Last week, Vice President Kamala Harris visited an abortion clinic in Minnesota, a historic first for a Vice President, and declared that the lack of access to reproductive care has spiraled into a “health crisis.”
In 2022, the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, leaving the right to abortion up to individual states and criminalizing healthcare providers who provided life-saving procedures. Since then, a MAGA Republican-led movement set a dangerous precedent further restricting women’s bodily autonomy. Like Vice President Harris said during her visit to the clinic – we have to be a nation that trusts women to make their own healthcare decisions.
At Emerge, we strongly believe it’s crucial to empower Democratic women to be at the forefront of the fight to protect our reproductive freedom. And in 2024, we’re ramping up our efforts to recruit, train, and empower even more bold Democratic women to run for office, win critical races, and lead the fight to protect our reproductive rights at every level of government. But our efforts will take significant resources, and we can’t do this without your support.
P.S. We will introduce the Cecile Richards Impact Award onstage for the first time at our 2024 Annual Luncheon on Wednesday, April 3rd, in-person in San Francisco and live streamed across the country. Click here to RSVP!
There’s no denying it— the Supreme Court is compromised and illegitimate. On March 26, we are protesting SCOTUS in defense of medication abortion. No matter the outcome, we want to be clear. Feminists will not abide unjust laws, and we will make sure that anyone who needs Mifepristone will be able to get it, no matter the decision from SCOTUS.
He did this because he is, in fact, an anti-abortion advocate. That’s why he has his job. That’s why the judges on the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals have theirs. It’s why much of the Supreme Court has theirs.
Photo by Shannon Richardson
Lindsay is a registered nurse in a state with a total abortion ban. Courtney is a reproductive rights activist from Amarillo, TX. Together, we co-founded Amarillo Reproductive Freedom Alliance. We know the devastating impact these legal decisions will have on our communities. This is not what the people want. Our courts are not working in service of democracy, they are working to advance an agenda that cannot win at the ballot box. We won’t let them win.
We were both there on day one of the protest against this sham lawsuit, and a week from today, we’ll be representing Amarillo in Washington D.C., as oral arguments move forward. And, like all of you, we’ll be in the streets until true reproductive freedom is accessible for everyone. Are you with us?
There’s no denying it— the Supreme Court is compromised and illegitimate. On March 26, we are protesting SCOTUS in defense of medication abortion. No matter the outcome, we want to be clear. Feminists will not abide unjust laws, and we will make sure that anyone who needs Mifepristone will be able to get it, no matter the decision from SCOTUS.
It’s been fifteen years since the invention of cryptocurrency, and nobody has really figured out anything useful to do with it besides buying weapons and pharmaceuticals from sleezy internet marketplaces, and paying ransoms to hackers who seize control of computer systems. But crypto boosters are still trying to grow the market beyond their core base of very-online and very-libertarian men.
In the latest such effort, the crypto exchange Binance celebrated International Women’s Day by launching a perfume — called simply “CRYPTO” and promising to smell of “ozone, salt, and moss” — which they say is intended to serve as “a new way to open up conversations with the public on what needs to be done to bridge the gender gap.” And really, what more is there to say about a crypto exchange announcing a perfume for International Women’s Day to address the lack of women in crypto except…
Make it make sense.
could be cut from the budget of the Justice Department Antitrust Division under government funding bills currently moving through Congress. The Antitrust Division plays a key role in the newly announced Strike Force on Unfair and Illegal Pricing, successfully blocked the anticompetitive merger of JetBlue and Spirit, and has a smaller staff than it did in 1979.
have begun negotiations for a new contract with Boeing as the company struggles to address growing quality and safety concerns. The union’s goals include 40% pay increases, improved health care and pension benefits, and a commitment by Boeing to build their next plane with union workers in the Puget Sound region.
is the estimated total ten-year budget hit resulting from Trump’s 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. A similar amount of money would be sufficient to restore the Child Tax Credit for ten years and lift 3 million children out of poverty, with enough left over to provide universal child care and preschool to American families.
The labor leverage ratio is a relatively new economic indicator developed by recent Pitchfork Economics guest Aaron Sojourner that seeks to do just what it says on the tin: measure the economic leverage of labor versus employers. The idea is to simply divide the number of workers who quit their jobs in a given month by the number of people who were laid off or fired. When the ratio is higher, that means the job market is strong, because a higher ratio indicates workers are more comfortable with voluntarily leaving their jobs than employers are with eliminating jobs. And that means employers have to do what it takes to out-compete each other to find employees — such as raising wages. Conversely, when the ratio is lower, it indicates a weaker job market where people are less willing to leave their current jobs, and prospective employees have to do more to compete with each other to find work. It’s a simple, clever, and unique way to measure how good the job market is for workers. Basically, when the labor leverage ratio is higher for longer, better wages and working conditions ought to follow.
As the chart below shows, the labor leverage ratio has clearly come down a bit from its heights during the initial post-pandemic adjustment period, when there were more than three times as many quits and firings and layoffs. But the labor market remains remarkably strong: the 2.2 labor leverage ratio is above what it was before the pandemic, or at any point in at least the last 25 years.
As its awkwardly compound name suggests, the $300 billion healthcare conglomerate UnitedHealth is the product of a series of mergers over the past few decades, rolling together several health insurance companies, a pharmacy benefit manager, a provider of health savings accounts, online patient platforms, and a slew of other corporate healthcare entities. Those other acquisitions notably include a huge but little-known company called Change Healthcare, which provides billing software that connects healthcare providers and insurance companies (including but not limited to United Healthcare itself). Change Healthcare typically processes 15 billion transactions a year, but in the past few weeks, has been unable to reliably function at all due to an attack by a group of hackers who have demanded a multimillion-dollar ransom in order to release its hold on the company’s computer systems and let them return to normal.
The hack has squeezed doctors’ offices and pharmacies, which have been largely unable to get authorization for services through Change Healthcare or get payment for services — an ugly situation that points to the dangers of highly concentrated providers of essential services like human health. The hack also means Change Healthcare gets to temporarily keep money on its balance sheet that it would have otherwise been paying out to healthcare providers, so the company doesn’t seem to be in a huge rush to solve the problem caused by its cybersecurity failure. In fact, they’re currently trying to take advantage of the situation: they are asking regulators to speed approval of their planned purchase of a medical provider in Oregon, on the grounds that the provider they’re trying to buy might close if the purchase isn’t approved quickly. And why might they close? Because of the Change Healthcare outage, which has stalled claims processing to the point that the clinic is facing a severe cash flow crisis. A truly outrageous story, worth reading in its entirety.
Let’s just say it wasn’t our favorite legislative session ever. Lawmakers were very cautious this year, especially compared to the 2023 legislative session, where they passed sweeping reforms to ban assault weapons, build middle housing, and kick Tim Eyman’s rigged and senseless advisory votes off our ballots.
The Legislature is usually less ambitious in a short session, with less time to resolve issues, less budget flexibility, and most legislators eyeing fall campaigns. While legislators largely failed to pass the most impactful progressive legislation, there were plenty of smaller successes and signs of future opportunities for the bills we supported this year. On the positive side, they launched the transition to electric school buses, expanded access to basic health care for undocumented immigrants, tightened gun rules for public spaces, and banned the mandatory anti-union meetings that employers often use to fight union organizing drives.
We want to thank every one of you who took action. Whether you donated, signed in for a committee hearing, or sent your representatives emails urging their support, we’re grateful for your efforts in making Washington state one of the most equitable and progressive places to live in the country.
Here’s our summary of some of the top issues in Olympia this year:
Senate drops the ball on housing
After last year’s successful session addressing key issues of housing supply and homeownership, we were hopeful that the Legislature would pick up where they left off on protecting families from becoming homeless. Despite some truly heroic efforts by Rep. Emily Alvarado and Sen. Yasmin Trudeau, the rent stabilization legislation did not pass. Opposition in the state Senate, particularly among Senators Annette Cleveland and Mark Mullet, means that renters still have no protections against price gouging. Our neighbors deserve to have a roof over their heads and we’ll be back in 2025 to demand that the Legislature do more to protect renters and ensure people can stay in their homes.
Housing and Homeless Advocacy Day rally in Olympia
We’re also very disappointed that the Legislature failed to pass The Affordable Homes Act, which would have created the first-ever dedicated funding source for affordable housing by making the Real Estate Excise Tax more progressive. Tackling the twin crises of a lack of affordable homes and our upside down tax code was a clear win-win, but the bill died in the Senate Ways & Means Committee.
Making sure every vote is counted
In some good news, the ballot curing bill to reduce ballot rejection rates was passed unanimously by both chambers of the Legislature! Washington disproportionately rejects ballots of people of color and young voters for signature issues. We worked with our partners at the Washington Voting Justice Coalition to create a standardized process for voters to be notified about and correct their ballot errors across the state.
Big Oil dodges accountability
After years of record profits for Big Oil corporations and skyrocketing costs for consumers, we joined together with environmental partners to try and hold these corporations accountable. The Oil Industry Accountability Act would have created transparency around how gas prices are set, and establish regulations against price gouging by the oil industry like those already in law for gas and electric utilities.
The bill initially made good progress in its committees, but oil industry lobbyists successfully weighed down the bill with unnecessary, expensive requirements for vast new cybersecurity updates. This dramatically raised the cost of implementing the bill, which lobbyists and more conservative Senators cynically used as an excuse to vote down the bill.
Tax justice remains elusive
The bill to create a pilot of the Evergreen Basic Income program went the furthest it ever has in the Legislature, with public hearings held in both the House and Senate. We will continue fighting to pass this bill to get working people monthly cash with no strings attached, so that we can eventually ensure that everyone can afford the basics.
Fuse Communications Manager Abigail Leong with partners from the Statewide Poverty Action Network and YWCA at the Balance Our Tax Code rally
Our early hopes to expand the popular Working Families Tax Credit to all workers over the age of 18 (by including working seniors and young people without kids) were dashed by budget limitations this year. Budget leaders did not prioritize funding the expansion, killing the bill’s prospects.
Attacks from the Right
Late in this session, legislators’ attention was eaten up by the six “Backwards Washington” initiatives to the legislature. Republican mega donor Brian Heywood spent $6 million to qualify all six of the highly partisan and deceptive initiatives, working with MAGA Republican Party Chair Jim Walsh. When an initiative is sent to the legislature, lawmakers can either pass it, do nothing and let it go to the November ballot, or offer an alternative.
Three of the Backwards Washington initiatives were basically just right-wing hot air balloons meant to inflame the Republican base and troll Democrats, and three are extremely serious threats to the future of Washingtonians’ quality of life.
Republican hedge fund mogul Brian Heywood speaks at a rally for the initiatives he bankrolled
The state Legislature ultimately passed the three less substantive initiatives, choosing to focus the political spotlight and campaign resources on the remaining three initiatives that would devastate funding for our kids and schools, dismantle our protections against air and water pollution, and take away long term care benefits for millions of working Washingtonians.
Two of the three that they passed change virtually nothing about our current laws, and can be amended quickly if there are unintended consequences:
I-2081 mostly repeats the same rights that parents already have to be involved in their child’s school curriculum
I-2111 bans an income tax, which everyone already knows is already prohibited and Washington doesn’t have
The third initiative the Legislature passed – I-2113 – is more troubling. It weakens the rules on police pursuits that were designed to prevent accidental deaths. Adopting national best practices for police pursuits has reduced deaths caused by police pursuits by 75% in Washington. Time will tell if I-2113 reverses that trend, but the initiative leaves many of the police pursuit reforms in place, and it was clear that Heywood and Walsh’s primary goal with I-2113 was to drive MAGA turnout at the polls with a divisive, fear-mongering culture war issue.
The three Backwards Washington initiatives that will be on the ballot this fall would have a massive impact on our state budget and quality of life in WA:
I-2117 will kill efforts to fight pollution and climate change by ending Washington’s program to make polluters pay
I-2109 cuts $900 million in funding for childcare and schools by repealing the capital gains tax on the wealthy few
I-2124 takes away over $8 billion in critical long term care benefits from 3.5 million working Washingtonians by bankrupting Washington’s long term care benefit fund
What’s next?
Here at Fuse we’re gearing up for a monumental election year this fall. We’ll be taking a leading role in defeating the remaining three regressive “Backwards Washington” initiatives on the ballot, while fighting to re-elect Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez in the 3rd Congressional District to the U.S. House.
We’ve also set our sights on flipping control of the Spokane and Pierce County governments. In Pierce, we’ll be working to elect progressive Democrat Ryan Mello to end eight years of Republican control of the Pierce County Executive seat. Over in Spokane, we’ll be campaigning to flip Al French’s seat to create a Democratic majority on the County Commission.
With several prominent retirements in the Legislature this year, as well as a handful of sitting lawmakers running for higher office, we can expect many changes across both the House and Senate. Stay tuned for our upcoming Progressive Voters Guide recommendations in all of these races!
New changes to the Legislative District (LD) map in Central Washington are also coming with a court case on the 14th LD that could create new opportunities to add more Democratic seats in the Legislature.
We’re already on the ground organizing in some of these key races and starting our research for the Progressive Voters Guide. The only question is whether we can build a solid, community-based foundation for our work in the crucial election to come. Unlike our opponents, our support comes from grassroots members like you. Will you stand with Fuse and our fight for progress today by making an early donation to our 2024 election campaigns?
No matter how you choose to support us, we’re grateful for all of you who have stood for progress this year. We’re excited to continue this work in the 2025 session, and bring our best organizing strategies to the upcoming campaign season.
Thanks for all that you do, Rosey and the entire team at Fuse
In 1978, a group of women educators and activists in Sonoma County, California, frustrated by the erasure of women’s narratives in educational materials, kick-started what would become Women’s History Month.
Now, 26 years later, we have fewer rights than our foremothers, and are under imminent threat of losing more. We honor them and the other people who shaped our movement, like Shirley Chisholm, Rosa Parks, and Norma McCorvey (aka “Jane Roe”), by continuing the fight every day. Here’s how:
1) March 13: Launch of Bans Off Our Bodies Weekly Actions, weekly protests everywhere through the elections. Sign up to get trained up and host an action in your community.
Winning back our rights will take daily, relentless pursuit of our goals. We build a movement so that we have the strength and grit to stay in the fight. We commit to being here with you all as long as it takes to win for us all.
Women’s March is a 501c(4) organization. Your generous support helps us prepare for fights we see coming and those we don’t. Donations are not tax-deductible. If you prefer to make a tax-deductible gift, we encourage you to support the Women’s March Network. Gifts to the Network support our organizing, communications, advocacy, and public education efforts.
We’re going to be honest with you, this legislative session was a tough one.
For the past two months, we, our allies, friends, and activists, have fought tirelessly in Olympia to protect access to health care, address racially discriminatory police practices, and advance fairer sentencing laws that promote public safety and lead with racial justice.
We knew our five priority bills faced uphill battles, and we are disappointed that they did not pass this session. Our hearts are heavy today, but we also have a lot to be proud of. This year, we:
Moved the juvenile points retroactivity (HB 2065) and Keep Our Care Act (SB 4251) bills further through the legislative process than they ever had reached before;
Ensured that the civil rights protections in the Traffic Safety for All (HB 1513) and AG Civil Rights Investigation (HB 1445) bills remained strongly intact;
Prevented a number of bills that would have harmed civil rights and civil liberties from becoming law;
Secured additional funding to increase the number of immigrants eligible for Medicaid-like insurance;
And successfully advocated for a task force to study artificial intelligence to develop thoughtful, community-informed responses to complex policy challenges.
We are here for the long haul.
It can take multiple years and legislative sessions to see change. We’re committed to hope – and we’re already busy laying the groundwork for next year. While a number of our bills didn’t pass this year, we still made progress in the legislature, grew our coalitions, and strengthened community relationships. Your advocacy helped us build momentum that we’ll carry forward.
Thank you for showing up and supporting this work. Every action you took, sign-in submitted, message sent to a lawmaker, social media like or share made a difference.
The work continues and so too will our fight for a more equitable, safe, and just Washington.
On this special day, we celebrate the social, economic, cultural, and political achievements of women. That’s why Emerge’s work to recruit, train, and empower Democratic women is so important. Emerge is the only political organization that provides Democratic women of the New American Majority with the tools and support they need to run for office and win.
Our most basic rights are on the line. It’s never been more important for every elected official to meet this moment with utmost urgency to protect access to abortion and all forms of reproductive healthcare, including In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) treatments, protect the right to vote, and defend our democracy. But Republican officials continue their relentless attacks on these basic rights. That’s why we’re committed to replace them with bold Democratic women who will take our country forward, not back.
We’re doubling down on efforts in 2024 to recruit and train even more bold Democratic women to defeat the GOP’s dangerous agenda and deliver for all our communities. But none of this crucial work is possible without supporters like you.
