SD31 DFL This Week
10 February 2025
3 Things 1 Person Can Do
Write your Senators & Representative!
Help resist Book Ban and radical right wing book control in St Francis!
Gather with us Tuesday night, Feb 11
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Greetings, DFL Friends–
What can one person do? It seems overwhelming at times. In this issue we have 3 specific ideas for you for this week. Don’t let the flurry of news make you give up. “Non Carborundum Illegitimi”!
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Write you Senators and Representative!
One thing we can be doing is to send emails or call our Senators and Representative. Here is contact info, and below is a copy of an example letter that was sent recently to each of them, just to give you ideas. Please use your own words! Some say that calls are the best route, but recently the capitol switchboards are overwhelmed. Using the MN numbers may work better. So find your way, but send a message every week if you can. And our DFL Senators need to be reminded to do the right thing, and not cave in at this critical time…
Senator Amy Klobuchar:
DC: 202-224-3244
MN: 612-727-5220
https://www.klobuchar.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/contact
Senator Tina Smith:
DC: 202-224-5641
MN: 651-221-1016
https://www.smith.senate.gov/share-your-opinion/
Representative Tom Emmer (CD-6):
DC: 202-224-3121 (US House Switchboard)
MN: 763-241-6848
https://emmer.house.gov/contact/authenticated?zipcode=55304&plusFour=&httpref=https%3A%2F%2Femmer.house.gov%2F#form_858AE9DF-94AD-456A-824C-5E67A6237CB
Example Letter– but find your own words– especially about your age etc!
I am writing as a citizen of your district to implore you to do everything in your power to Support and Defend the Constitution of the United States— against all enemies foreign and domestic—and to protect the rule of law in this country.
I am 72 years old and have seen this country go from the Cold War through to today. It breaks my heart to see our country’s foundation, the Constitution, being shredded.
Please stop the power grab by unelected Elon Musk.
Please protect our valiant patriotic FBI and CIA agents, who are a part of that thin blue line and deserve our protection.
Please work to prevent us from getting into new wars and land grabs.
Please protect my Social Security and Medicare.
Yours Sincerely—
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Help resist Book Ban and radical right wing book control in St Francis!
This is from a post by a St. Francis teacher on Indivisible North Metro’s Facebook page:
St. Francis Area Schools Booklooks Ban —
Contact School Board Prior to the new board taking their seats!
School board members passed a policy update that uses booklooks.org as the primary decision maker on books that are allowed in our district libraries and classrooms. This is a first in the nation decision by a school board to outsource this decision making. This decision took much of the conversation of books out of the hands of local decision makers, including school board and district staff. Education Minnesota St. Francis has been working hard with a coalition to bring forward a lawsuit that would rectify this terrible decision. We could use community support, especially parents contacting the school board to tell them to overturn the decision to include booklooks.org as the decision maker and restore power to the local authority, School Board. While we may not 100% like school board being the decision makers on this, it is important factor to keeping our school’s community strength. If you would please consider sending them an email we would greatly appreciate it. Right now we’re hearing that school board doesn’t want to talk about it because they think it needs to just go away. That is an unacceptable solution. Our kids deserve better conversation around what materials are available to them. These decisions should not be made from some outside group, of which our staff, students and community have no say in the outcome of their decisions. #ourschoolourlibrariesourbooks
Here is an example letter, authored by our Co-Chair, Alyson:
As a resident of the St. Francis School District, a retired public educator, and a grandmother of a student in your school I am writing to express my concern with the school board’s decision to rely on BookLooks.org for decisions on which books to keep or purchase in our schools libraries and classrooms. Although BookLooks.org states it it not affiliated with any particular group, my online research has shown that its founders, Emily and Jonathan Maikisch, have been affiliated with Mom’s for Liberty in Florida. Mom’s for Liberty is an ultra-conservative group which has been in the forefront for banning books they find objectionable in schools throughout the US.
I urge you to trust our library professionals and educators regarding our students’ access to books in our schools. Our school district should not be relying on a website which has a conservative political agenda to determine which books are “appropriate” for our students.
Remember the Anoka Hennepin School District is facing similar challenges– check our website for meeting dates & times.
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Gather with us Tuesday night, Feb 11!
Our monthly gatherings have moved– we now meet every month on the second Tuesday of each month. These meetings are as much about getting together for mutual support as they are for business. So please brave the cold and come out to join your friends!
6:00 pm Social / 6:30 pm call to order
Andover Community Center — Community Room A– First Floor
AGENDA:
Preliminary Business. 6:30
Introductions
Approve Minutes & Agenda
Officer Reports 6:35
Vice Chairs/ Treasurer/ Secretary/ Communications/ Outreach – NN update
State Central Comm Reps
Allied Group Reports 6:45
Anoka County DFL
Anoka County Senior Caucus
CD6/ CD3/ CD8
Priority/Action Items 6:55
Fundraising – Cinco de Mayo Update – Mel
Current crisis we are experiencing from the Trump administration
Summary of Indivisible Zoom Session with Senators Klobuchar and Smith (see notes below to pre- read)
Summary of Zoom Sessions “Understanding and Overcoming the Urban-Rural Divide”
The Rural New Deal—— find the brief document and the accompanying Rural New Deal Users Guide here:https://ruralurbanbridge.org/
Communtiy Works—-Read about it here: https://ruralurbanbridge.org/our-work/community-works
Other Business 7:45
Old Business Updates
New Business
Announcements & Open Forum 7:55
Adjourn 8:00
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Summary of Indivisible Zoom Session with Senators Klobuchar and Smith on 5 February:
Indivisible groups in the Metro area organized an event for members to meet at our MN senators’ Minnesota offices Tuesday Feb. 4. This was requested by Indivisible National as a way to let our voices be heard about our concerns with Trump’s Executive Orders as well as Musk getting access to the Treasury Department. A virtual event was created to include the senators’ Minnesota staff who could hear our concerns and field questions. Within a matter of hours, the Zoom event was expanded to include statewide attendance and the maximum capacity of 1000 was quickly reached. On Wednesday, Feb. 5 from 11-noon, the virtual event was held, and both Senator Klobuchar and Senator Smith spoke at the beginning of the hour. They left to attend to their jobs while their chiefs of staff in Washington remained to answer questions. Here’s a summary of some of what was discussed.
Key takeaways:
—personal stories of how last week’s budget freeze or any other executive action directly affected you or someone you know are critically important for lawsuits. Share these stories with the Senators and/or Attorney General Elisson.
—Authoritarians use the strategy of overwhelming the public with many actions, exactly s Trump is currently doing. Don’t give up. Find what you feel you can do to make a difference and focus on that one issue vs being overwhelmed with everything.
—We need to hold Republicans accountable. Republican representatives in “purple” or “blue” areas will be more open to going against actions if they hear from large numbers of constituents. Republicans are needed to join with Democrats to combat Trump so it’s critical to try find those who might be swayed by large numbers of constituents contacting them.
—We all need to find ways to let those who voted for Trump know how they will be adversely affected by what Trump is doing. Specific results they didn’t vote for, but are now happening and will hurt them. Senator Klobuchar was on Fox News so she could highlight specific issues for that audience. How can we do this locally?
—Directly connecting those being chosen by Trump to head departments to Project 2025, which was not popular with the majority of Americans.
—Senators are using the entire 30 hours of discussion on nominees to slow down the process and highlight the negatives about those nominees. Starting sometime today they will take the floor and by sharing time, hold the floor all night until sometime late tomorrow.
—Can Elon Musk be held legally accountable for illegally accessing financial data? Yes, but if it gets to the Supreme Court it’s unknown what might happen with the right wingers there.
—Entire Senate phone system had problems recently because of the high number of calls per minute! Good problem to have, but it is being worked on now. Calling gives you the most immediate response, but emails also looked at and responded to.
—In response to the question “Can we set up regular Town Hall meetings like this one?” both staff members said yes. It looks like something will be figured out so that there is a regular opportunity to connect with the Senators and/or their staff during this crisis.
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As always, Thanks for your efforts and PLEASE stay connected as we figure out next steps.
SD31 Communications
info@VoteBlueMN.org
Our Core Values:
A Good Economy for Working Families
Fighting Hatred and Racism
Liberty and Justice for ALL
Including Health Care, Women’s rights and reproductive freedom
Taking care of our Home– the Earth
Our Moral Guideposts:
Love Your Neighbor
Truth, Justice and Compassion
Non-Violence
Showing up to Do Your Part
And oh yeah, in case they forgot:
The Constitution of the United States of America!