Important Dates:
- February 5 – last day to register to vote in the primary
- February 20 to March 2 – Early voting
- March 6 – Election Day!
Who’s on the Texas primary ballots in 2018? >>
Read last week’s success stories! >>
On Friday night, the the Republican-led Congress, rather than fund children’s health insurance or protect Dreamers, chose to shut down the government. 850,000 federal workers will be sent home, or forced to work without pay.
Remember that this is a manufactured crisis. CHIP expired on September 30th and could have been extended anytime. On September 5th, Trump rescind DACA, and the GOP-led Congress could have passed a DREAM Act anytime. Instead, two vulnerable populations—children and immigrants brought here as children— are being used as bargaining chips to pay for an untenable wall that Mexico was supposed to pay for in the first place.
Read an explainer on the shutdown from the Indivisible Project >>
Read the American Federation of Government Employees’ statement on the shutdown >>
Actions
Hold your GOP MoC accountable for enabling Trump’s racism
The Dream Act has bipartisan support, yet all of our GOP members of congress—Cornyn, Cruz, McCaul, Flores, Smith, Carter—would rather vote with Trump than work to protect Dreamers.
Get scripts for calling these “Dream Killers” >>
Thank Rep. Lloyd Doggett for fighting alongside Dreamers
Rep. Doggett was the lone Austin-area rep who voted to fight alongside Dreamers, instead of letting the Trump administration put hundreds of thousands at risk of deportation. Let him know you appreciate him!
Get scripts for “Dream Heroes” like Doggett >>
Hold MoCs accountable for their votes to expand US spying on American citizens
Last week, Congress voted to reauthorize and expand “FISA 702”, which enables the Trump administration to search–without a warrant!—a massive database of our emails, texts, and instant messages.
The votes were not along party lines:
| Voted For | Voted Against |
| John Cornyn
Michael McCaul Bill Flores Lamar Smith John Carter |
Ted Cruz
Lloyd Doggett Roger Williams |
Get more info and scripts for calling your reps about expanded government surveillance >>
Reject HHS Pandering to Social Extremists
At the end of this week, the Trump Administration ordered new rules to restrict access to health care and end essential civil rights protections.
First, Health and Human Services rolled back an Obama-era rule that protected patients’ ability to access their medical provider of choice—essentially encouraging states to remove providers like Planned Parenthood from their Medicaid programs. Unfortunately, here in Texas, we’ve seen the damaging impact of doing so firsthand as women have struggled to access basic health services, including birth control.
Then, HHS established an alarming new division to protect individuals who oppose comprehensive reproductive health care as well as those who oppose transgender people’s right to equal treatment and wish to deny medical treatment based on those beliefs. While the Trump Administration claims the division will only enforce existing law, the dramatic move to establish an entirely new office to “investigate” claims that individuals are being forced to provide services against their will (only 34 such complaints were filed even since Trump came to office) sets the stage for much more dramatic action to come.
Tell your MOC: restore Obama-era protections that help to ensure families can go to the medical provider of their choosing and oppose the Administration’s actions to prioritize extremists over patients.
Support Paid Sick Leave in Austin
Indivisible Austin supports the Work Strong Austin campaign. The city of Austin is poised to become the first city in Texas and the South to require paid sick days for all workers. City Council is expected to vote on a proposed ordinance in early-to-mid February.
Currently, 225,000 men and women in Austin do not have access to earned paid sick time, and Austin City Council has the power to change that. Without earned paid sick time, a sick low-wage worker in Austin who misses three days of work due to illness can lose pay equal to a month’s worth of groceries.
Read the model ordinance for Paid Sick Days >>
Events
Tuesday, January 23
6:30 p.m. Decarcerate ATX – January Meeting, Cepeda Branch, Austin Public Library, 651 N. Pleasant Valley Rd. Hosted by Grassroots Leadership. “Join us as we formulate our strategy aimed at significantly reducing the jail population in Central Texas.”
Wednesday, January 24
6 p.m. Austin Paid Sick Days Community Briefing, Carver Branch, Austin Public Library. Join the Center for Public Policy Priorities and Work Strong Austin to learn more about a proposed citywide policy to ensure all workers in the City of Austin can earn paid sick days!
Thursday, January 25
11 a.m. Indivisible Austin Women’s Coffee Meetup, NeWorlDeli, 4101 Guadalupe. This is intended as a safe space to get to know each other, network, discuss our activism activities, check in about how we’re holding up, and see if we can offer help, resources, and connections for our various resistance activities. This will be a facilitated discussion and every attempt will be made to make sure everyone attending has a chance to be heard and offer their thoughts, struggles, questions, etc. View this event on Facebook.
12 p.m. Beyond The Courtroom: Public Deportation Defense Campaigns (Free CLE 4.0 hours), Scott Douglass & McConnico, LLP, 303 Colorado. Presented by Austin Bar Association – Civil Rights and Immigration Section, Grassroots Leadership, Workers Defense Project. Learn how legal and community pressure strategies can elevate a removal case into a deportation defense campaign, including best practices and ethical considerations to keep in mind when collaborating with community partners. View this event on Facebook.
Saturday, January 27
2 p.m. TX-10 Candidate Meet and Greet, Scholz Garten, 1607 San Jacinto. Hosted by TX10 Indivisible. Learn about multiple TX-10 candidates in a single setting to help prepare yourself to vote in the 2018 mid-term elections.
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