Time to Start Preparing to Protect Victories in November - February 6, 2026

Plus nominees picked for two spring specials, public comments and public servants for trans health care and more

📞 Democratic leadership released new, noticeably strengthened demands for reining in ICE - our pressure is having an impact. Let’s keep pushing them for more, especially on the slush fund and meaningful and enforceable penalties, and let’s keep demanding Republicans come to the table. Call and email tools here! 📞

TOO LONG, DIDN’T READ

• A whole bunch of calls to make and places to volunteer to get started on election protection

• Volunteer for upcoming special election for crucial state senate seat in Michigan

• Stand up for health care for trans kids with a public comment-a-thon Monday and demand state attorneys general do too

• Small grassroots organizing programs can apply for grants before 2/18

• OR: Tell the legislature to pass climate polluter pays legislation

If you have questions, comments, and especially submissions for actions, please email us at roganslisttips@gmail.com!

Coming to an elections office near you?

SIRENS BLARING ABOUT POTENTIAL ELECTION SUBVERSION

Much like in the months leading up to Trump’s attempted coup, the alarms are going off about the potential for MAGA election subversion in the upcoming midterms.

The president’s musings about “nationalizing” elections are somehow among the less worrisome warning signs that we’re headed towards democratic disaster:

• Trump’s attorney general has attempted to force states to turn over voter files.

• Trump has signed multiple executive orders attempting to illegally force fundamental changes in the ways we’re able to vote.

• His henchmen in Congress have pushed legislation like the SAVE and MEGA Acts, both aimed at locking the polling booths against millions of Americans by requiring IDs they don’t have and cost money to obtain and the latter of which also burdens voting by mail.

• MAGAs at the state level have attempted an unprecedented mid-decade gerrymander in multiple states to tilt House maps in their favor.

• Trump allies have suggested deploying the secret police at polling sites.

• Perhaps most ominously, they’ve used federal law enforcement to raid election offices and seize ballots in what might be a dress rehearsal for November.

We managed to stop Trump from stealing an election he lost in 2020. We need to be ready to do so again in the upcoming midterms. Much of the work is going to be done via litigation, and there will be many more calls to action ahead, but here are some steps we can take right now:

• 📞 Let’s reach out to our attorneys general, secretaries of state or whoever administers elections in our state and urge them to make preparations now so they can go immediately to court to seek injunctions barring from the government from seizing voting machines and ballots or interfering with counts. We can find language to use for this via Coleman Rogers here. 📞

• 📞 Let’s reach out to our state legislators and governors to ensure our election administrators have the financial resources they need to hold the line against election interference, and that they’re preparing for potential subversion. We can use similar language as above here. 📞

• ✋🏼 Let’s volunteer as poll workers to help ensure things go smoothly on Election Day… or volunteer as a poll monitor with national election protection efforts to raise the red flag if they don’t. ✋🏼

• ✋🏼 Connect with our state Common Cause chapters to get informed about more ways to engage locally. ✋🏼

• 📞 Contact our senators to make it clear they cannot allow the SAVE or MEGA Acts to become law. We can find language for calls here and here and email language here. 📞

• ✊🏻 Let’s be prepared to take to the streets in protest. Ultimately, the people get the final say on whether or not an election is legitimate, and there is nothing that will stop election subversion as effectively as mass non-violent non-cooperation. Let’s make sure we’re building the networks to make it happen. We can learn more from Daniel Hunter and the Freedom Trainers in Strike Ready trainings this MONDAY at 6PM or 8PM ET. ✊🏿

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DEMS PICK NOMINEE FOR CRITICAL STATE SENATE SEAT IN MICHIGAN

As of 2:00AM, the race to be the Democratic nominee in the New Jersey 11th Congressional District was too close to call, with Working Families Party-backed organizer and activist Analilia Mejia leading former congressman Tom Malinowski by 486 votes. The winner will take on Randolph mayor Joe Hathaway for the GOP on April 16th to fill the seat now-Governor Mikie Sherrill has vacated. Sherrill won by 15 points in 2024, so either candidate should be well-positioned to become the 215th blue vote in the House, but we’ll be keeping an eye on this race just in case.

The race should be far more competitive in the May 5th special election for Michigan’s 35th State Senate District, which had its primary earlier this week. The Saginaw area is a swing seat that Kamala Harris carried by 0.8% in November 2024, and a Republican victory would give both parties 19 senators. Firefighter, Marine Corps vet and union man Chedrick Greene, who is running on universal preschool and lowering health care and housing costs, is the Dem pick against MAGA lawyer Jason Tunney, who is calling for making it easier to union-bust in Michigan. ✋🏼We can sign up to hear about ways we can help Chedrick Greene win here.✋🏼

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TRANS HEALTH CARE UNDER FIRE IN WASHINGTON, GETTING SOME BACKUP IN CALIFORNIA

The Trump regime is struggling to get bills targeting trans kids through the U.S. Senate, so they’re seeking to make transphobia national policy by other means. The Department of Health and Human Services has proposed rules to block Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) funds from covering transition-related care for adolescents and cut off hospitals and providers that offer gender-affirming care from participating in Medicaid and Medicare altogether. If put into practice, it would be virtually impossible for trans youth to get the care they need.

Public comments are due on these measures by Tuesday, February 17th. We’re going to flood the Federal Register. 📝 Advocates for Trans Equality are holding a virtual comment-a-thon MONDAY at 6PM ET, with legal experts who will break down these rules and walk us through on what makes a good public comment. We can sign up to join here. If we can’t make it, we can also consult this fantastic guide on effectively weighing in on these proposals from Matthew Cortland, check out talking points here and here and submit them here and here. 📝

This isn’t the only path the administration is taking to attack gender-affirming care. They’re also targeting hospitals that offer it to kids with investigations by HHS and the Justice Department, and they’ve managed to pressure a number of them into ending these treatments. Among them is Rady Children’s Hospital in San Diego. But earlier this week, California Attorney General Rob Bonta brought the weight of the state to bear on the side of these betrayed children, filing a lawsuit against Rady for cutting off care in what @Erin In The Morning reports is the first time a state AG has done so. He’s focused on narrow legal grounds, a contract violation rather than an civil rights violation, but he’s breaking new ground, and other attorneys general should follow in his footsteps. 📞 If we have a Dem AG, let’s reach out to their office and urge them to be similarly aggressive and creative in finding ways to take legal action against health care providers who are capitulating to MAGA on trans health care. 📞

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APPLY FOR GRANTS FOR GRASSROOTS ORGANIZING

There are three things all grassroots organizers desperately need more of: volunteers, time, and money. Here’s a chance to help with at least one of them! The Jerry Greenfield National Grassroots Organizing Grant program is accepting applications until February 18. This program, sponsored by the Ben and Jerry’s Foundation, offers unrestricted, general operating support grants of up to $30,000, with an average grant size of $20,000, to small (budgets under $350,000), constituent-led grassroots organizations throughout the United States and its territories.” 💰 We can find more information and how to apply here. 💰

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👀 KEEPING AN EYE ON… 👀

• Push the Senate to pass a war powers resolution before Trump bombs yet another country

• Our economy will be a casualty of Trump’s war on reality - tell the Senate to block his picks for Federal Reserve Chair, Bureau of Labor Statistics

• Direct actions to demand Target take a stand with #ICEOutNow Minnesota on February 11

• Join #TeslaTakedown for a #DumpMusk Valentine’s celebration on February 14

• Key special elections for legislative seats coming up in Maine February 24 and Florida March 24 - phonebank for Scott Harriman, Emily Gregory and Brian Nathan

• Starbucks workers are still on the picket line - delete the app and take the No Contract, No Coffee pledge

• New York City nurses are on strike - ways to show our solidarity here