Staffing Ramp Up
Kamala’s team announced that they will have more than 65 paid staffers organizing in Iowa this summer! That’s a dramatic ramp up of staffing in Iowa and shows that Kamala is aiming to win Iowa. As Iowa chair Deidre DeJear said, “It’s game on”.
California Sen. Kamala Harris is scaling up her focus on Iowa, promising to bring on at least 65 paid staffers by July and launch a summer organizing push targeted at the precinct level.
"It's game on," said Harris' Iowa campaign chairwoman, Deidre DeJear.
DeJear said the slower build-up here was an intentional effort to conserve resources, ensure organizers don't burn out, and wait for potential caucusgoers to become more engaged.
"Our campaign has been really strategic about ensuring that we are building a campaign that’s going to last throughout the duration of this caucus season and give her a springboard into Super Tuesday and all of the other elections that are going on throughout the country," DeJear said.
Kamala’s approach has been a steady build-up and her campaign is now entering a period of intense activity. Exciting!
The new staffers are excited to join Team Kamala — they’ve been posting how much it means to them on social media.
We don’t have numbers on the new staffers in other early primary states, but judging by Twitter posts, Team Kamala is ramping up in other states too!
New Hampshire!
South Carolina!
Nevada!
Baltimore HQ!
Kamala’s hubby Doug visited Kamala HQ in Baltimore yesterday and look at all those smiles! A campaign #ForThePeople that looks like the people.
Policy
Kamala and her team have been pushing out policies and plans designed #ForThePeople. Some of those are well known and some are under the radar. Some are big ticket policy items, while others have a small price tags, but all would improve people’s lives. Here are a few of them that I’ve seen articles written about in the last few days (Kamala’s released other policy proposals during this campaign, but these are just some I saw articles about in the last few days).
Reproductive Rights Act
Last week Kamala released her Reproductive Rights Act. A law, if enacted, that would require DoJ pre-clearance for state laws targeting abortion access, similar to the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Elise Boddy likes Kamala’s idea and argues that the pre-clearance idea should be extended to other areas.
We need more ideas like the one Senator Kamala Harris of California proposed last week to stop abortion laws from going into effect unless the federal government agrees they comply with Roe v. Wade.
This idea, known as preclearance, is widely considered the single most effective civil rights tool in American history, because it blocks bad policies before they can take root and spread harm across generations.
Ms. Harris’s proposal focuses on laws that harm women. But the concept ought to be extended to racial disadvantage. Every presidential candidate should offer similar proposals in areas like policing, housing, education and transportation. It’s the best way to stop discrimination.
Iowa Starting Line looks at how Kamala’s Reproductive Rights Plan would affect Iowa.
Miryam Lipper, Harris’s Iowa spokeswoman, said the plan is a response to the legislatures across the country that have passed restrictive abortion laws in the past few years.
“[Harris] created this policy to mirror the system set out in the Voting Rights Act, so the federal government can serve as a backstop for unconstitutional laws,” Lipper said.
This includes Iowa.
If implemented, the plan would target Iowa’s record of attempting to restrict abortion access and influence its ability to pass new abortion legislation in the future.
Recent abortion-related policies in Iowa have included the 2018 fetal heartbeat bill and a 2017 bill meant to impose a 72-hour waiting period for women seeking abortions. Both were struck down by the judiciary in Iowa.
Maternal CARE Act
Kamala led the way in introducing her maternal CARE Act in 2018 — a plan to establish anti implicit-bias training in medical schools to combat the elevated maternal mortality rate that black mothers face.
Senator and presidential candidate Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) reintroduced her 2018 bill that seeks to address rising maternal mortality rates, particularly among black women. Harris’s Maternal CARE Act, and the accompanying House version, would authorize $150 million toward programs that seek to help medical professionals identify high-risk pregnancies and establish implicit-bias training curriculum for medical schools.
Her bill seeks to address a deeply troubling development: Severe maternal complications have more than doubled in the past 20 years and the U.S. maternal mortality rate has become the highest among high-income countries. Estimates of the maternal mortality rate span from 17.2 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) to 30.1 women per 100,000 births from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation.
Kamala’s Suite of Policies for Women and Families
Romper took a look at the suite of policies that Kamala has put forward focused on working women, mothers, families and children. These policies include: equal pay, paid family leave, tax credits for working families, quality child care, and universal pre-k.
Harris shared that her mother didn’t stand for complaining, and that’s actually why she’s thrown her hat into the ring: "She’d say, ‘Well, what are you going to do about it, Kamala?’, and so I decided to run for President of the United States." Harris officially announced her candidacy in January, according to The New York Times.
This passion and her understanding of the critically important role women play in the U.S. economy has led Harris to develop a suite of policies that would provide a dramatic boost to the quality of life for working women and their families. Here’s a look at a few of the ways Harris could change the game for those of us holding up the sky.
Equal Defense Act
This week, Kamala wrote an op-ed in The Root, outlining her Equal Defense Act, which aims to give public defenders the resources and pay they need in order to be effective in their critically important jobs.
The consequences of inadequate representation are especially worrying for communities of color, which experience institutional racism within the criminal justice system. A staggering 77 percent of black defendants facing criminal charges in state courts rely on public defenders—when those attorneys aren’t equipped to do their jobs, it’s often our communities that suffer most.
Defendants in criminal cases need lawyers who have enough time, money, and resources to unearth all of the facts in their cases. They need lawyers who can stand up in court, fully prepared to challenge the prosecution.
That is why I recently introduced the EQUAL Defense Act (pdf), which makes a serious investment in our state and local public defense systems by providing the resources that lawyers need to give every client’s case the time and attention it deserves. It will attack these injustices head-on by providing more resources for training, capping attorneys’ workloads, and bringing more people into the profession by making sure public defenders are paid on par with prosecutors.
21st Century STEM for Girls and Underrepresented Minorities Act
This week, Blavity had an article about the 21st Century STEM for Girls and Underrepresented Minorities Act that Kamala released last month.
With a little help from Congress, we could soon expand STEM programs and see a positive shift in the way school staff considers race and gender in classrooms.
Presidential candidate Sen. Kamala Harris introduced the 21st Century STEM for Girls and Underrepresented Minorities Act this year, which could drastically change the way we use grant money for science and technology training and programming. If passed, the law would put protocol in place that would reduce racial and gender bias in low-income communities, and implement more after-school STEM clubs.
Clean School Bus Act
Just introduced yesterday, Kamala’s Clean School Bus Act would provide funding to replace all diesel school buses in the country with clean electric ones!
Sen. Harris will announce a bill today to authorize $200 million annually from 2020-24 for the Energy Department to fund a Clean Bus Grant Program, Anthony reports. Grants of up to $2 million would help communities swap diesel buses for electric ones, and priority would be given to lower-income students and the most polluting vehicles.
Volunteer Organizing
Camp Kamala Session 3
If you missed it, here’s Camp Kamala Session 3:
National Digital Organizer Alaina Haworth and Director of Online Organizing Jose Nunez focused on the volunteer opportunities that will be available in the campaign: phone/text banking, canvassing and watch party hosting. They specifically mentioned that they need, need, need watch party hosts! Debate watch parties are key to Team Kamala’s strategy to build networks of volunteers. So if you can host a debate party, they need your help! They’ve put together a debate watch party toolkit and have organized trainings on how to host watch party (NOTE: new times!)
Sat, Jun 8, 12:00pm–1:00pm EDT
Sat, Jun 15, 12:00pm–1:00pm EDT
Thu, Jun 20, 6:30pm–7:30pm EDT
We don’t know yet which night Kamala will take the debate stage (either June 26 or 27) but the campaign wants to be ready to go when that’s announced next week — so if you can, please sign up to host a debate watch party!
A message from a Kamala supporter who volunteered at last weekend’s California Democratic Party Convention:
All this ramping up has me feeling like my new favorite gif!
If you’d like to volunteer to host one of our Kamala 2020 diaries, please leave your comment in the ”Calling all Volunteers” thread.
Even if you can’t commit to a weekly spot due to your busy schedules, guest bloggers are always welcomed!
Next week’s schedule
Please volunteer! Come share your story about why you support Kamala!
Sat. June 8—Cecelia S
Sun. June 9— noweasels
Monday, June 10th — WYgalinCali
Tuesday, June 11 — Diana in NoVa
Wednesday, June 12 —
Thursday, June 13 — snowman3
Friday, June 15 — rfltcammt
Saturday, June 16 —
Sunday, June 17 —
Let your voices be heard!
*Please remember this is a Kamala2020 group effort, & not a Daily Kos sponsored activity or endorsement.
Upcoming Events
June 7: Kamala will begin a two day campaign stop in Alabama. She will hold a women’s meet & greet in the Birmingham area on Friday evening, speaking out against the recent Alabama law to effectively ban abortion in the state & criminalize doctors.
June 8: Harris will be the keynote speaker at the Kennedy-Johnson-King luncheon. The convention will be held at Montgomery’s Renaissance Hotel.
June 8: Kamala Harris will be addressing the @SCNAACP at their Freedom Fund Dinner in Columbia SC. The banquet will be held at the Brookland Baptist conference center in West Columbia.
June 9th and 10th: Kamala Harris will make her fourth trip to Iowa on June 9 and 10, her campaign announced Wednesday.
The U.S. senator from California, one of more than 20 candidates vying for the 2020 Democratic nomination, plans to host a rally at the Cedar Rapids DoubleTree by Hilton hotel on June 9.
The rally is scheduled for 1:10 p.m. at the downtown hotel and is open to the public.
June 14 & June 15: On Friday, June 14, and Saturday, June 15, Senator Kamala Harris will return to Nevada to hold campaign events and meet with voters. Harris will speak at the 100 Black Men of America, Inc. 33rd Annual Conference in Las Vegas on Friday along with other events to be announced.
Jun 18: Kamala will hold a Reception in Midtown NYC! Check your email and RSVP. Limited tickets available starting at $100, more details closer to event.
June 26-27: The first debates will be held in Miami, Florida, and will be broadcast live on NBC, MSNBC and Telemundo.
July 16: Kamala will be in Iowa for the AARP/Des Moines Register Forums
July 30-31: The second debates will be held on July 30th and 31st in Detroit, Michigan, and will be broadcast live on CNN
Sept 12-13: The third debates will be held on September 12th and 13th, and will be broadcast by ABC and Univision.
Please remember to visit our community group page Kamala2020 and give us a follow, that way all our group efforts will appear in your stream, making it easy for everyone to keep up with our latest posts. As always, any who would like to join our group please leave us a comment and we’ll get your invitation right out to you!
Group Guidelines
The Kamala2020 community group has been created to positively support Senator Kamala Harris, and not to engage in negativity towards other community members or any other Democrats running in the 2020 primaries.
All should be made to feel welcomed here. What’s not welcomed here is petty bickering over any of our preferred candidates, or personal attacks on fellow Democrats. We’re not responsible for the actions of others who may offend, insult or attempt to sow discord and disunity — that’s on them.
What we are responsible for are our own words and actions — that’s 100% on us.
I’d like to ask all group members, as well as those dropping by who support or are interested in Kamala’s bid for the nomination, that we not respond to negativity from other campaign’s supporters with negativity. Let’s do better than our best and respond with respect, or try to hold our peace. Recipes and cat pics work, too
😃
Doing no harm costs us nothing... pie-fights will cost us everything.
While you’re here, don’t forget to visit Kamala’s Official Campaign Website and her Swag Shop for your favorite campaign gear!
If you’re on Twitter, please follow @KamalaHarris and @SenKamalaHarris
(If you’re not on Twitter, please bookmark those pages—the tweets and retweets are visible even to us non-tweeters!)
on Instagram: @kamalaharris
and facebook: KamalaHarris
If you have any questions or would like to volunteer to post a group diary, please kosmail the group.