Indivisible launches For The People Project to ‘unrig our democracy and make it work for all’

From the Wire March 3, 2021 Leave a comment

“We’re holding nothing back as we work to make D.C. the 51st state, protect the rights of voters, and root out corruption in our government.”

by Brett Wilkins, staff writer

Wednesday, March 3, 2021

In the wake of its second guide for grassroots organizing, Indivisible: A Practical Guide for Fixing Our Democracy, the Indivisible movement recently announced the launch of its For The People Project, which it calls “a campaign to push key senators and members of Congress forward on critical reforms.”

“To dislodge the entrenched power of the wealthy, white, conservative minority we need to fix the broken Senate, unrig our courts, and take away [Senate Minority Leader Mitch] McConnell’s scythe as the legislative grim reaper by eliminating the Jim Crow filibuster,” Indivisible explains on its website. “All of this can be done with simple legislation passed by Congress on a majority vote and signed into law by President [Joe] Biden.”

The goals of the For The People Project are:

- Making Washington, D.C. a state by passing H.R. 51;
- Expanding voting rights, fighting corruption, and building a more participatory electoral process by passing H.R. 1, the For the People Act, and H.R. 4, the John Lewis Voting Rights Act; and
- Ending the Senate filibuster.

Indivisible calls the three bills “the cornerstones of the necessary reforms we need to unrig our democracy and make it work for all.” The group is calling on all concerned citizens to contact their members of Congress and ask them to vote yes on the measures. The House is set to vote on H.R. 1 on Wednesday.

There is live legislation that could fix this – the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, the For the People Act, DC statehood. All bills that will pass the House…and then will be filibustered by McConnell (cheered on by Heritage).
This is scary stuff. The country is at the precipice.
— Ezra Levin (@ezralevin) February 24, 2021

In service of these objectives, Indivisible says it is spending $330,000 on digital and radio ads in the home states of Sens. Kyrsten Sinema and Mark Kelly (Ariz.), Sen. Joe Manchin (W.Va.), and Sen. Angus King (I-Maine). In the coming weeks, Indivisible will also spend $75,000 on billboards targeting key senators, $35,000 on full-page newspaper ads, and $46,000 on support for grassroots activists, including producing American flags with 51 stars in support of D.C. statehood.

In a statement Wednesday announcing the new campaign, Meagan Hatcher-Mays, director of democracy policy for Indivisible, said that “grassroots activists are energized and focused on taking advantage of the new Democratic trifecta and doing the urgent work necessary to heal our democracy and build a more representative government. But we can’t do anything until we get rid of the filibuster.”

“Republicans have had the opportunity to support structural democracy reforms,” Hatcher-Mays continued, “but they won’t, because they’re quite pleased with the status quo, which insulates them from political consequences despite their policies being historically unpopular, and grants them the ability to rule over the majority of Americans despite regularly receiving tens of millions of fewer votes than Democrats.”

“This Congress might be the last chance Democrats have to fix our democracy, before state Republicans ram through new voting restrictions and anti-democratic laws at every level of government,” she added. “We’re holding nothing back as we work to make D.C. the 51st state, protect the rights of voters, and root out corruption in our government.”

This article published by Common Dreams on March 3, 2021, here…

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