NDTC Learning Plans are curated bundles of expert-backed coursework on a range of campaign-related topics.
We offer a host of Learning Plans suited to your needs in our Online Academy! You’re able to track your progress and we ensure your courses are relevant towards your goals.
Since the year is just getting underway, we suggest the Explore a Run for Office Learning Plan. By the end, you’ll be able to express your “Story of Self” and walk away with a comprehensive understanding of the current Democratic landscape.
The precinct chair wears many hats since they support voter turnout efforts and collect data about a specific precinct. They serve as a key link between a local Democratic party and the very voters campaigns must target.
Learn about this pivotal role in your community and strategies for ongoing engagement in this critical election year.
This training is all about breaking down all the essential factors when setting up the organizational structure of your local party.
Join us as we dive into the nitty-gritty of setting up a local party, including the role of working groups as well as constituency groups. By the end, you will walk away with actionable insights for structuring your own community of local leaders.
Once your local party has a working structure, it’s time to tap qualified candidates to run for office. Oftentimes, this looks like approaching leaders within your community to run for the very first time.
Don’t be intimidated – get motivated! This training gives you the tools to make the ask, as well as the best places to find such potential
And it doesn’t stop there! You can always visit the Online Academy’s Course Catalog, set up a free account, and keep track of your progress while taking advantage of our extensive course offerings.
Next week, two crucial hearings will take place that could significantly impact our mission. Your presence and participation are urgently needed. We are on a mission to make sure every voice that wants to be heard is at the table. If you would like us to automatically add your name in PRO for the bills that we have outlined in our agenda, click the link below. This is the best way to make sure you’re being heard, and will save you a lot of time signing in individually.
While we don’t require a large physical presence on this day, your online participation is critical. There will be a hearing on SB 5444, a lifesaving measure designed to keep firearms out of places like our parks, libraries, zoos, and transit centers. Legislators are already receiving a high volume of opposition messages. It’s imperative that they hear our collective voice too.
THIS IS THE BIG ONE! The House Civil Rights and Judiciary Committee will be hearing FIVE extremely important bills, and we need your help in voicing your support for life-saving gun violence prevention policies.
Hearings on Key Bills:
HB 1902: Permit to Purchase
HB 2054: Bulk Weapons Purchases
HB 1903: Reporting of Lost or Stolen Firearms
HB 2118: Dealer Accountability
HB 2021: Keeping Crime Guns Off the Street
This is a crucial day for us. We must show our strength in numbers and make our collective voice heard.
Every email, every sign-in, and every testimony makes a difference. Lawmakers do take note of our collective actions. Let’s ensure they hear loud and clear from their constituents.
Together, we can make a difference in the fight against gun violence. Thank you for standing with us in this crucial fight.
Warm Regards,
Alex (she/her)
Field Organizer
Alliance for Gun Responsibility
P.S. If you haven’t seen it yet, you can check out our legislative agenda here.
While many New Year’s resolutions are about attitude or behavior changes, ever considered making yours running for office? It’s totally possible – and this can be your starting line.
Next Monday, join a community of fellow engaged Democrats who are also considering making an impact in their communities by running for office. Our trainer will guide you through all of the considerations and possibilities, equipping you with the knowledge to make this important decision and even strategies for garnering support.
Even in the heart of conservative counties or precincts, Democrats can become catalysts for change. Join Tuesday’s training, where our expert trainer will unveil the secrets of organizing effectively in these ruby red districts.
You’ll delve into the unique considerations campaigns must navigate when venturing into red districts, from messaging tactics to field plans. Get ready to learn the strategies that help make waves in even challenging political landscapes.
Gain valuable insights into the pivotal role your local precinct chairs plays in driving turnout in your community. In an election year, no Democrat can afford to neglect voter turnout in their campaign plans!
Grassroots campaign initiatives and turnout are supported by precinct chairs. Learn how to engage yours, and other strategies for precinct organizing.
Gain valuable insights into the pivotal role your local precinct chairs plays in driving turnout in your community. In an election year, no Democrat can afford to neglect voter turnout in their campaign plans!
Grassroots campaign initiatives and turnout are supported by precinct chairs. Learn how to engage yours, and other strategies for precinct organizing.
And it doesn’t stop there! You can always visit the Online Academy’s Course Catalog, set up a free account, and keep track of your progress while taking advantage of our extensive course offerings.
We start 2024 with good news. We have progress on two legacy ARC issues.
Under the Better Practices heading we take up exciting progress on devising a solution for replacing barges on the Lower Snake for getting wheat to market. We started this work in 2019 by organizing a conference at Ice Harbor Dam.
For our Policy Briefing we revisit the Wolf-Cattle issue in Northeast Washington to report grudging progress. The wolf population is healthy and producers “have accepted that wolves are on the land and are there to stay.” Our first meeting on wolf-cattle management was in January 2018 in Colville. We repeated via Zoom in October 2020.
For each session I am able to work with friends. Bill Moyer, Solutionary Rail, will lead our Better Practices session. Jay Shepherd in Colville is organizing our meeting on Wolf management, as he did in 2020.
Please join us when you are interested and able. Invite your friends when inclined. All are welcome. Contact me if you would like the link to a meeting recording. You can check up on recent mailing by going to the posts on the website: arcwashdems.wordpress.com
Happy New Year,
Don 29 December 2023
January Schedule
Better Practices 6:30 pm Thursday 4 January : Rail solution to barges on Lower Snake River Bill Moyer, Solutionary Rail Thomas White, Climate Rail Alliance
Paste link into browser or click heading to go to meeting.
Data plus Administration
Data make a difference. And the data for wolf recovery in NE Washington are impressive. So much so that WDFW staff is recommending to the Commission a downlisting of wolves to “sensitive.” It is now up to the Commission.
Wolf count continues to rise. Livestock killed or injured roughly level, and greater than WDFW wolf removals in all years.
What about the politics behind administration? Julia Smith, Endangered Species Recovery Section Manager, Wildlife Program, wrote last October that “the number of livestock producers in Washington implementing proactive, non-lethal deterrence measures has markedly increased. Mitigating livestock depredation by wolves is critical to acceptance of wolves by local communities.”(emphasis added)
It seems that having cooperation on the ground helps move the program ahead.
It is important to report the other side of the political pressure. Ms. Smith was responding to a petition from advocacy groups that WDFW engage in rule-making to govern more precisely non-lethal practices and the rules for lethal removal. She noted that the current petition was the fifth similar petition from the same groups. The previous petition for rule making was endorsed by the governor. WDFW’s subsequent process elicited 10,000 comments. Of a subset of the comments, “SEPA-associated comments…WDFW received over 7,500 written submissions. Over 6,700 of these submissions were copies of or slight variations of one form letter and over 700 submissions were copies of or slight variations of another form letter.”
Back to data: “most wolf packs in Washington are not implicated in livestock depredation (86% on average over 14 years).”
This sounds like good news.
Don 16 January 2024
Wolf Management in North East Washington
When we first started looking at wolves and cattle in Stevens and Ferry counties one version of the question was simple: Why should we require cattle operators to lose calves to wolves reintroduced by Puget Sound wildlife advocates? The issue was sharpened by the refusal of the cattle operators to accept compensation for their economic loss because that would mean that they accepted the state’s policy of bringing the wolves back. On the other side, there were claims that cattle operators were deliberately pasturing their herds where they knew they would take losses.
There was mutual hostility between among the bureaucrats, the cattle operators, and the wolf advocates. No one trusted the other.
Where are we now? Has familiarity worn the edges off? Has the policy succeeded?
Just maybe. Just maybe wolf policy in the northern counties is good news. Julia Smith, presenting a Periodic Status Review last summer declared “Wolves are doing great…The species is gaining population.”
How about the people? How are they doing? Jay Shepard, our guest host, wrote in the Spokesman Review, “This part of the story – collaboration, work and stress – hasn’t made it out to the general public. It’s a story about hard work, tough conversations, and eventual trust and friendships. Not sensational but it’s a remarkable story that needs telling.”
He writes “we are working on potential paths forward, paths that include both cattle and wolves.”
This is a story not just about wolf recovery in the northern counties but also a story about the evolution of an issue. What Jay is reporting is a world apart from our initial conversations in Colville. The hostility of the ranchers then was on display, and easy to understand. Lack of trust in the WDFW wildlife managers was palatable. And, in language more familiar to us today, ranchers felt they were disrespected.
You do not hear quite the same language today in the northern counties. A prominent advocate for the ranchers now sits on WDFW’s Wolf Advisory Group.
Move to southeast Washington and you still do hear some the same rhetoric. You also continue to hear uncompromising language from some wildlife advocates (see box below).
Join Jay and Representative Joel Kretz (R-LD7) Thursday to hear the good news of wolf-cattle interaction and how the issue may have evolved in the northern counties. We can query, too, whether the rest of us need to catch up with their evolution.
Don 12 January 2024
A Long Story….with a Happy Ending
Back in 2018 I arrived at a September Democratic Central Committee meeting expecting a routine weekend. Meeting in a corridor, a friend leans over and asks if I know about the resolution to remove the Lower Snake River dams. Of course, I did not. But the same thing had happened at the previous meeting in June, except then the dams were to be removed by December. Ken Caylor, chair of the resolutions committee, at that time had managed to table the resolution.
I reached out to Steve Verhey who knew the authors of the resolution. We talked about how devastating the resolution was to our struggling Democratic candidates and how we could get away from “gotcha” resolutions in the future. Steve thought he could table the resolution if I could commit to “accepting in principle” that the dams might be removed. I agreed, and Steve delivered. I was comfortable with the idea that the dam question would be settled by data and analysis.
Steve and I met later that spring in Mattawa at La Popular restaurant to hash out a plan of what would have to be done in advance if the dams were removed. At the time we thought navigation/barging was the most tractable element of the dam question. We were wrong.
The barging issue turned out to be the least tractable. The Ag and Rural Caucus went to work on how to replace the power the dams produced, studied the agricultural and recreation sides of the issue, and evaluated the claims that the dams were responsible for the failing salmon runs. Along the way, we developed the idea of ex ante mitigation to hedge the region’s bet on the dams.
We failed, though, to get anyone to talk to us about how to replace the barges. ARC punted on the barge issue until the Corps released its EIS on operation of the Columbia and Snake rivers.
The Corps report was impressive. It reported much of the data we had been seeking, couched in a pessimistic assessment of the effects of dam breaching on the price of moving Palouse wheat. One part of the picture was missing, however. There was no development of the fact that the State of Washington owns a patchwork of short line rail in the Palouse and the rail cars that go along with moving grain. WSDOT, likewise, showed no interest in investing in its owned asset to address possible loss of the barges. For WSDOT, it was business as usual, and slow business at that.
Maybe two years ago, I recall complaining to Senator Murray’s person in Spokane about the lack of serious analysis of WSDOT short line capability. I said, “No one is doing this analysis.”
Again, I was wrong. And this is the happy ending to this story. A couple of months later, Bill Moyer and Solutionary Rail, reached out to me with a fantastic set of slides documenting in detail the condition of the WSDOT short lines. I have forgotten how and why we got in touch. I do not know, either, how a group of rail enthusiasts from Puget Sound have become so committed to making something work for us in eastern Washington.
What we will talk about Thursday is Solutionary Rail’s detailed plan of creating a Sprague to Pasco Short Line Access Corridor, building on WSDOT rail, that breaks the monopolies enjoyed by the mainlines and sets the stage for a full short line alternative for moving grain to a terminal at Pasco.
This story also comes around to the beginning. Ormand Hilderbrand and I were invited early last fall to join the Environment and Climate Caucus, chaired by Steve Verhey, to work with Lael White and Thomas While to develop a resolution supporting a rail alternative to barging on the Snake. This is the resolution for which I asked your advice last November. It is going to the Central Committee meeting at the end of January.
Don 2 January 2024
For a more accurate picture of what happened back in 2018, I link my Thinking the Unthinkable update I wrote at the time.
Our Better Practices roundtable is on the first Thursday of each month at 6:30 pm.. Use the link above for 2024.
Our Policy Series is on the third Thursday of each month at 6:30 pm. Use the link above for 2024.
We met Thursday to figure out how to talk about immigration in our red districts. It was a “Better Practices” session. What we came up with was, “let’s talk Policy.” We can agree with Republicans that our border policy needs repair. Maybe not just repair but a major overhaul. We can agree on that much.
We will not agree that migrants are criminals. We will not agree to any kind of replacement conspiracy. And we will not agree that immigrants are stealing jobs from good Americans.
We can leave those disagreements on the sidelines, for now. We can agree with our neighbors that we need to overhaul our immigration policy. Republicans for their part think they want to close the borders. We Democrats look ahead to climate refugees flooding north and know that we are not ready.
I say Republicans “think” they want to close the border. Pre-MAGA Republicans were ready to deal because they wanted workers. They understood our riposte that “who is going to pay our social security” if we don’t import labor to stabilize our wage-earning population; they understood when we asked “who is going to harvest the food for our dinner table.”
For a policy overhaul we need at least a few Republicans who know their economic calculus. Business needs labor. Local public officials need tax revenue, and local retailers like costumers coming through the door.
Maybe we best should start small. Fund the immigration courts to do their job, for example…shorten the backlogs. If we need a counter offer, we can agree to hire (and train) more border security. More boldly, we can push to legalize DACA.. Maybe we could even provide a pathway to citizenship for the 10-11 million people working under the table and legalize their employment, to the mutual relief of employee and employer.
This may be wishful thinking. What may be the most we can hope for is to agree that our immigration policy needs to be fixed. We don’t have to affix blame for “a broken policy.” We can ask politely “what do you think we should do about it?” And then we can respond with stories, mixed with facts, about our own histories and those of our friends. Maybe we can move the dial.
Don 10 December 2023
Our Better Practices roundtable is on the first Thursday of each month at 6:30 pm.. Use the link above for 2023.
Our Policy Series is on the third Thursday of each month at 6:30 pm. Use the link above for 2023.
All of us at NDTC want to wish you a restful, joyful holiday season.
We are taking a break for the next two weeks so we can come back recharged and energized for the big things in 2024. We have some exciting programs in the works that we cannot wait to share with you in the new year!
There are Democrats everywhere – even in the most ruby red districts. When Democrats step up to run in these conservative areas, they play a large role in mobilizing voters for change.
This training will lay out the special considerations campaigns should keep in mind if running in a red district. Learn basic messaging as well as field tactics you can use to better identify Democrats or undecided voters in your community.
Your local Democratic infrastructure, from volunteers to precinct captains, is the key to victory come Election Day.
This training goes over many of these essential components, including understanding the positions within local Democratic Parties as well as ways to engage local membership.
In our first NDTC Expert Q&A of 2024, we’re bringing together presidential campaign experts and veterans to discuss their own experiences reaching and rallying voters. NDTC Expert Q&As are special virtual events where you have the opportunity to hear candidly from multiple experts and ask your own questions.
Our experts will set the tone for 2024, discussing key messaging points, tactics for aligning with the Biden reelection efforts, and ways to overcome Republican misinformation. Don’t miss out on this fantastic panel!
And it doesn’t stop there! You can always visit the Online Academy’s Course Catalog, set up a free account, and keep track of your progress while taking advantage of our extensive course offerings.
✅January: Tens of thousands of us marched in 35 states and Washington, DC, on the 51st anniversary of Roe v. Wade — to secure abortion access, counter far-right extremism, and start galvanizing voters toward the November elections.
✅February: 5,000 of us became Digital Defenders and learned critical skills in having difficult conversations about Trump, MAGA, and Fascism.
✅March: On Super Tuesday, thousands of us participated in mass, online disturbed actions, strategizing to defeat defendant Trump and stop his threat to democracy in its tracks.
✅March: Hundreds of us put our bodies on the line in DC, and 13 of us got arrested in defense of Mifepristone.
In the weeks and months to come, Women’s Marchers will:
⏩April 22-23: Hundreds will engage in decentralized actions to spread the word all across the country: women are watching the compromised Supreme Court and the politicians that back them & feminists will always trump fascists.
⏩April 24: Dozens of Jezebels will gather in Washington, DC, to take action at SCOTUS while they decide the fate of the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act.
⏩April 25: Hundreds of us will assemble Washington, DC to sound the alarm that #JusticeCantWait as SCOTUS decides if Defendant Trump will be held accountable for his failed insurrection.
⏩May: Thousands will join the Digital Defense Night School: a virtual gathering to learn the skills necessary to counter election disinformation, misinformation, and deep fakes and to correct false narratives as we approach the elections.
⏩June: Thousands of us will be back out in the streets as the compromised Supreme Court announces the fate of Mifepristone, EMTALA, and Defendant Trump – all around the anniversary of their gutting of Roe v Wade.
⏩July: Hundreds of us will get to know our neighbors better as we launch “Knock Your Block” Parties across the country.
And these are only some of the actions in the pipeline. There are many more fights to come – in the streets, at the voting booth, and at state capitols all over the country. We need to stay sharp so that feminism trumps fascism in 2024.
Women’s March is conducting a nationwide survey to see how our movement is holding up and what levels of action our base is willing to take now that the 2024 election season is in full swing. The survey only takes a minute to fill out. And it’s important for us to get 100% participation — so please click the link below to finish your survey.
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.
It sounds obvious, but there’s nowhere more important for Democratic leaders to step up than red, conservative districts! Just by running, Democrats can build community and infrastructure for future elections.
This training walks you through the essential considerations of running for office in a red area. With a special emphasis on precinct prioritization, you’ll walk away with more confidence in reaching out to potential Democratic voters.
A big priority for 2024 needs to be mobilizing voters. Using the momentum of a Presidential election year, Democrats have the chance to energize voters for the down ballot races that really affect their communities.
A precinct chair or captain plays a critical role in this process in the field. Learn about engaging precinct chairs and other components of organizing year-round in this fundamental training.
In our first NDTC Expert Q&A of 2024, we’re bringing together presidential campaign experts and veterans to discuss their own experiences reaching and rallying voters. NDTC Expert Q&As are special virtual events where you have the opportunity to hear candidly from multiple experts and ask your own questions.
Our experts will set the tone for 2024, discussing key messaging points, tactics for aligning with the Biden reelection efforts, and ways to overcome Republican misinformation. Don’t miss out on this fantastic panel!
And it doesn’t stop there! You can always visit the Online Academy’s Course Catalog, set up a free account, and keep track of your progress while taking advantage of our extensive course offerings.
I would like to invite you to a Citizen’s Legislative Workshop on Dec. 7 from 7 to 8:30 p.m. at the Richland Public Library, located at 955 Northgate Dr., Richland, WA.
Join me and Washington State 8th District Representatives Stephanie Barnard and April Connors to learn to how to navigate the legislative process.
I feel that empowering our community through active participation and engagement is the cornerstone of a thriving democracy. At the Dec. 7 legislative workshop, we will focus on breaking down barriers and opening pathways for every constituent in the 8th Legislative District to have their voice heard. Together, we can enhance our collective understanding, encourage meaningful involvement, and ensure that every vote is not just counted, but also counts towards shaping a brighter, more inclusive future for us all.
