Fair Maps and re-electing Justice Earls: a road map. Also the Project 2025 budget guts Medicaid, SNAP and so much more-our calls for this week.
Why the Supreme Court race in 2026 may be the most important one. And..Durham Dems would like your help, please.
THE PROJECT 2025 Budget
or as Anat Shenker-Osario terms it: MAGA Murder Budget. Blast it on repeat.
Your first assignment is to share these talking points widely, with friends, neighbors and on social media. You can also use this as your script for calls this week.
On Monday, Republicans released a spending bill that would:
Cut $715 billion from Medicaid.
Take away health coverage from 8 million Americans.
To pay for billionaire tax cuts that will cost $5 trillion.
MAKE YOUR CALLS:
Everyone on the Hill in both parties need to hear from us all week. Our anger, our sense of betrayal needs to become a very loud roar today and in the days to come until this terrible bill is defeated.
For those of us with Republican Reps and Senators, we need to be particularly loud now.
Thom Tillis: D.C. (202) 224-6342 Raleigh (919) 856-4630 Charlotte (704) 509-9087
Ted Budd: D.C. 202-224-3154 Raleigh 984-349-5061 Wilmington 910-218-7600
Valerie Foushee (202) 225-1784 Durham (919) 967-7924
Read some of the gory details here.
A proposed script.
Hi, my name is [NAME] and I’m a constituent from [CITY, ZIP].
I’m calling to urge [REP/SEN NAME] oppose the budget reconciliation bill and its harmful cuts to vital government programs.
[OPTIONAL]: Specifically, I’m very concerned about… [PICK 1-3 budget provisions]
the cuts to student aid, (and)
the cuts to federal worker retirement benefits, (and)
the defunding of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, (and)
the roll back of green energy grants, (and)
cutting Medicaid, taking healthcare away from 8 million people
cutting SNAP benefits and letting children go hungry
massive job losses: Nationwide, about 888,000 jobs would be lost in 2026, including 477,000 health care jobs.
If enacted, this would be the largest transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich in a single law in U.S. history.
Congress should pass a budget that helps working families and communities, not one that slashes our benefits to fund tax cuts for the wealthy.
Thank you for your time and consideration.
IF LEAVING VOICEMAIL: Please leave your full street address to ensure your call is tallied.
Download this image for your own social media use here
NOW, THE COURTS:
Did you know that NC Supreme Court Justices and Court of Appeals Judges have EIGHT YEAR TERMS? Why do the courts matter? Hint: voting rights, the environment, reproductive rights, health care, education, guns, criminal justice…and more.
For NC right now, the answer is also FAIR MAPS.
These graphics and explanations are from FLIP NC: The Path to Fair Maps
A little history:
When Justice Riggs was sworn in on Tuesday, May 13, Justice Earls mentioned that Justice Riggs had defended her against racist attacks. Indeed, in 2023 the NC GOP tried to remove her from her seat for mentioning the existence of racial bias. See how that turned out here. But these guys are gunning for her; this election is going to get dirty and we need to elect her in numbers too big to argue with. That means we have to start now. More on that soon.
WISCONSIN HAD THIS SAME ISSUE AND IT TOOK FIFTEEN YEARS TO EFFECT CHANGE. We have a chance in NC, if we work hard for the next two election cycles to achieve a democracy in NC, with voters choosing our elected officials rather than the other way around (gerrymandering). Here’s how WI did it:
In 2023, Justice Janet Protasiewicz was elected, ending a 15 year conservative majority.
In 2025, Susan Crawford won her seat, despite Elon Musk pouring millions into the race.
Many of us donated, wrote postcards and phonebanked for Susan Crawford. GO US!
NOW, FAIR MAPS for WI?
Editorial comment: I do wish, though, that people would stop using the word “liberal” and start using “pro-democracy, meaning one person one vote and it counts because the maps are fair,” but I suppose that’s unwieldy in a tweet.
NEXT UP, DURHAM DEMS:
Be the change. Here are more volunteer opportunities to find your lane. Website creators, demfluencers, content creators, photographers, and more…all of these will help with the critical role of maintaining our democracy at a local level.
As our new leadership team gets started, we are looking for volunteers interested in helping with specific teams and projects. If you or someone you know is interested in helping out with any of the areas below, please email us at officers@durhamdemocrats.org.
Website Build: We are building a new website for the county party. Do you have experience building websites in either Squarespace or Wix? If so, get in touch with Jake at 3vc@durhamdemocrats.org.
Photography: We need help covering our events, actions and outreach efforts. If you are a photographer and would like to help document Durham Democrats’ work, reach out to Jake at 3vc@durhamdemocrats.org.
Social Media: We need to beef up our social team! We’d love to have an experienced social media manager join the squad along with folks who can brainstorm and create content. Connect with Emerson at chair@durhamdemocrats.org and Jake at 3vc@durhamdemocrats.org.
Fundraising: If you are an experienced fundraiser, we need your help! Please get in touch with Emerson at chair@durhamdemocrats.org.
Data Analytics: Stats nerd? Data visualization expert? Love a pivot table? If you want to help out with our analytics team, get in touch with Michael Jokich at analytics.durhamdemocrats@gmail.com.
Data Entry and List Creation: If you are great at working with databases, or just love to enter and clean up data…join our VoteBuilder team. Email durhamdemsvotebuilder@gmail.com to get in touch.
But wait, there’s more! If you are interested in helping with volunteer engagement, organizing protests, creating events, building communications, accounting or helping with training, reach out to us! Email officers@durhamdemocrats.org to express your interest.
Finally…
