Help Progressives Win is a WEEKLY column,
posting at 9 am Pacific Standard Time each Saturday.
There are thousands of Progressive candidates running for office across American in 2016, and they need your help to win.
Please don’t forget those running for office in your city and county this coming year — those down-ballot races make a big difference in your daily life, from deciding which Traffic Engineer to hire this spring which translates into which potholes get fixed on your daily commute to work; to which Port Commissioner gets elected and has a massive amount of influence determining if a foreign corporation wins a bid to build and maintain a new Oil Terminal at the port in your town, putting the safety and health of your family and those of all your fellow residents at risk, just to line the pockets of investors on another continent!
So please step up and make some time in your busy schedule to help local candidates, who often have no resources or staff. You can find a local candidate by contacting your Local County Democratic Party. If you don’t know how to find yours, start at at the website of the DNC and their link to State Parties.
Click on your state and look for a Get Local link, like this:
It begins right at home in our towns and cities and with our own family, friends and circle of acquaintances. Far too many of our fellow citizens refuse or forget to vote regularly. They tell themselves “it just doesn’t matter if I vote, no one listens to me anyway. Besides, I HATE politics. None of those politicians know what my life is like and they don’t really care about my family or our problems.”
The following candidates for office in 2016 DO CARE and they are espousing the policies and ideas which will help those dejected non-voters. But they need your help to be successful, to reach out to the millions who just can’t be bothered to be participants in their own democracy. So please, consider helping these candidates in any of the following ways…
VOLUNTEER
DONATE
SHARE ON SOCIAL MEDIA
All three of these actions are helpful to a candidate trying to reach a larger audience or promote an event or action. Candidates need money to put on events and to pay salaries for staff and to buy the signs and ads which help to spread the messages they are putting out to the prospective voters in their city, county or state.
We need to start banging the drum for next year’s Progressive candidates today in order to have enough victories next November to stave off or even undo the advancement of the conservative lunatics who inhabit the current version of what’s left of the Republican Party.
Here are this week’s PROGRESSIVE CANDIDATES
They need your help TODAY, to win next November
Nanette Barragán
Candidate for US House
California State
44th Congressional District
Campaign website: www.BarraganforCongress.com
Facebook page: www.facebook.com/nanettebatragainforcongress
Twitter: @Nanette4CA
Where is the District?
Full Scale GovTrack Map of the 44th District
A candidate committed to creating opportunity
As the youngest of eleven kids raised by parents who immigrated to this country from Mexico, she knows that you have to fight for those things.
Nanette grew up in Carson and the surrounding areas where she attended Stephen M. White Middle School, learned to swim at Carson Pool, and studied at the Carson Library. In a district where the median income is $44,000, only 60% of students graduate from high school, and only 10% graduate from college, she beat the odds and put herself through UCLA and USC Law School.
In Congress, Nanette will fight for working people. That means protecting American jobs, bringing more good-paying jobs with benefits to our community, raising the minimum wage, and guaranteeing equal pay for equal work.
Volunteer | Donate
Joseline Peña-Melnyk
Candidate for US House
Maryland State
4th Congressional District
Campaign website: www.JoselinePenaMelnyk.com
Facebook page: www.Facebook.com/JoselinePenaMelnyk
Twitter: @PenaMelnykforMD
Twitter para los Latinos: @jpenamelnyk_es
Where is the District?
Full Scale GovTrack Map of the 4th District
A Proven Fighter for Working Families
Born in the Dominican Republic, Joseline moved to New York with her mom and younger sister when she was still in elementary school. “Josie” became a United States citizen in 1983, and was the first in her family to earn a college degree. She graduated from Buffalo State College with a B.S. in Criminal Justice, and earned her Juris Doctor at the State University of New York at Buffalo.
“I have fought for Maryland’s values of fairness and inclusiveness, and to build a stronger community – even when it is not easy. I’m going to keep fighting for fairness in Congress.
I know you share my deep disappointment with Congress these days. It will not be easy to fix, but we’ve got to step up to the task. I rolled up my sleeves and did the hard work to get more than 50 bills into law in Maryland — important laws that protect people against discrimination, improve health care, protect the Chesapeake Bay, fund our public schools, and promote sustainable transportation. I did it by listening to my constituents, talking to stakeholders from all sides, and building coalitions of supporters who back reasonable solutions. I will do the same for you in Congress.”
Volunteer | Donate
Pat Murphy
Candidate for US House
Iowa State
1st Congressional District
Campaign website: www.PatMurphyforCongress.com
Facebook page: www.Facebook.com/MurphyForIowa
Twitter: @PatMurphy4Iowa
Where is the District?
Full Scale GovTrack Map of the 1st District
FIGHTING FOR PROGRESSIVE IOWA VALUES IS IN MY BLOOD
Former Iowa House Speaker Pat Murphy ended the speculation Thursday morning with an announcement that he will seek the Democratic nomination in Iowa's U.S. House 1st District and a rematch with first-term GOP Rep. Rod Blum.
“I really do believe I’m a middle class person,” Murphy said, “and the bottom line is that middle class Iowans deserve to have a voice in Congress, somebody who knows the struggles they face, and will fight for them.”
He believes his progressive values -- a record to back it up -- will convince Democrats in the 20-county district that includes Cedar Rapids, Cedar Falls-Waterloo, Marshalltown and Dubuque to give him a chance to defeat Blum.
“From raising the minimum wage and teacher pay, passing equal pay for women, to protecting women’s health care and all Iowan’s civil rights, that’s my record,” Murphy said in his announcement.
Volunteer | Donate
Angela Marx
Candidate for US House
Washington State
3rd Congressional District
Campaign website: www.Angie4Congress.com
Facebook page: www.Facebook.com/Angie4Congress
Twitter: @AngieinWAState
Where is the District?
Full Scale GovTrack Map of the 3rd District
BELIEVE WITH ME AND TOGETHER, WE CAN DO GREAT THINGS!
Here in the 3rd District of Washington State, I want to see us develop a Clean Energy Hub, with manufacturing of the machinery to build wind turbines and solar arrays and geothermal residential heating and cooling. With our extremely low-cost hydropower and other advantages we can entice the manufacturers of these products to come here and employ our people at decent paying jobs, while producing the products which will help our entire nation become less dependent upon dirty coal and petroleum. This is a plan to help us maintain a good standard of living while promoting the energy sources of the future. It’s a good idea for us and our children and the healthy environment of southwest Washington, which we all cherish.
To that end, I want to become the next Congresswoman in Washington State's 3rd District - because I know that I can help the rest of the people of the 3rd District rise up to meet the challenges of the coming years with a reverence for our natural resources and an eye towards sustainable, decent paying jobs for our families and well-funded educational opportunities for our children.
Angela Marx lives in Vancouver, WA and she has two adult children and two grandchildren.
Volunteer | Donate
If you have a favorite progressive candidate who could use some help, please leave me a name and a race (State/County/City) in a comment, so that I can feature them in a future edition of Help Progressives Win.