We have a four person group of Balloon Juice peeps who are taking on Arizona.
They are researching bills intended to restrict voting or overturn the will of the people. They are also making lists of elected officials, party activists, and civic and political activists that might be mobilizing to fight these awful laws, and they will be making contact with those groups to see what might be done to help them in their efforts.
This thread is a place where that team can communicate, share information with one another, ask questions, etc.
But anyone that has potentially helpful information related to AZ is encouraged to comment. Maybe you know of a political organization that might be active in AZ, or you have an in with an elected official or an aide in the state. If you know anything that might be helpful, please jump in.
You can also chime in to applaud the AZ stat team: Almost Retired, km, FelonyGovt and sophronia.
Otherwise, you can ignore this post (and the 6 other posts that will go up once one of the pilot state teams meet for the first time). Each post will be active for a couple of weeks, and a link to these posts is in the sidebar.
Team Members
Curt
Kjirste
Irene
Patricia
Interface roles explained:
We will want to know who is filling each of the roles on the team.
- (exactly one) person to be point-of-contact with Alan and WaterGirl. Schedule the contact every 2-3 days or as necessary.
- (exactly one) person to be point-of-contact with Matthew [Lisa] and manage the state’s spreadsheet
- (exactly one) person to keep tabs on the state’s page [link here?] and the project’s page [link here?]
Project roles explained:
- one or more people to research legislation, using Voting Rights Lab and similar sources
- one person in particular that can take the first crack at the Voting Rights Lab in the first 2-3 days, so others can fill in the rest from other sites
- one or more people to research elected officials. Committee ranking members, minority caucus leadership, and their staff people are key here. Hint: also include Dem Party activists as a potential means of cutting through the clutter.
- one or more people to contact the elected officials. Ideally should be a resident of the state. Hint: use the legislative research to inform questions to the electeds, use their answers to inform the legislative research.
- one or more people to identify state activists trying to build resistance against the legislation
- one or more people to contact the activists
Please set up communication channels within your group however you wish. What works for you is best.
For communication about spreadsheets, please contact the person who presented the spreadsheets at your team meeting.
For communication with the leadership team, regular reports can be posted on the state pages. But please use email when there is an urgent issue or something you need to call to our attention.
When in doubt, email is fine. Don’t hesitate to contact us when you need to!
Team Roles! (add person’s nym here)
Interface Roles
Contact with Alan & WaterGirl:
Contact with your Spreadsheet Person (Matt or Lisa):
Monitor the Team Post:
?
Project Roles
Voting Rights Lab Research (in the first 2-3 days):
Research Legislation on other sites:
Research Elected Officials:
Contact Elected Officials:
Identify State Organizations & Activists:
Contact the Activists:
?
Please copy this list into a comment and add the names there.
H.E.Wolf
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/10/28/meet-allie-young-a-native-american-activist-empowering-voters.html
H.E.Wolf
There’s a drop-down menu for a number of states, including AZ:
https://www.voteriders.org/partners/
H.E.Wolf
Four Directions (supported in 2021 by Balloon Juice) has a presence in AZ.
http://www.fourdirectionsvote.com
H.E.Wolf
And this comment is to give a standing ovation to the AZ stat team!
Another Scott
I can do that, gladly!
Seriously, thanks for the work that you folks are doing. And for WG and HEW (and MazeDancer) continuously encouraging us to act in any way we can.
Cheers,
Scott.
WaterGirl
@H.E.Wolf: Four stellar comments in a row. A BJ record? :-)
I have never seen the first organization. Big thanks.
H.E.Wolf
Hello Scott! Your even-tempered good cheer always lifts my spirits when I read your comments on the blog. (And I second the hat tip to MazeDancer.)
WaterGirl, it’s unusual for me to make 4 comments in a *month*, so I’d say it’s some form of record (stellar or not). :)
Best to all! I’m headed off-blog for the evening….
piratedan
If and when time allows i may have time to help here in Tucson… granted i still work for a living.. but if needs arise… i can be pinged for availability…. for much of the inside dope on Dem politics… i find the site blog for arizona helpful
WaterGirl
@piratedan: Thank you! There will indeed be an opportunity once we get to the “contacting Democratic officials and party activists” part!
WaterGirl
Hey Arizona team, here is an organization to add to your list to contact.
Arizona Deserves Better
We will be interested in your take on this group after you contact them, if they seem really good and really engaged, it’s possible that we could add them to our fundraising list.
So besides adding your info to the AZ sheet, once you have spoken with them, please let m know your take.
Also, could some AZ person pick this up and leave a comment here letting me know that this has made it to the AZ spreadsheet?
Same for all the organizations that H.E. Wolfe listed early in the comments.
In fact, can you guys identify one person who will watch this AZ thread for the next two weeks, making sure everything makes it into the spreadsheet? thank you
Almost Retired
@WaterGirl: Got it, I’ll make a note of it. I scoped out their website. Is the Arizona State Capitol building really that ugly? btw, in terms of priorities, I’m kinda thinking that we should focus first on populating the spreadsheet with pending/proposed legislation (the evil in progress) that we can still try and squash, followed by damaging legislation since the last election cycle (the evil that has occurred), and then failed legislation that may be revived (the evil yet to come)? Just thinking out loud, because there’s been so much action in Arizona, and I’d rather laser focus on pending stuff given upcoming vacation schedules.
km
Thanks for all the great leads! I’ve added all of them to the sheet I’ve started of organizations/contacts in AZ & will make sure that gets onto our state spreadsheet.
On Arizona Deserves Better – I don’t know for sure, but their referendum effort looks like it might be one of the things irritating some Arizona activists. Specifically, some groups consider the petition/referendum effort wasted time & money and would prefer to keep the focus on voter registration, etc. I don’t know all the ins and outs of the issues and didn’t know about this group.
WaterGirl
@Almost Retired: Hi.
I believe that Irene is plowing through everything on Voting Rights Lab (VRL) – she started yesterday, so I think the bones of the legislation from that site will be in there in a very small number of days.
So I don’t think we have to prioritize pending vs. dead, etc.
Then you guys can all fill in any holes – information you find on the state site that wasn’t covered by Voting Rights Lab.
While Irene gets the VRL info in place in the next couple of days, you could start researching politically active groups in AZ. I have personal contacts at Four Directions, so I don’t think you guy need to follow up with them.
Does that help?
WaterGirl
@km: What you wrote about Arizona Deserves Better seems like a good starter summary for that group. Once we contact more groups in AZ, I imagine the picture will start to be more clear. Maybe at that point, it would make sense to contact them, but if it’s controversial, maybe it’s better for us to get the lay of the land with that group before making contact.
WaterGirl
I know someone from the AZ group is going on vacation soon, but I didn’t take note of the dates. That might be helpful information to include here for easy reference later.
km
@WaterGirl: That’s me! :) I’ll be out of town starting 7/13 through 7/21, but trying to make sure I get a good start on things before I go. (And I’m sure I’ll be able to do some work while away.)
Sure Lurkalot
Irene, I hope you got my emails responding to your spreadsheet questions. Lots of bills in Arizona and I don’t want spreadsheet mechanics to slow your awesome efforts. Please contact me again if my suggestions didn’t help.
brantl
Brantl from Michigan, here; Voting RIghts Labs has a download feature that produces a .csv file, that can be easily imported into Excel compatible spreadsheets. I strongly encourage people to do that, as you can then import data to three important columns. I also recommend putting the Bill / Resolution ID in column A, and putting the Text of the URL of the bill text in the first free column, over to the right.
brantl
At least 2 bills in Michigan say that ineligible voters are to be recorded that way on the Friday before election day, or the last business day before the election. All of these bills require signatures, as well, and I think we are going to see a record number of disallowed signatures, if these bills pass. I think that there should be a pre-emptive bill to make voter ID hassle-free, fast and free to anybody who needs it, with various ways to get around people who don’t have traditional ID. We need to nip this in the bud, pronto.
WaterGirl
I added a list up top. Please copy the list of roles to a comment and add the names of the people who have taken on those roles.
FelonyGovt
Sorry, I’ve been remiss about following this thread. Here are the roles, although we’ve been kind of fluid.
Contact with Alan & WaterGirl: Almost Retired
Contact with your Spreadsheet Person (Matt or Lisa): Sophronia
Monitor the Team Post: FelonyGovt (I will do this from now on, promise!)
?
Project Roles
Voting Rights Lab Research (in the first 2-3 days): FelonyGovt
Research Legislation on other sites: Almost Retired
Research Elected Officials: Almost Retired
Contact Elected Officials:
Identify State Organizations & Activists: km
Contact the Activists: km
FelonyGovt
At Water Girl’s request, here is a summary of what the Arizona group has done/ is doing. (I was going to say “brief” summary but it’s not so brief.)
We listed / analyzed the many bills that were introduced in the last Arizona legislative session, as shown on the Voting Rights Lab site and marked “Anti-Voter or “Neutral”. Most failed, but a few terrible ones were enacted. We attempted to identify threat levels and targets of each bill. For example, in some cases it seemed obvious that Native Americans were the target, or a target.
We noticed timing of the bills: a flurry of them were introduced right before and after Biden’s inauguration, and a bunch more in the spring, right before the legislative session ended for the summer.
We roughly categorized the goals of the bills: (1) to make voting more difficult, (2) to eliminate or pare back the list of vote-by-mail voters, and/or (3) to strip or curtail power of the Secretary of State and other traditional election officials in favor of the Legislature, which could then invalidate the results of elections.
We are determining which legislator introduced which bill, to discern patterns. Also the margins by which some of these proposed bills failed, particularly significant because while the Legislature is Republican controlled, there is a substantial Democratic presence in both houses.
The Arizona legislature is in recess for the summer, being hot as hell there. We are trying to identify which of the failed bills might rise, zombie-like, in the next legislative session, and priorities for action then.
We are identifying appropriate activist groups and organizations to contact for action, together with their websites, focus areas, and any notes. We will defer actual contacts until after the summer.
We are entering all of this information into one monster spreadsheet.
If I missed something (I’m sure I have), would my fellow AZ team members please add.