Uniting Our Voices: The Work Ahead

When we began this journey of change over two years ago, we began with hope and determination for a better place to live, to work, to play, to raise our children, our grandchildren (I've got ten beautiful grands). We dared to dream out of the box and elected a president that would bring about that change. In the back of our minds, we knew opposition would be strong, but we forged forward despite negative attacks and we won.

It was our united voices from all aspects of society, political thought, the young, the seniors and all those in between. That unity, that dream, that determination brought us to this point. Let us not forget how we got here and continue to unite our voices and move ahead.

There's work to be done!

Monday marks the beginning of yet another defining moment in our history as Judge Sotomayor goes before the United States Senate for her confirmation hearings for a seat on the highest court in our nation. This is, indeed, a grand moment. Unfortunately, not everyone would agree with me on that and the naysayers are lining up. In the words of Vice President Biden:

Judge Sotomayor's brilliance and unique legal qualifications have stood strong against fierce scrutiny. Law enforcement officials have praised her tough-mindedness and experience as a prosecutor and trial judge, and just this week she earned the highest possible rating from the American Bar Association. There's no doubt -- the President picked the right person for the job.

Unfortunately, some people would rather try anything to score political points than debate honestly about the facts. Some people are even trying to say Judge Sotomayor's proud record as a civil rights advocate in the Latino community is evidence of "extremism." Well, there was a time when standing up for the disadvantaged and fighting for equal rights was called extreme -- but now we just call it doing what's right.

Now is the critical moment for us to stand up and fight back against these attacks.

Visit our online action center now. The action center has all the tools you need to write a letter to the editor, tell your senators why Judge Sotomayor should be our next Supreme Court Justice, and spread the word to everyone you know.

Access to Affordable Quality Health Care with a Strong Public Option

In Connecticut, we watched as our Governor seemingly ignored the united voice of the people and vetoed two critical bills that would have launched a viable health care reform in our state. We must continue this fight for health care justice on the federal level and support President Obama in bringing about health care reform for our country. Organizing for America Director Mitch Stewart had this to say in his recent blog post:

As we speak, key committees in Congress are weighing options and making final decisions about how to tackle health care reform. This could be one of the last opportunities to shape the legislation before it's written.

The behind-the-scenes committee negotiations aren't front-page news, but the lobbyists trying to block reform are following every detail, and they won't miss a day. If the final plan is to uphold President Obama's principles of reduced costs, guaranteed choice -- including the choice of a robust public insurance option -- and quality care for all, your voice must be heard.

Organizing for Connecticut has spent the last week coming up with ideas to reach as many people as we can to support the President's health care reform.

We're going door-to-door, making phone calls and reaching out to folks at various events such as community garden clean ups, homeless shelters, churches and community organizations, letting them know the facts about the President's plan and gathering their support through declaration signatures.

The key to our success on November 4th and now is our united voice. If you cannot make it out to an log onto the action center and write a letter to our elected leaders and urge their support for the President's health care plan. The action center has all the tools you need to make calls, write letters, create a canvass to go door to door and more.

Organizing for Connecticut is reaching out to all of our partners and teaming up to pool our resources and help with immediate issues while simultaneously fighting for health care reform, fighting for Judge Sotomayor's confirmation on the US Supreme Court, fighting to tell the truth about our new greener economy under President Obama's administration, sharing with people the good works that this administration is already doing.

Join the conference call on Tuesday and help make change happen.

Thank you for all that you do.

Val McCall, State Chair
Organizing for Connecticut


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