Thank you to all who were able to make our December group meeting earlier today. We had ~40 people in attendance for a great finish to 2017!

 

There were three agenda items today. First, we recapped what we accomplished in 2017. Here’s a partial list:

• We held 12 group meetings, ranging from attendance of 8 to ~70.
• We made an amazing number of phone calls, tweets, Facebook posts, and op-eds to our MoCs
• We protested and asked questions asked at Lance’s 5 in-person town halls
• We protested for many weeks at Lance’s Flemington office (and protests continue in Westfield)
• We worked on local campaigns, resulting in some wins and some races that we didn’t win but established a blueprint for 2018 and beyond
• We became better education on some specific issues, including health care policy impacts on our members, Scouts for Equality strategies, bystander intervention training, and anti-racism efforts
• We made new friendships and a gained a new sense of unity!
• We are helping to support six fantastic challengers to Leonard Lance in 2018
• We moved the needle on Lance’s voting record: He voted against repealing ObamaCare; He voted against tax reform; His environment LCV score in 2016 was 13% but in 2017 it was (unofficially) 37%

 

Next, we discussed plans for 2018. People are most enthusiastic about two things: meeting and supporting NJ7 Democratic candidates, and continuing to lobby our MoCs on specific votes. The first few meetings in 2018 will focus on meeting more of the Democratic candidates. This will hopefully mean two candidates each in January and February. Meanwhile, Lance will continue to be our main target on specific votes. Despite the progress we made with him on a few votes this year, he also has taken some shameful positions:

• In favor of repealing net neutrality
• Silent on Trump’s behavior
• He has voted for some horrific environment bills
• He supports pipelines everywhere but here
• He has argued that Planned Parenthood should be split (and therefore weakened)
• All of his votes have been inconsequential

 

Finally, we had a Q&A with Linda Weber, one of the Democratic candidates vying to challenge Leonard Lance to represent NJ7. The theme of our discussion was that progress that has been made on many issues is fragile. Therefore, we need Members of Congress who will be leaders in protecting the progress that has been made and moving us further forward. Her three issues that are the main focus of her campaign are health care, the environment, and public education. All of these issues are areas under threat right now, and in need of more people in Congress to defend them. Please see Linda’s website https://lindaweberforcongress.com to read more about her positions and to stay informed of her campaign.

 

Thank you for everything that each of you has done this year. I had little hope one year ago, but you have consistently lifted the spirits of me and other members of our group. I especially want to thank Michelle Hoffman for running our Twitter account (@indivisiblegsv), Alison Grantham for running our email account (IndivisibleGSV@gmail.com), Elissa Muller for designing our website, Tina Nixon for setting up the domain and migrating the site over to Word Press, and Laraine Mocenigo for maintaining our website calendar.

 

Please contact me for ways in which you can be involved in 2018. I will be especially interested in people who are willing to lead discussions on a topic of your choosing on our Facebook feed.