President's Report
By Carol Fuller
Well, it is official; we are on our way to electing the first woman to be President of the United States. After a very impressive Convention Hillary Clinton is the Democratic Party nominee. Speaker after speaker made an eloquent statement. It made you proud to be a Democrat.
As for the Republicans, the chickens appear to have come home to roost. They are finally harvesting the seeds of negativity and divisiveness they have sown for years. Their convention was a sorry spectacle of infighting and lunacy. And their crackpot candidate continues to put his foot in it daily. It would be amusing if it were not so frightening in what it says about the American electorate and the scary prospect of a Trump presidency. But I digress.
Now is the time to get involved and be part of this historic year. You can get information on how to get involved in both the national campaign and the local races by checking our website, http://www.dwcscc.org/ and the Democratic Party website, http://www.cruzdemocrats.org/
We are working on getting a consolidated election year calendar together to have available for our members at meetings . It will also be posted on our website.
The DWC endorsement meeting for local races is scheduled for Saturday, August 27, 10 am, at the SCPD community room. You must have been a paid member for 30 days prior to our endorsement meeting in order to vote. Hope to see you all there.
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DWC Election Forum on Saturday August 27
On Saturday, August 27, 2016, from 10:00 AM to 12:30PM, at the Santa Cruz Police Community Room (Laurel and Center Streets in Santa Cruz), the Democratic Women’s Club of Santa Cruz County (DWC) will sponsor an electoral forum on some critical local races in the upcoming November 2016 ballot. The DWC has been more successful than any other organization in Santa Cruz County in getting its endorsees elected to public office, so this is an important DWC and community event.
Only candidates who are registered Democrats have been invited to participate in the forum. We will host panels for every City Council race in the County where there are more Democrats running than there are available seats. Candidates in races who are not competing with other Democratic candidates for the same office will have a brief opportunity to introduce themselves as well.
We will also be considering endorsement in the County-wide Transportation Measure that will be on the ballot and we will hear from Democratic Party candidates for the Santa Cruz Port District Commission. DWC members who are current in their dues will be given ballots to determine the Club’s endorsements this year and will also be voting on the DWC Board’s recommendation for how much to give our endorsed candidates in each race under consideration.
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Saturday, August 27
DWC Endorsement meeting for November elections
10 am to noon
SCPD Community Room
Membership must be current as of July 28, 2016 in order to be eligible to vote, per DWC by-laws
Wednesday, September 17
Join John Laird, California Secretary of Natural Resources
As he gives an Overview of the 17 California Ballot Measures on the November 8 Ballot
10 am Social-10:30 am program
Louden Nelson Center, 301 Center Street, Santa Cruz
Thursday, Saturday, October 15
Getting To Green: Community Choice Energy Explained
Monterey Bay Community Power, a CCE project, is under consideration by jurisdictions in Santa Cruz County. Come hear about this exciting opportunity to offer local choice about our energy portfolio and increase our purchase of renewable power.
10 am Social-10:30 am program
Police Community Room
Other Community Events
Sunday, September 1
The Honorable Zach Friend and Bud Colligan
invite you to a reception in honor of
Assemblymember Mark Stone
6:00 pm to 7:30 pm
250 Geoffroy Drive, Santa Cruz
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The Honorable Zach Friend and Bud Colligan
invite you to a reception in honor of
Assemblymember Mark Stone
Thursday, September 1, 2016
6:00 pm to 7:30 pm
250 Geoffroy Drive, Santa Cruz, California
Guest $99 Friend: $500 Sponsor: $1,000 Co-Host: $4,200
Checks can be made payable to Friends of Mark Stone
PO Box 81, Monterey, CA 93942
or contribute online at www.FriendsOfMarkStone.org
For More Information Or To RSVP Please Contact 831-234-5885 |
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Paid for and authorized by Friends Of Mark Stone for Assembly 2016
Contributions to this committee are not tax deductible
PO Box 81, Monterey, CA 93942 • FPPC ID#1373630 • www.FriendsOFMarkStone.org |
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September 11
Feast By the Bay
Brought to you by The Santa Cruz County Democratic Party & the Monterey/Santa Cruz Building Construction Trades Council
1:00 pm
The Darling House
Requested donation $55/person or $110/couple.
Sponsorships welcome!
At $150, $300 and $500.
For more information click here
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Why Hillary Clinton and Not Jill Stein
By Mike Rotkin
I believe that non-electoral grassroots and single-issue organizing and education are critical between elections. Frankly, I think they are more important than electoral politics. At election time, we need to push for Democratic Party candidates who support our positions. That's why I supported, worked for, and voted for Bernie in the primary.
Third parties don’t serve a useful purpose in the United States. We do not have a parliamentary system where left-wing third parties can be true to their values on issues and still not undermine the best electable candidate by taking votes away from him or her and helping his or her Republican opponent. Third-party candidates here do not get elected as they do in parliamentarian systems where they can get seats in the parliament once they get beyond a low vote threshold and can be part of coalitions that they push to the left.
In the United States, you could spend decades starting at 1 or 2%, at best, of the vote and working toward more respectable percentages, and every step you take toward those higher percentages means you are taking more votes from the Democratic candidate and supporting the possibility of the Republican getting elected. It is not a stretch to say that Ralph Nader's campaign in 2000 was responsible for ISIS. Without his voters in Florida, Gore would have been President; there would have been no invasion of Iraq and no ISIS today. So while a vote for Stein would serve the purpose of signaling your desire for a candidate in the future to the left of Hillary, it would come at the expense of reinforcing the pernicious idea that a third-party candidacy is useful in America.
Third-party voting feels good at a personal moralistic level, but it is strategically stupid (and I use that word advisedly). If you want to make a difference in the real world, vote for Hillary.
Bernie did force a good platform on the Democratic Party this year by running inside of the Democratic Primary, which he was able to do without even having to be a Democrat. And Hillary, despite decades of lies by Republicans, is not significantly worse than Obama. She would be great on virtually every domestic issue and not much worse than the hawkish foreign policy supported by Obama and all other mainstream Democrats. Her Supreme Court nominees will be excellent on issues like voting rights, unions, women’s rights, and criminal justice. Our job should be not to support Jill Stein, but to pressure Hillary to make good on her commitments now on TPP, Citizens United, and other good things in the Democratic Platform. But, more importantly, after the election, we should get out of electoral politics for a while to work on education and organizing that will allow even more leftist candidates to be seriously considered in future elections up and down the ticket.
Finally, Donald Trump presents a particular case, in which open-voiced support for Hillary, and not just grudging acceptance of her candidacy, is important. Trump is truly scary. He is authoritarian, racist, xenophobic, sexist, thuggish, and truly an unstable egotist.
It appears that all of the lies of the right about Hillary over a long period of time make her anathema to voters who are not troubled by a huge list of Democrats with equally bad positions on international politics. We need to help undo that. We have to stop acting like she is somehow worse than our other choices in the mainstream parties. She is better than most (whether or not you like her laugh!). So I am not just voting for Hillary, I am working for her election and really think it matters. But I am also going to get back to work doing grassroots organizing and education on important issues where we have not yet been successful enough to translate our concerns into electoral possibilities at the national level.
Mike Rotkin is a union organizer, lecturer at UCSC, and former five-time Mayor of the City of Santa Cruz.
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Board Report
By Elena Cohen
REPORT OF ACTION TAKEN AT DWC GENERAL MEETING
May 21, 2016, 10 am - 12 pm
Santa Cruz County Police Department Community Room, 155 Center Street,
Santa Cruz, CA
DWC President Carol Fuller reported on the Club's healthy bank balance and noted the Board's unanimous recommendation to contribute $475 to Close the Gap, a statewide recruiting campaign to find talented, progressive women to run and win seats in the California legislature. The contribution requires membership approval. A quorum of the membership was present at the meeting. Madelyn McCaul moved that the membership adopt the recommendation of the Board to contribute $475 to Close the Gap. The motion was seconded by Richelle Noroyan and passed unanimously by voting members present.
The program, a presentation by O'Neill Sea Odyssey Executive Director Dan Haifley on the history of the Harbor and the Port District--replete with historical photos and wonderful stories--was enthusiastically received by the audience and will be available on the OSO and DWC websites and YouTube for those who missed this informative and entertaining event.
WELCOME to new DWC members:
Georgann Scally
Lisa Ekers
Lisa Sheridan
Steve Schnaar & Stacey Falls
Linda Proctor & Colin Jessop
Patrice Keet
Marilyn Rigler
Michael & Anne Watkins
Maria Gaura
Nina Bucar
David & Monica Terrazas
IMPORTANT REMINDER: Under the DWC Bylaws, members who did not pay their 2016 dues by April 1, 2016, were dropped automatically from the membership. These dropped members will need to pay their dues at least 30 days before the August endorsement meeting (tentatively scheduled for August 27) to be able to vote at that meeting. Note that people who joined in October, November, or December of 2015 will be considered as paid through 2016. To sign up for the DWC or to renew you may do so by clicking here.
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