As December unfolds, we're excited about the opportunity to close out the year on a strong note. Your dedication has been the driving force behind our successes this year and as we embark on the final stretch of 2023, we invite you to fortify our ranks and become a member of Progressive Maryland.

Membership with us means powering community-centered organizing, supporting crucial issue campaigns, forming connections with fellow community members, and contributing to building a more inclusive, just, and sustainable Maryland.

Your membership matters beyond symbolism—it directly impacts our economic and political independence. By forgoing corporate donors, we remain flexible, nimble, and capable of taking bold risks in our pursuit of transformative politics in Maryland. As a member-driven organization, we can champion the causes that matter most to our communities.

Now is the perfect time to join us in this vital mission and set the tone for a strong start to December. We look forward to your participation at our Annual Membership Assembly in February, where together, we will chart the course ahead for Progressive Maryland. Stay tuned for more details about the assembly coming your way later this week!

Read on to see how our task forces and issue campaigns are poised to make December impactful and set the stage for an even more successful 2024. Explore ways to get involved, and stay updated with news you can use.

In Solidarity,

The Progressive Maryland Team

Here’s what’s in today’s memo:

• • PM task forces & issue campaigns: HCTF, RCTF & EJTF
  • Events from Allies
  • State & National news

PM Task Forces & Issue Campaigns Updates

Healthcare Justice: 

Updates and Actions To Take

Medicare Advantage plans are preying on seniors and making it difficult for enrollees to access their plans and get the care that they need. Private health insurers are able to drain public money from traditional Medicare to pad their profits with these policies. This scheme that rips off enrollees and the Medicare Fund has got to stop!! That’s why we’re organizing and urging the media to cover this crisis! Here’s the latest reporting: 

This American Prospect article on “the Medicare Advantage Trap" features the painful  experience of one of our member leaders from New Hampshire and includes a quote from Megan Essaheb, Federal Affairs Director for People’s Action. If you want to join the fight against Medicare (dis) Advantage, please contact Patty.

In the meantime, we’re finalizing state level legislation that will deal with the overall crisis in health insurance care and claim denial here in Maryland. We need your help to power our work in Annapolis in 2024! Sign our petition

Stay tuned for dates and details about important actions and rallies in January and February. And remember we’ve got one more door knocking session this year on Saturday Dec. 9th! Sign up here. Help us ring in support in Prince George’s County for the Care Over Cost campaign. We’ll provide materials, training, the “turf” and hot chocolate! 

Returning Citizens Task Force: 

RCTF will be meeting tonight (12/4) at 6:30 pm. Our Faith and Community Engagement (FACE) group will be meeting on Thursday, December 7 at 6:00 pm. Both meetings are part of our process to assess the work we have done over the past year and to make plans for 2024. This includes planning for our Jobs/Health Fair and Expungement Clinic for returning citizens on Saturday, January 27, at CDC Reid in Glen Dale from 11:00 am to 3:00 pm, and planning to support Delegate Boafo’s “Fair Chance in Housing Act,” which will be introduced in Annapolis next session.

If you are interested in attending or wish to get involved in any other aspect of our work, please contact Kurt.

Environmental Justice Task Force: SirJames shares Shenae Thomas's heart-wrenching story 

The fervent energy from the November 16 EJTF Public Forum still remains high. A silver lining can now be seen by frontline community members of South Baltimore, as trash incineration looks to be finally removed from the Maryland Portfolio Standard Program in the 2024 legislative session.

Meanwhile, last Tuesday, during the Baltimore City Delegation’s 4th Annual Issues & Priorities hearing featuring Mayor Brandon Scott, Sir James, on behalf of Shenae Thomas, a 31-year-old Cherry Hill resident who suffers from asthma, shared her heartfelt written testimony before the delegation. You can view the full two-hour hearing here.

Be on the lookout for important updates from the Environmental Justice Task Force. 

EVENTS FROM ALLIES:

UFCW 1994 is hosting a press conference this Wednesday, December 6 at 10am to show community support for unionizing workers. The press conference will be held across the street from Zum's bus lot (8459 Dorsey Run Road, Jessup, MD 20794). Come out to support the unionization of bus drivers, aides, mechanics and trainers employed by Zum Transportation Services, which is contracted to the Howard County Public School System.

National Harm Reduction Coalition

NHRC’s Lighthouse Learning Collective's queer harm reduction training series, Lighthouse Learning Series, is back! Running through February 2024, there will be one session each month. Remaining sessions include: Sex Work 101, Queer History of Harm Reduction part 2, and Abolition & Harm Reduction. Register here for the next session, “Sex Work 101,” on Dec. 8 from 12 p.m. to 2 p.m. EST. For information about other sessions and recordings of previous webinars, click here. Most sessions will be recorded and all will have live ASL interpretation.

NHRC is thrilled to offer monthly Foundational Fridays training sessions, which focus on building basic knowledge about various intersectional public health issues. The free sessions, running from 12 p.m. to 2 p.m. EST the last Friday of each month, are for providers, peers, and anyone in the harm reduction community as well as anyone looking to learn more about the field. To sign up for the next session happening Dec. 22, visit this link. Stay tuned for more details about the trainings, happening through June of next year! For more information, contact Jose Martinez.

State and National News:

Transportation fund needs transfusion or surgery, ending contraceptive deserts and more, plus states and fed news you can use. Oh yes, and the continuing saga of the FBI building. Is it the whirlpool baths at Quantico? Surely Maryland can match them. Plus, transportation money woes, some student tests up a bit; unintended pregnancies due to lack of contraceptive access, and the story from around the states that can provide ideas for Marylanders (and headaches for the Assembly members). And then there's COP 28.

It's all here in News You Can Use for this week.

Progressive Maryland BlogSpace:

We value creating space for our members to express their thoughts on any issues related to our campaigns. Have an idea for a blog post? You can submit writing, film, graphic design, etc. to be published on our website to the blog moderator Woody.

• NEW TODAY -- Transportation fund needs transfusion or surgery, ending contraceptive deserts and more, plus states and fed news you can use
• Theeey're back: College squabbles about degree programs, state unemployment too low (?!), filling empty seats and more: News You Can Use
• Road workers' safety, stronger state project labor rules, replacing lost streetside trees and other enviro news -- News You Can Use
• Progressive Maryland Stands With CASA

• The FBI is coming to Greenbelt; schools are grappling with Blueprint futures; CASA caught up in Israel/Gaza controversy, and more: News You Can Use
  

>>Read more on the homepage of progressivemaryland.org

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Progressive Maryland
P.O. Box 6988
Largo, MD 20792