INDIVISIBLE North Coast Oregon: Indivisible Newsletter Monday April 3, 2017

After their embarrassing failure on TrumpCare, Republicans really want a win. Their plan? To get an extreme, unpopular nominee confirmed to the U.S. Supreme Court this Friday, before they have to answer to you over the upcoming recess. But there are a couple of flaws in this scheme: first, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is short on the votes he needs, and second, you’re going to use recess to hold them accountable, no matter what happens this week (just ask Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC)).

Nuclear is not an option

Gorsuch’s extreme record has left him short of the 60 votes traditionally required to close debate and vote on a Supreme Court nominee. Instead of admitting defeat and requesting a more mainstream nominee, McConnell is now threatening to invoke the incredibly unpopular “nuclear option” and change 230 years of Senate precedent to eliminate the filibuster and ram Gorsuch through with fewer than 60 votes.

Many Republicans are very nervous about blowing up the rules over this one vote—and they should be. If you have Democratic senators, tell them to stand strong, and if you have Republican senators, tell them to back away from the nuclear option. The message is simple: if your Supreme Court nominee is so extreme that he can’t get to 60 votes, you don’t change the rules, you change the nominee!

Reclaim Recess: The Sequel

During February recess, more than 100,000 people showed up for town halls across the country. It was this constituent power that defeated TrumpCare and saved health insurance for 24 million Americans. From April 8–23, it’s time for congressional recess again.

Ask us anything! Join us tomorrow, Tuesday, April 4, at 9 p.m. for a livestream conversation to get your questions about recess answered.

New recess resources! We’ve also created some new materials to help you prepare for recess—check out our updated Reclaim Recess Toolkit, including:

How to Stand Indivisible at Town Halls: an expanded version of our How to Have a Town Hall guide, with new suggestions and tips.
What to Do When Your Member of Congress Holds a Sham Town Hall: a how-to on combatting the fake town hall tactics your MoC might be using.
Making the Most of Congressional Recess: our top five policy priorities for this recess.

One fun way to grow the resistance—a victory dance with purpose

The defeat of TrumpCare was an amazing testament to the power of local indivisible action. And if we’re going to continue racking up wins against Trump, we need to bring more people into the Indivisible movement. So we’re asking you for a favor: celebrate this victory. But you’re not just celebrating for yourself, you’re also celebrating to advertise your power and grow the movement—and that means we need your celebration on video or it didn’t happen.

To spread the word, we’re gathering testimonials from Indivisible members on how and why they contributed to TrumpCare’s defeat. Here’s how you can add to this project:

Take a selfie video or get your local Indivisible group to prepare a video together. Yes, your iPhone will work just fine for this.
Prepare two simple pieces of information:
- Your local Indivisible group name and location (city/state)
- Why you stood Indivisible against TrumpCare
Look into the camera and keep it short—30 seconds or less is ideal.
Send your video to us at stories@indivisibleguide.com with the subject line “Indivisible Against TrumpCare” no later than next Sunday, April 9.

We’ll take what you send in, create a compilation, and spread it far and wide. This victory dance is fun and all, but it’s also serious work. It’s about convincing those outside the movement that they should join up. We’re building the movement together, and simple acts like this help make that possible.

...And in closing, here’s the part where we ask for money

A month ago, it was up in the air whether Democrats would even mount a filibuster to Gorsuch. There was talk of them cutting a deal to let Gorsuch through unopposed. But there’s no talk of that now—and it’s because Indivisible groups got busy on their home turf and told their Senators to just say NO.

From the defeat of TrumpCare to opposition to Gorsuch, the Indivisible movement is accomplishing big things. But at the same time, we know that the Koch brothers are “pulling out all the stops in support of President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee.”

This well-funded, hyper-conservative opposition is real and it’s scary, but it can’t compete with the amazing energy of the Indivisible movement. Here’s a cool statistic we just learned: in the last month alone, our tweets have had more than 40 million impressions. 40 million!

But this fight won’t be won through tweets alone. It’s going to be won by the long-term, inspired leadership of Indivisible groups resisting Trump’s agenda on their home turf. That’s what we’re supporting here at Indivisible. If you’d like to help us to do that, we sure could use your support—chip in a few bucks monthly to support local Indivisible leadership across the country.

Regardless of whether you give money, please keep investing your time and energy into this movement—this is how we have won, and it’s the way we will win in the future.

In solidarity,

The Indivisible Team

P.S. We want to amplify your group’s voice! Keep sharing your pictures, videos, and stories with us at stories@indivisibleguide.com.