Tuesday, February 16, 2016

It's Time to Vote

While You Still Can

Our friends at Clairemont Democratic Club pointed us to this humorous look by John Oliver at a very real threat to our citizens and our democracy. It won't surprise you to know that the threat to our democracy is Republicans - but here, we actually have the evidence. Under the guise of protecting us from non-existent voter fraud, States dominated by Republicans are denying citizens - primarily elderly, poor, communities of color and Democratic leaning citizens - the right to vote in their own democracy.

In California we're bucking the trend with laws that make it easier to cast your vote, not harder. As a member of Democrats for Equality, you've got that right and we're looking forward to your exercise of that right next week as we elect our officers to guide us through this election year.

Because our regular 4th Thursday meeting date is the night before the State Party Convention and many of our members are planning to be in San Jose early, we have

Rodriguez-Kennedy

Trabuco

moved our February meeting date to Monday, February 22nd. It's an important meeting so please try to attend.

At January's meeting the nominations committee announced that we have candidates for all open offices.. Will Rodriguez-Kennedy was nominated for Club President; Ryan Trabuco was nominated for VP of Resource Development; Rocio Leon was nominated for Secretary and Joanne Climie was nominated for At-Large Board Member. Nominations remain open prior to the election on the 22nd. Those elected this month will

Climie

take office at the Club's March general

Leon

meeting.

We will also be considering endorsement in races where there is no Democratic incumbent running but only one candidate. Specifically, we will consider endorsing Melinda Vazquez in Assembly District 77; Steve Padilla in Chula Vista City Council District 3; Douglas Applegate for US Congress, Dist 49; and LaShae Collins for SDUSD District E. We will also consider endorsement in the District 4 Chula Vista City Council race where Rudy Ramirez and Eduardo Reyes are competing.

February General Club Meeting

Monday, February 22nd

Joyce Beers Uptown Community Center

3900 Vermont St in Hillcrest

6:30 PM Social

7:00 PM Meeting

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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.

Because of a change in software by our credit card processor, you may have tried to join/renew your membership and found our webpage down. The problem has been corrected and the membership page is back in operation, so check it out.

Dems for Equality would like to welcome Lindsay Burningham as a new member. We would also like to thank Greg Bolian, Vertez Burks, Ted Tichenor and Andrea Villa for renewing. Thank you also to Monte Marshall who renewed at the Sponsor level. Welcome back for another year

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

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 1 Barbara Bry

Dist 3 Chris Ward

Dist 7 Justin DeCesare

Dist 9 Georgette Gomez

SDUSD

Sub-Dist D Richard Barrera

Sub-Dist A John Lee Evans

Candidates Rated Acceptable

San Diego City Attorney

Gil Cabrera

Rafael Castellanos

Mara Elliott

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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.