VICTORIES

Indivisible Tacoma Interconnected Success Stories  2018-2024

Leadership:

• Strong Leadership: The current leadership created a new organizing model when we were asked to step up in 2018.   Since then we have had a strong and involved Steering Team from 9-12 people, an outstanding Legislative Action Team (LAT) working in two areas: Elections and Lobbying; Go4Action, Membership, and Communications Teams.
• Strong Allyship: We made strong connections with a number of activists/ally groups through our joint work on key issues (LNG plant and fossil fuel expansion, building of warehouses, tree canopy, criminalization of homelessness, NW Detention Center, high speed police chases and police violence, renter protection, school boards targeted by extremists, climate change, rail transportation, etc.)
• Building Leadership through Allyship: Through these connections, we invited key activists onto our Steering Team, and the diversity of representation, thought, and ideas has served us well.
• Clarification of Values: We have shifted from “Resisting Trump” to a broad list of positive values displayed on our Rack Cards and Candidate Cards.
• Results: A Milieu of Support, Appreciation, and Respect: After growing pains in 2018, ground rules for communication among members, on social media, among Teams and Allies established strong bonds among leaders and everyone became especially kind and supportive of one another.

Elections:

• Endorsements: We have developed processes for researching, vetting, and endorsing candidates for local and state elections.  We have refined criteria for three levels of support, depending on how well a candidate represents our values:  Endorse, Recommend, and Prefer.
• Priorities and Liaisons: During and after the endorsement process, we identify the races where our assistance can make the greatest difference –  “priority” races –  and ask for volunteers to become liaisons.  In two cases Steering Team members have become Campaign Managers in contentious campaigns where we won – one at the state level and one at the city level.
• Candidate Cards and Canvassing: We have been able to assist campaigns with strong door-knocking amounting to thousands of doors. We distributed almost 2000 Candidate Cards with our endorsements in 2022, and we distributed our 2023 Candidate Cards to help voters in local elections.
• Candidate Forums: We host candidate forums for our endorsed local candidates in odd years and state and national candidates in even years, so members can meet candidates, get more information, and volunteer for them.  In 2023, we organized Candidate Forums and door-knocking events that covered candidates for Port of Tacoma, Pierce County Council, City of Tacoma, School Boards in Lakewood, UP, and Puyallup and supported Tacoma’s Tenant Bill of Rights Initiative.
• Results: Overall we knocked tens of thousands of doors, endorsed, posted signs, phoned, and hosted candidate forums to help:

2017 – Flip the WA State Senate by electing Manka Dhingra in LD45

2018 – Flip WA LD28 House Seat 1 to Rep. Mari Leavitt and re-elect Rep. Christine Kilduff

Flip CD8 to US Rep. Kim Schrier; Re-elect US Senator Cantwell & WA Justice Steve Gonzalez

2019 – Elect first woman of color in history to the Port of Tacoma – Commissioner Kristin Ang

2020 – Elect President Joe Biden, VP Kamala Harris, and US Senate and Congressional Representatives

Flip WA LD28 to Sen. T’wina Nobles, re-elect Rep. Leavitt and elect LD28 Rep. Dan Bronoske

Flip Pierce County Council with electing Jani Hitchen to District 6

Flip WA State Treasurer to Mike Pellicciotti and re-elect WA Supt Public Instruction Chris Reykdal

Elect WA Supreme Court Justices Raquel Montoya-Lewis and G. Helen Whitener

2021 – Elect Elizabeth Grasher to Steilacoom Town Council in highly contested election

            2022 – Re-elect LD28 Reps. Dan Bronoske and Mari Leavitt against deceptive opposition

            Flip SOS to Steve Hobbs, re-elect US Rep. Marilyn Strickland, elect Pierce County Council Robyn Denson, Dist 7

            2023 – Elect 17 candidates for Port, City Councils, School Boards and Tacoma’s Tenant Bill of Rights Initiative

Member and Volunteer Engagement:

• New Logos and Rack Cards: Our new Rack Cards identify Indivisible Tacoma values and activities with a more heartwarming logo and new slogan, “Indivisible Tacoma: Democracy, Earth, Justice”
• Webpage, FaceBook, and Newsletter: We are in the process of completely revamping our webpage.  Our FB and Mailchimp News remain our main tools of communication.
• Voter Engagement and Registration Team at Community Events: We have updated our tabling booth with our new logo on a tablecloth and banner.  We have a Team presence at 20+ community events each year where we share our Rack cards, advocate for our values, promote voting and citizen engagement, recruit new IT members and volunteers for campaigns, talk with other community organizations, and, when appropriate, distribute Candidate Cards.
• Marches and Rallies: We hosted many successful marches, rallies, and protests before COVID.  We now co-sponsor and sign onto marches and rallies sponsored by allied groups, mobilize our members to participate, and promote them through our media.
• Results: We engage voters at our booths at 20+ events per year. We join local allies to advocate through public testimony, contacting officials, writing letters to the editor, and with rallies and demonstrations:  Opposing fossil fuel and warehouse expansion, changing policing practices, housing justice, protecting school boards and equity policies, protecting salmon and endangered species and other policies based on our values.

Lobbying:  MOC, MOWL, State and National

             MOC (Member of Congress) and MOWL (Member of WA Legislature) Meetings

• MOC Meetings: Indivisible Tacoma has met approximately three times a year with the Staff members of Senators Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell, and directly with our Congressional Representatives:  originally Denny Heck, now Marilyn Strickland (Dist. 10); and Derek Kilmer (Dist 6) either in person or virtually during and after COVID.
• MOWL Meetings: Indivisible Tacoma began by having a team for each of our three main LDs: 27, 28, and 29.  Then we began to meet regularly with two of our three Senators and four of our six Representatives separately about three times a year, often collaborating with allied groups to advocate on special issues.  We still want to develop better connections with LD29 groups and legislators.
• City, County, and Port Contacts: We have been able to monitor the activities of several cities within our purview, Tacoma being the largest and most complicated, but also including Dupont, Fircrest, Lakewood, Steilacoom, and University Place with Fife added since redistricting. We write and call City and County Council members, and Port Commissioners and urge our members to do so.  We occasionally meet with them and testify in person or virtually.  We also try to provide support to Puyallup progressives as we can.
• State Lobbying with Take Action Network: We have an outstanding leader for our TAN effort.  Over just a few years she, in collaboration with the LAT, has substantially increased the IT participation in TAN.  We don’t have exact figures for how many contacts we have with State Legislators in our three Districts because she reaches our members through emails, phone calls, meetings, and social media as well as TAN, but certainly we have made multiple thousands of contacts every year.  We plan to add to the Team to help with bill tracking this year.

Results:  Indivisible Tacoma has built credibility and relationships with all our MOCs and MOWLs.  They take our contacts and issues seriously, meet with us regularly, and sometimes they call us about issues.  With the WA Democratic trifecta and larger majorities in the WA State Legislature and with the TAN system helping us focus our contacts in the most timely manner, we have seen more of our policies made into laws.  For example, we worked especially hard to get Eyman’s “advisory votes” off the ballot and to support a ban on assault weapons, among many others.