Sunday 9/15: It’s going to be a busy week! Write a comment, write some postcards, come out for “Climate Strike” & “We the People” – 4 actions for Citizenry v.21.0!

Monday 9/16: Deadline to write a comment opposing this anti-American rule. Protect your family, friends and fellow citizens from taxpayer-funded zealotry. 

America has a long history of slip-sliding towards religious intolerance, but common sense, and our Constitution, has kept us away from that abyss, allowing us to become the most powerful country in the world. Now, the Trump Administration, pandering to their far-right supporters, wants to allow a vastly expandable group of government contractors to discriminate for “religious” reasons against our fellow taxpaying citizens, including our LGBTQ community, women and religious minorities, on what are essentially private matters that are NONE OF THEIR BUSINESS.  

Monday, 11:59 pm EST, is the deadline to write your comment(s) to protect your family, friends and fellow Americans from the disease of taxpayer-funded religious discrimination in our work places. Read our posting on this issue here for more information and inspiration.

Comment here!

  • The proposed regulation is here.
  • Other people’s comments are here. Read for inspiration. Don’t copy. Identical comments and signatures on petitions will only count as (1) total comment.

Thursday 9/19 – It’s “THIRD THURSDAY!” again!

Continue reading “Sunday 9/15: It’s going to be a busy week! Write a comment, write some postcards, come out for “Climate Strike” & “We the People” – 4 actions for Citizenry v.21.0!” →

Fri 9/13: This is it – the last day for bills to pass out of the CA legislature.

Action #1 – Ask the Governor to sign AB 1282 – “No Private ICE Act”

AB 1282 will prohibit the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR), our state prison system, from facilitating or allowing private security corporations to conduct immigration enforcement arrests of individuals in CDCR custody.  Currently, private security corporations, specifically notorious global private prison corporation G4S, conduct about 1/3 of the immigration arrests of individuals who have earned their release from CDCR and are subjecting them to inhumane conditions on ICE’s behalf without legal authority to make arrests.

Minimal script: My name is [___], and I am calling to urge Governor Newsom to sign AB 1282, the ‘No Private ICE’ Act. I support AB 1282 because this bill protects immigrants who have earned their release from state prison from being unlawfully arrested by private prison contractors paid by ICE. California should not allow private corporations to profit off of mass deportations.

Action – Call the Governor about the bills heading to his desk and find out how your favorites did in our bill update below.

  • Today 9/13: – last day for bills to fight their way through both houses of the CA legislature.
  • Oct. 13: Last day for Governor Newsom to sign or veto bills passed by the Legislature on or before Sept. 13 and in the Governor’s possession after Sept. 13

Let’s call him to ask him to vote “NO” on these bills. Continue reading “Fri 9/13: This is it – the last day for bills to pass out of the CA legislature.” →

Fri 9/13: Carbajal’s anti-drilling bill passes the House. Join in to celebrate today and call your senators!

Action #1 – Congratulate Rep. Salud Carbajal for House passage of his bill banning off-shoring drilling!

All Santa Barbara Indivisibles and local activists are encouraged to attend Rep. Salud Carbajal’s press conference Friday September 13, to celebrate House passage of the “Coastal and Marine Economies Protection Act” (H.R. 1941). This bill bans future offshore oil and gas leasing off the U.S. coasts, and includes Carbajal’s “California Clean Coast Act” (H.R. 279) within it, which permanently prohibit oil and gas leasing off the coast of the State of California.

WHO:

  • Rep. Salud Carbajal, CA-24
  • Linda Krop, Chief Counsel, Environmental Defense Center
  • Michael Lyons, President, Get Oil Out
  • Dennis Allen, Chairman, Allen Construction
  • Ben Pitterle, Science & Policy Director, Santa Barbara Channelkeeper
  • Corley Kenna, Director, Global Communications and Public Relations, Patagonia
  • Sigrid Wright, CEO, Community Environmental Council

WHEN: Friday, September 13, 12:00 – 12:45 p.m. PDT
WHERE: Shoreline Park, East Parking Lot (closest to the pier), Santa Barbara, CA 93109

OR  thank him here: Rep. Salud Carbajal (CA-24): email.  DC (202) 225-3601, SB (805) 730-1710 SLO (805) 546-8348

The passage of this bill is crucial for Central Coast communities who have seen the devastation of the 1969 Santa Barbara and 2015 Plains All American Pipeline oil spills, and whose economies are directly tied to clean coasts and healthy ecosystems.
(Who cosponsored this? Check here – Julia Brownley and Katie Hill were cosponsors!)

Action #2 – Ask our legislators to get this passed in the Senate!

Continue reading “Fri 9/13: Carbajal’s anti-drilling bill passes the House. Join in to celebrate today and call your senators!” →

Thurs 9/12: Call your CA legislators! A deceptively-named plastic industry group is trying to kill the plastics bills!

“Californians for Recycling and the Environment (CRE)”, a plastics industry front group,  is actively trying to kill SB 54 + AB-1080. They have an slick website and logo, filled with scary promises that we won’t have toothpaste, baby food and dog food. Nonsense. What’s NOT listed is who’s funding it. But according to Calmatters, there are no surprises. “The coalition represents the packaging industry and officially formed “maybe a few weeks ago,” according to spokesman Micah Grant. Despite its effort to kill at least one of the bills, Grant insisted in an email to CalMatters that the group “doesn’t ‘oppose’ SB 54.” However, their “Take Action” page says differently.

Tell your legislator to step up into the future we need. There’s a list at the bottom of nervous ones who haven’t signed onto SB 54 + AB-1080 yet. Call yours if they’re on the list. (Jacqui Irwin – we’re looking at you!) If your legislators AREN’T on the list, call them, thank them and ask them to encourage their colleagues.

Action  – “One word: Plastics. There’s a great future in plastics.“

Continue reading “Thurs 9/12: Call your CA legislators! A deceptively-named plastic industry group is trying to kill the plastics bills!” →

Thurs. 9/12: Sneaky “gut & amend” to AB 1299 – a bill about emergency services becomes a hall pass for an oil refinery.

Action – Call your state senator to vote “NO” on AB 1299

AB 1299 used to be a bill about the CA Emergency Services Act. However, all that has been crossed out and replaced with a cuckoo bird egg from the oil industry.

This bill was created to allow a specific Kern County refinery, Kern Oil, located next door to a neighborhood of about 1,000 people who are 70% Latino, and 1/3 children, escape monitoring the normal side effects of their product – hazardous and toxic air pollutants such as BTEX compounds (benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylene) (See Senate environmental analysis here).

Residents in the Kern Co. area already breathe some of the most polluted air in the nation, thanks to a confluence of vehicle exhaust, industrial operations, and stagnant valley air. In 2016, they sued the EPA over permit issues affecting pollution for a neighboring refinery and in January this year, the Kern County Board of Supervisors voted against a plan to allow tanker cars to deliver Bakken crude oil to that same refinery, due to air pollution and safety issues.

These people are fighting for their right to clean air. We stand with them.

Minimal script: I’m calling from [zip code] and I want state senator [___] to vote “NO” on AB 1299. Continue reading “Thurs. 9/12: Sneaky “gut & amend” to AB 1299 – a bill about emergency services becomes a hall pass for an oil refinery.” →

Wed. 9/11: #DefundHate. Make this call.

This week marks the anniversary of one of the greatest tragedies in American history. When the forces of hate took human form, turned planes into weapons and destroyed over 3000 lives.

Hate has again taken human form, in the malignant leaders of our own government. Every day, we see crimes against humanity being sponsored with our own tax dollars. That we are seriously arguing as whether or not a facility is a concentration camp, shows how far we’ve fallen. That we sit quietly, while young children are dying or being terrorized in our custody, shows that we are not who we think we are.

Continue reading “Wed. 9/11: #DefundHate. Make this call.” →

Wed 9/11: FAST ACTION!!! Integrity in elections starts at home with AB 201! Call Senator Leyva now!

Action: Call Senator Connie Leyva’s office at (916) 651-4020

In a time when titles of bills are masterpieces of deception, knowing who’s funding any political message is key. Even the lowly text, sneaking a message right into our pockets or purses, should not be exempt. Call your own state senator and also call Senator Leyva’s office and leave this message…

Minimal script: I’m calling as a member of the CA Indivisible Coalition and I want Sen. [___] to put transparency first and vote “YES on AB 201.

Contact:

  1. Senator Connie Leyva’s office at (916) 651-4020
  2. State Senator Hannah-Beth Jackson (SD-19): SAC (916) 651-4019, SB (805) 965-0862, OX (805)988-1940 email (Not your people?: findyourrep.legislature.ca.gov.)

Continue reading “Wed 9/11: FAST ACTION!!! Integrity in elections starts at home with AB 201! Call Senator Leyva now!” →

Tues – 9/10: Guns meet common sense – access limitations and federal universal background checks for guns AND bullets.

See story and video of suspect stopped BEFORE people were killed here. This happened yesterday, 9/9.

Action #1 – Still in play! CA actions to limit access to guns – “YES” on AB 893 – Stop gun shows at the Del Mar Fairgrounds and SB – 61 – Firearms Transfers.

AB 893 – “22nd District Agricultural Association: firearm and ammunition sales at the Del Mar Fairgrounds” would, on and after January 1, 2021, prohibit the sale of firearms and ammunition at the Del Mar Fairgrounds property located in the 22nd District Agricultural Association, as specified, and would thereby make a violation of that prohibition a misdemeanor. The bill would exclude from its provisions a gun buyback event held by a law enforcement agency. (Assemblymember Gloria)

Minimal script for your State Senator: I’m calling from [zip code] and I want Senator [___] to vote “YES” on AB 893.. It’s time for stop our public property to be used for gun shows and it’s also time that funding for all political messages, from whatever media, is no longer a secret from voters.

State Senator Hannah-Beth Jackson (SD-19): SAC (916) 651-4019, SB (805) 965-0862, OX (805)988-1940 email
Not your people?: findyourrep.legislature.ca.gov.

Action #2 – Still in play! CA actions to limit access to guns – “YES” on SB – 61 – Firearms Transfers.

Continue reading “Tues – 9/10: Guns meet common sense – access limitations and federal universal background checks for guns AND bullets.” →

Tues 9/10: We fund cancer research with actual money, not “thoughts and prayers.” We need to do the same with gun violence.

(Top graphic from the Journal of the American Medical Association – NPR)

Action #1 – We can’t stop or reduce a cause of death we don’t understand. The Senate needs to pass HR 2740 to fund research on gun violence 

“More than 30,000 people are killed with guns in the U.S. every year. That’s more than die of AIDS, and about the same number as die in car crashes or from liver disease. But unlike AIDS or car crashes, the government doesn’t treat gun injuries or deaths as a public health threat.” (NPR)

Science-based research has brought down the number of deaths from highway accidents and Ebola. We can do this with gun violence too. Continue reading “Tues 9/10: We fund cancer research with actual money, not “thoughts and prayers.” We need to do the same with gun violence.” →

Mon 9/9: Busy Day! The Brady folks have asked us to call in a “YES” on SB 61.

(from the Brady Campaign)
Dear Indivisible and friends, 

Another bill to prevent gun violence, called SB 61, is moving through the California legislature. There’s a big vote TOMORROW, and we need Californians to call their state Assemblymembers now to ensure it passes! This bill would prevent gun violence by —

  • Limiting the number of semi-automatic rifles that a person can purchase within a 30-day period. It’s already illegal in California for a person to purchase more than one handgun within a 30-day period. SB 61 would expand that common-sense public safety measure to apply to more firearms, including these rifles, which are often used in mass shootings. Data shows firearms acquired in large quantities at once are often resold on the black market and used in crimes. No one needs to purchase more than one gun a month. The purchasing limits under SB61 are a proven strategy to prevent gun violence.
  • Restricting the sale of semi-automatic weapons to people under age 21. SB 61 would eliminate the exception that 18-20 year-olds can acquire centerfire semi-automatic rifles if they have a valid hunting license. (The Gilroy shooter was 19. He bought his gun in NV at the age of 18 legally, bringing it into CA illegally. The Poway shooter was 18. The current age exception for hunting licenses may have made it possible for him to buy his gun.)

Minimal script: I’m calling from [zip code] and I want Assemblymember [___]
to vote “YES” to SB 61!

Continue reading “Mon 9/9: Busy Day! The Brady folks have asked us to call in a “YES” on SB 61.” →