Three Days to May Day
Plus a mess in the House, a Cuba war powers vote in the Senate, a new campaign to keep the spotlight on Dilley, and more
☎️🫱🏻🫲🏿 Winning elections and building power are the name of the game - join States Win to phonebank voters for a crucial state senate special election in Michigan at 6PM ET or check in with the Tenant Union Federation to learn how Kentucky organizers secured the first tenant-bargained agreement in the South at 6:30 PM ET 🫱🏾🫲🏼☎️
TOO LONG, DIDN’T READ
72 hours to go to May Day - set up street corner events, spread the word on social and make the ask to our people
Tell our reps we want an end to warrantless wiretapping, push senators to vote to stop the Cuba blockade
Join the #ReadThemHome campaign to keep the spotlight on kids in camps, organize a stuffed animal drop-off May 20th
Texting young people in North Carolina about their voting decisions
If you have questions, comments, and especially submissions for actions, please email us at roganslisttips@gmail.com!
THESE ARE THE DAYS THAT WILL MAKE THE SHUTDOWN
The last few days before a mass action like this are usually the most significant for recruiting, and we’re seeing a spike in hosts, event registrations and pledges for May Day. We’re already anticipating more than 3,000 actions, doubling the numbers we had last year - which was the largest May Day protest in American history. But collective action requires collective participation, and we’re seeking to make this as large and as hard to ignore as possible. Here’s how we can grow the May Day shutdowns today:
Organizers are still looking for a final round of event hosts! We’ve got major rallies, teach-ins and walk-outs set up across the country, and we want to supplement them with street corner and overpass actions, making the shutdown as visible as possible. Even just two or three people coming together will help, and these are a relatively easy lift for first time hosts. 🙋🏼♂️ Let’s consider registering a May Day action in our area - we can put it on the map here and find guidance for hosts here. 🙋🏾♀️
Build the buzz on social media. Let’s make sure everyone in our reach knows we’re shutting it down on Friday. 🔁 We can find ready-to-post text and gifs we can use in this social media toolkit. 🔁
Make the ask face-to-face. Let’s be sure we’re asking one person in our lives each day this week to join us in taking the no work, no school, no commerce pledge for Friday. 🫱🏾🫲🏼 We can find the pledge here and tips on having this conversation here. 🫱🏻🫲🏿
Lastly, if we haven’t signed up for tomorrow night’s mass call on the May Day shutdowns, we can join up here and share it with our networks!
HOUSE MAY NOT HAVE THE VOTES ON WARRANTLESS WIRETAPPING, SENATE FINALLY GOES ON RECORD ABOUT CUBAN BLOCKADE
Mike Johnson, with the help of Trump and some truly impressive spinelessness within his caucus, has repeatedly managed to pull a rabbit out of a hat and pass terrible bills despite a paper-thin majority. This week is still going to be a test for him. They’re trying to a pass three-year extension of warrantless wiretapping authority (“Section 702”), vote on the Senate-passed budget resolution (the first hurdle to passing a reconciliation bill that would fund ICE and CBP), and push through the House GOP version of the Farm Bill, all by Friday.
The time pressure is real. As of Thursday, their last kick-of-the-can on backdoor searches expires and Homeland Security claims they will be out of emergency funds to pay employees. (Passing the resolution won’t fix that, and Mike Johnson is now claiming the House will need to change the appropriations bill that covers the rest of DHS.)
But the politics aren’t easy. Right-wing privacy advocates are threatening to join the left and sink warrantless wiretapping without reforms, and there’s deep unhappiness within the GOP about how they’re going to end the shutdown and some of the poison pills they pushed into agricultural policy. Any of these bills could be fall short, and Democrats may be able to use this opportunity to secure much-needed protections against the surveillance state in the age of AI and kill the Cancer Gag Act. Their plan was to do the Section 702 extension today, and that’s already in trouble with their failure to get it out of the Rules Committee last night.
🗣️ For today, let’s focus our calls to our House members on Section 702. We must let them know we oppose a “clean” extension of this invasion of our privacy and they should stand firm in demanding warrant requirements and the closing of the data broker loophole. We can find language via Jess Craven here.🗣️
The Senate side isn’t as busy, but we are set up for a significant war powers vote as soon as tomorrow. Senator Tim Kaine (D-VA), along with Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) and Adam Schiff (D-CA), are set to force consideration of S.J.Res. 124, which would prohibit the use of the U.S. military to attack or continue Trump’s blockade of Cuba. Given the history of anti-Cuban rhetoric in American politics, there may be significant bipartisan opposition to this measure. and it’s important to let our senators know we’re watching them closely. 🗣️ Let’s use this call script from 5Calls to urge them to vote yes. We can also send them this email via Resistbot by texting SIGN PFDWPM to 50409. 🗣️
READING CHILDREN’S BOOKS TO SPOTLIGHT DILLEY
It’s been a whirlwind of news the last few days/weeks/months/years. Every time we check our phones, there’s some new emergency. It’s easy to lose sight of the continuing atrocities as we attempt to grapple with the headlines of the day.
But for the sake of our souls, we cannot lose sight of this: this country is running a concentration camp for children in Dilley, Texas. And it must be stopped.
The 10 Steps Campaign, the SEIU, the National Domestic Workers Alliance, the NEA, AFT and more have launched a new campaign to put the spotlight back on the children of Dilley called #ReadThemHome. They’re asking us to record ourselves reading a children’s book and post it online with the hashtag, utilizing this easy-to-use tool. It’s a different kind of communication, an attempt to break through the noise. 📖 Let’s join up and help #ReadThemHome – more info here, tool here. 📖
🧸 This campaign will build towards a coordinated wave of action on May 20th, when folks across the country will drop stuffed animals off at state capitols and local congressional offices. Get tips on how to organize these events here. 🧸
THE WHY OF GEN Z
Youth turnout reached historic highs of over 50% in 2020. In 2024, that progress largely went away, with just 42% of Americans ages 18-29 casting a ballot. Those who did shifted notably to the right, favoring Kamala Harris over Donald Trump by just four points. These are the years in which the voting habits of a lifetime are being formed. If we’re going to win elections for progressive candidates and causes in the future, we need to better understand how they’re making their decisions.
💬 The North Carolina Voter Project is holding a textbank to reach Gen Z tomorrow from 6-8PM ET, conducting surveys on why they vote or not to help the organization better engage unregistered young people. We can sign up to join them here. 💬
WRITE POSTCARDS TO VOTERS
Postcards to Voters started on March 11, 2017, sharing five addresses apiece to five volunteers on Facebook so that they could mail postcards to voters encouraging to elect Jon Ossoff to Congress in a special election. It grew in one month to 1,200+ volunteers nationwide and over 51,000 postcards mailed.
Now Ossoff is a senator and a presidential contender, and PtV has 75,000+ volunteers in every state who have written close to eight million postcards to voters in over 200 key, close elections. 📫 Let's join in the fun and volunteer with Postcards to Voters this cycle here. 📫
👀 KEEPING AN EYE ON… 👀
NEWS: Ron DeSantis rolls out proposed new congressional map aimed at picking up four House seats in Florida for the GOP; tell Florida legislators to demand they stop the gerrymander
Looking for ways to get engaged in the midterms? Here’s a full list! And here’s some ways to help flip two supreme court seats in Georgia!
Call on the DNC to release the full results of their 2024 election autopsy
Public Citizen identifies 446 hospitals at risk thanks to the MAGA murder budget, let’s make sure folks in our community know we’re in danger and who’s to blame
Solidarity with striking workers in Independence as they enter Week 4 on the picket line