Welcome to the Weekly Memo.

STATEWIDE ACTION

Fight for $15 hearing in Annapolis,

Progressive Maryland needs you to show up. If you want to speak and tell your legislators why Maryland workers deserve at least $15/hr, arrive by 12 noon on Thursday, March 8th, The hearing will be held in State Senate building in Annapolis.

It will take each and every one of us involved and engaged to get the things we need and deserve to live and thrive in our state!

Progressive Maryland will be hosting a remote phone bank to recruit canvassers to the March Monthly Canvass! Join us at our office (35 University Blvd East, Silver Spring, MD 20901) or remotely on Thursday, March 8th from 5 pm-8 pm. Sign up here to make calls to others to be canvassers!

From Protest to Power Canvass

Meet your neighbors. Explore your community. Win elections. Make positive social change. 

We will connect with voters about the Protest to Power Platform, working to elect Ben Jealous & Susan Turnbull Governor/Lt. Governor of Maryland, and the most important issues in voters’ lives. Join us March 31, 2018, at 10 am and April 01, 2018 at 10 am

Sign up to HOST your own canvass, so others in your area can sign up to go door-to-door with you or RSVP for an event happening near you here:  http://www.progressivemaryland.org/march2018canvasses

Member Leaders:

Come Out To Movement Politics Interest Meeting

If taking back our democracy by winning elections is where you want to build your organizing home, complete the Movement Politics Team Survey! I will be holding an in-person meeting on Wednesday, March 7th from 5:30 pm-6:30 pm to talk about volunteer strategy around the 2018 Primary. RSVP here!

Progressive Caucus Candidate Slate Interest Meeting

Progressive Maryland has set electing progressives into positions to govern as our top objective this year. We have recruited and endorsed a number of candidates that match our values for governing and we must put every effort possible into making sure that they run viable campaigns. Our candidate pipeline and endorsed candidates need to be one accord with the organization. I will be holding an in-person meeting on Wednesday, March 7th from 6:30 pm-8:00 pm to talk about strategy. RSVP here!

If you aren't able to join us this week, Sign up for our Movement Politics Team and stay informed about the upcoming events by clicking here!  

OUR CHAPTERS AROUND THE STATE

BALTIMORE

(The previous memo, announced the non rescheduled date for this event)

Baltimore Chapter Office Opening and Community Meeting, RSVP here

On March 15th, 2018 at 6:30 pm to 8:30 pm, the Progressive Maryland Baltimore Chapter will be having its official Office opening.

We want to hear from you! On Thursday, March 22nd at 7 p.m. we'll be focusing on the problems and crafting community solutions to solve the problems in PG County. RSVP  here

Take Action Anne Arundel County 

Talbot Rising

Lower Shore Progressive Caucus

PMD Montgomery

EVENTS FROM OUR ALLIES

Thursday, April 5 -- County Council candidates forum. Details to be announced. 7:00 -- 9:00 p.m. Hoyer Education Center

Reading the Progressive Maryland Blog Space: our blogs for the previous week are shown below, but if you want a handy way to keep track – and never miss a blog post – you can sign up to get this Weekly Memo by email. Remember this is your blog space and your participation is heartily invited. See something going on that you don’t like – or that you do like and hope to see more of? Send us your thoughts; submit to the moderator at [email protected]

Keeping up with the blogs is easier with the index. The blogs published in the PM Blog Space from June 2015 through December 2016 are all available with descriptions and links here. You can follow blogs for 2017-18 starting from here

It will take each and every one of us involved and engaged to get the things we need and deserve to live and thrive in our state!

Join us to knock on doors in your community on Saturday, February 24th

Wobbles in the polls may unnerve Democrats, but recent Democratic candidates have won in deep-Red territory by speaking truth to power, Hal Ginsberg relates. "All is not lost for those hoping for an end to Republican hegemony in Washington, however, as recent victories on seemingly unfavorable terrain have shown."

Great breaking news from the Working Matters coalition (Progressive Maryland is on board):

The Working Matters coalition is delighted to report that the Maryland Healthy Working Families Act (MHWFA) will continue with no delays thanks to the House Economic Matters Committee (ECM).

In these difficult times when access to voting is under attack from the Right – especially access for poor people and those of color – some good pushback bills are in the General Assembly that deserve support. They will expand access to voting for all Marylanders.

Below is the testimony on two of them by Progressive Maryland (through Jennifer Dwyer, PM policy and legislative director) on one and by Common Cause with endorsement from Progressive Maryland on the second. The League of Women Voters, ACLU, PIRG, Brennan Center, SEIU, Sierra Club, Black Girls Vote and other organizations also signed on to the bill proposing election-day registration.

Statistics from the National Alliance for Mental Health are evidence of the importance of implementing psychologists within schools and obtaining more psychologists working in the juvenile justice system, PM's Prince George's intern shows. Without their help, many children and teens are susceptible to mental illness. We can reverse this detrimental trend by taking action and offering them access to therapy from certified mental health professionals.

Bend your energy toward the future… if everyone who marched against the current administration went out and spent a four-hour shift knocking on doors in their neighborhood in a mass canvass…. Well, you do the math. Energizing folks to realize their power – the power to vote, the power to engage in community action – is the simple startup solution to a lot of complex problems.

People's Action helped organize the Women's State of the Union event at the National Press Club Jan. 30, countering the SOTU by Pres. Trump. At the invitation of People's Action, Brandy Brooks organized a contingent from Progressive Maryland.

Claire Miller from Take Action Anne Arundel County and Chrissy Holt, State Senate District 30 candidate in Anne Arundel, joined in attending this landmark event with Progressive Maryland organizers.

Acting locally lets us touch the people we are affecting, HoCo activist Dave Bazell notes.  And it allows them to touch us.  And this feedback is essential in getting it right.  Which is not to say activism on a national level is not important or essential, it is just harder.  Harder to comprehend, harder to organize, harder to feel the immediate benefits of.

The struggle to get big money out of Maryland politics, at all levels, has gone on for many years. Still, the fact remains that big money – money from the wealthy, especially from big businesses doing business with the state or depending on state regulation to make them profitable, or from national and global corporations – pollutes the politics of Maryland. Here is news of progress on two fronts.