, we do it with people who are likely to support our goals. With your help, we can do this up right.

David Warmoth,

President

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Club Officer Elections

Recently, the Club changed our By-laws to allow for continuity of experience on the Club's executive board by mandating two year, staggered terms for officers. In January, we will be starting the election process for officer elections for President, Vice-President for Resource Development, Secretary and At-Large Board Member.

January

Officer Nominations

February

Officer Elections

March

Installation of Officers

If you are interested in election to one of the Club offices, or would like to nominate someone else, contact us HERE. Nominations will be accepted from the floor at the January meeting.

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2016 All Peoples Celebration

Join us in honoring the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. by attending the 2016 All Peoples Celebration. Now in its 28th year, the All Peoples Celebration is the preeminent event in San Diego County where more than 1,000 business leaders, elected officials, faith leaders, community organizers, artists and students come together for an inspiring program and common goal of honoring the work and sacrifice of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

The event will take place Monday, January 18th 2016 from 10:00 - 11:30 AM at the Balboa Activity Center on the breathtaking grounds of Balboa Park. The program will be a dynamic commemoration of the Civil Rights Movement, featuring local musical and spoken work artists, multimedia presentations, and visionary speakers.

Tickets are $50 each. If you would like to attend with other Dems for Equality members, please let us know HERE

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Celebrate 40+ Years of Activism by Joining The Club

Much of the progressive change in San Diego and in our community can be traced directly or indirectly through the work of our San Diego Democrats for Equality 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.

San Diego Democrats for Equality would like to thank George Schaefer for renewing his membership and Larry Baza, Tom Noel and Todd Stevens for renewing at the Sustaining level. Welcome back for another year!

We'd also like to welcome Jesse Blanco, Lou Barrios, Katherine Bernard, Andrea Cardenas, Jesus Cardenas, Rafael Hurtado, Luis Lorenzana, Raheal Megisteab, Anthony Montalvo, Joselyn Sosa, Hector Tamayo and Raymond Velasquez as new members of the Club. We're glad to have you on board as we get to work electing equality minded Democrats.

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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Holiday Party - San Diego Style

We're not sure whether it was the spectacular view, or, the incomparable hosts in Susan Guinn and Denice Feldhaus, or the incredible turn-out of Officeholders, candidates, guests and members of all the participating Clubs, but the Holiday Party was an incredible success.

A big crowd from Martin Luther King Jr. Democratic Club, UCSD College Democrats,Asian American and Pacific Islander Democratic Club, SDSU College Democrats ,Chicano Democratic Alliance, and San Diego County Young Democrats joined with us to reflect on the year and plan for the future. Food and drink were wonderful and plentiful as was the conversation. We even managed to do a good deed and collect a trunk load of women's business wear for theBrown Bag Clothing Drive (see above) to help women veterans lift themselves out of homelessness and poverty by getting a better job. (If you didn't get a chance to donate, you still can by contacting Club member Matthew Rice at the link above.

For all the members who joined us, thank you for being there. For those who couldn't make it, we hope we get to see you next year. For all, Happy Holidays!

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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

US Senate

Kamala Harris

Congress

CA-53 Susan Davis

CA-52 Scott Peters

California Senate

SD-39 Toni Atkins

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 7 Justin DeCesare

Dist 9 Georgette Gomez

SDUSD

Sub-Dist D Richard Barrera

Sub-Dist A John Lee Evans

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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.