The Fight is in the States (12/5/21)
It has been a brutal week. Many of us are still reeling from the chilling Supreme Court oral argument that spells the almost certain decimation of Roe v Wade. In Oxford, Michigan there was another tragic school shooting by a teenager. And we continue to lose over 1,100 people a day in the U.S. to Covid and that is before we know the impact of the new Omicron variant discovered this week and already circulating in our country.
We are exhausted and angry and many have asked what can we do?
The answer is "state by state". One thing is clear. The power is being thrown to the states – as the conservative Justices on the Supreme Court made explicit in their colloquies from the bench -- and the ongoing attempt to subvert democracy by Republicans in state capitols around the country seems to be gaining speed.
A silver lining to this gloomy week is that Markers For Democracy has been engaged in the work of electing Democrats to state legislatures for four years.
Markers For Democracy knows that progress on all of these issues -- reproductive rights, gun violence, democracy protection, and public health measures to control COVID -- starts in the states. Now that the Supreme Court appears ready to overrule or at the very least severely undermine Roe v. Wade, state legislatures will be where reproductive rights are protected or obliterated. We saw what happened in Texas. The case before the Supreme Court came out of Mississippi. It seems clear that every state with a Republican majority in its state legislature will enact laws restricting or outlawing abortion as soon as the ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health is released. That could very well include "purple" states like Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.
You can help us protect reproductive rights and democracy, make progress on sensible gun control, and find a way out of this pandemic by joining our Markers For Democracy 2022 Giving Circle to support Democratic candidates at the state level. We will be back in Arizona and Pennsylvania in 2022 and the Democratic caucuses are ready to put early money to good use. Both states have Republican legislatures, but The States Project (formerly Future Now) has identified them as states where we can make progress toward building a Democratic majority in at least one chamber which would help to protect these fundamental rights.
If the Supreme Court is not going to stand up for us, then we need lawmakers in the states who will. Join our 2022 giving circle and let's work on shoring up state legislatures as that is where the fight is going to be. Let's take our anger and do something about it. Join us!