January President’s Report

By Kathy Bradford —

I hope you were able to listen in on our November 15^th meeting.  It featured a discussion of the election with Congressman Ted Lieu and Sergio Carrillo, CA Democratic Party Regional Chair and LA County Democratic Party Vice Chair.  Read about it (or watch the video) in the November General Meeting Report article in the January Newsletter.  Ann Nye, our Programs chair, also collected all the local election results, including propositions and California congressional swing votes, for us.  You can view her charts and the introduction to the meeting in the video below.

The Los Angeles County Democratic Party (LACDP) Roosevelt Awards Dinner of 2020 was held virtually on November 15^th as well.  PV Dems members Stacey Golden and Andrew DeBlock were honored as Assembly District 66 Democrats of the Year.  Congrats Stacey and Andrew!

As you probably know, the election is not quite over yet in Georgia, where both Senate seats will be decided on January 5^th in a run-off election.  The current count in the Senate is 48 Democrats, and 50 Republicans.  If we can pull off winning both Georgia Senate seats with Democrats, the Senate would be 50-50 with Vice-President Elect Kamala Harris providing the deciding vote.  President Biden needs a Democratic majority in the Senate to make good on most of his campaign promises.  Even if we win both Georgia Senate seats, though, there is likely to be heated debates and hard negotiated results in the Senate.  A great article detailing the possible issues is at https://www.axios.com/democrats-50-50-senate-b7651b3a-3d91-4c8c-ac32-5059a03b9bef.html.

In November, the PV Dems Board of Directors voted to donate $1000 to each of the Georgia senatorial campaigns of Jon Ossoff and Dr. Raphael Warnock.  You can donate directly to their campaigns at https://electjon.com/ (for Ossoff) or at https://warnockforgeorgia.com/ (for Warnock).

In the meantime, you can participate in the Georgia election from California if you have a computer and cell phone and a couple of hours on Sundays.  The LACDP is running phone banks from noon to 2 p.m. each Sunday from now until January 3^rd.  The dialer software on the computer will supply a script, the name and info about the voter being called, and will dial the number for you and put it through to your phone.  It’s very easy to do.  You can sign up here.  If you are not into phonebanking, you can also participate in a letter writing campaign to encourage low-propensity voters to make their voices heard. For more information, click here.

There is no PV Dems meeting in December – have a very happy holiday.  Hope to see you at our next meeting on January 17, 2021.