Zohran Mamdani has gained a lot from ‘playing ball’ with the Black political establishment in New York. But if he wants to achieve his agenda in the long-term, he must turn to the Black socialist insurgents.
The role of community organizing will be critical in stopping the oligarchs and rebuilding American democracy. Central in that field are tenants unions, who are at the forefront of the movement for affordable housing and balancing the scales in an increasingly corporate-controlled housing market. But it’s not an easy thing to begin from scratch.
The Tenant Union Federation (TUF) is holding an intensive weekly training course on organizing tenant unions: Union School. We’ll learn about landlord research, scouting, organizing conversations, leadership assessment, blitz, demands, union launch, target analysis, communications, strategy, bargaining, and strikes. Last year, this training helped support union launches from Albany to Cincinnati to Colorado Springs to Missoula. 💪🏻 We get more details here, take an info session to get a better sense of what it’s all about on May 27th here, and apply to join by June 15th here. 💪🏾
💵 Meanwhile, Bozeman Tenants United is standing firm in the first rent strike in Montana in nearly five decades. We can follow along for updates on social media here, and donate to their strike fund to ensure tenants can afford legal support and deal with whatever else comes up in this fight here. 💵
Conventional wisdom has it that the only way to end the Citizens United regime is for a future Supreme Court to overturn it or to amend the Constitution – getting two-thirds of both houses of Congress and three-quarters of state legislatures to defy the billionaires and big businesses. But analysts led by Center for American Progress fellow and former FEC lawyer Tom Moore have been pushing an innovative approach to take on corporate power: rewriting state codes to explicitly deny corporations they charter the authority to spend in elections.
This idea has taken off. Legislation pursuing this method of end-running Citizens United has been introduced in 15 states (see the list here), and folks in Montana are trying to push it through as a ballot initiative. Hawai’i passed their version, S.B. 2471, nearly unanimously, and yesterday Governor Josh Green signed it into law. This could be a game-changer.
This, to be clear, is not a perfect or complete solution. We are going to see legal challenges against this effort for years to come, in a judicial system stacked with the sort of right-wing judges who caused this mess in the first place. Even if it does stand, it impacts corporations, not individuals - folks like Elon Musk, Ken Griffin, Richard Uihlein and Jeff Yass will still be able to spend what they want. But we’re talking about getting billions out of our elections, the first major disruption to this crooked system. And we’re talking about rejecting the ridiculous idea of “corporate personhood” that has been forced on us by the puppets of the powerful. We are taking power back for regular Americans and restoring a little bit of sanity to politics.
Let’s make sure Hawai’i is just the beginning.
🗣️ We can contact our own legislators and governors and ask them follow the Aloha State’s lead. We can find call scripts here and email language here, or send this message directly using Resistbot by texting SIGN PSIYZJ to 50409. We can also check whether there are bills already introduced in our state we can encourage them to support here. 🗣️
🙋🏽♀️ We can also join the fight to pass it via ballot initiative in Montana. If we’re in the state, we can find out how to add our signature to get it on the ballot here and sign up to volunteer here. The Transparent Election Initiative will also be holding a webinar on Monday at 7PM ET/5PM MT about “the Montana Plan,” emphasizing how supporters across the country can help advance I-194. Let’s sign up to join them here. 🙋🏻♀️
GET INVOLVED FROM ANYWHERE MON @ 7PM ET
🙋🏿We can get more information and sign up to be part of this movement with the Transparent Election Initiative here. 🙋🏻
🔁 And we can share this video explaining this new approach with our networks. Huge majorities of Americans have long wanted to take our country back from the oligarchs, let’s them know we’ve got a plan! 🔁
The cause of labor remains the hope of the world. Organized labor is a powerful force against income inequality and the influence of the oligarchs, and historically has been a key pillar in the struggle against authoritarianism. The Trump regime clearly understands that, and they’ve prioritized union-busting. Every single American who believes in economic justice and democracy should be looking for opportunities to stand in solidarity with union organizers.
Some of the toughest and most creative leaders in the labor movement, led by Association of Flight Attendants president Sara Nelson, have launched a new initiative to help grow the labor movement. Union Now is a national worker power and organizing fund, providing resources to strengthen the hand of new unions negotiating with powerful businesses and fill the coffers of strike funds whenever it’s needed, helping workers stay on the picket line long enough to win. (Labor journalist Hamilton Nolan makes the case for this effort here.) ⚒️ We can help directly fund organizing activity by donating to Union Now here. ⚒️