Make Your Voice Heard! What Should Our Priorities Be for the 2020 Primary?

Make Your Voice Heard! What Should Our Priorities Be for the 2020 Primary?

What Should Indivisible’s Priorities Be for the 2020 Primaries?

Fill Out Our Survey and Tell us What You Think!

As the primary season rolls out, we at Indivisible Tacoma want to reflect your priorities in our visions, priorities, and plans, and in our feedback to Indivisible National. Please take a minute to let us know, and fill out our form below. Or, to go to the form page, click here,


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We Must Keep the Pressure On! Help Us Raise $500 and Indivisible U.S. Will Match Your Gift

With activists across the nation, we’ve pushed back against the Trump agenda and taken back the House. Now, we want to keep up the good work. We’ve set our goal to raise $500 this month for upcoming actions… AND Indivisible National has offered to match this goal, dollar for dollar — but only for support we receive in April!

Help us reach our goal and meet this matching challenge by chipping in $20.19 — your gift will go twice as far if you give today!

Indivisible Tacoma is completely volunteer-run and we operate on a shoestring budget.  Your contributions will help us pay for signs, printed materials, our website, email list, rent for our meeting venue at the Tahoma Unitarian Universal Congregation, voter registration booths, gas, snacks for volunteers, and other expenses.

Chip in $20.19 today so Indivisible Tacoma can keep organize, build power, and continue to fight back in 2019.

Donate to Indivisible Tacoma Today!

Thank you!

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Daily Action Alert!

Action Alerts!

Top Priority!

Felony Rights Restoration – Notifications

SB 5207 – Concerning notification of felony voting rights and restoration: One of the most persistent hurdles to re- enfranchisement of ex-prisoners is that oftentimes they don’t realize that their voting rights have been restored.

People are so used to the idea that this country disenfranchises you for life if you go to jail, that they don’t even bother trying to vote again once they’ve served their sentences. This bill would direct the Department of Corrections to let prisoners know that their voting rights are restored and instruct them how to register to vote, prior to the end of their sentences. This would close a huge gap in the prisoner-to-citizen pipeline in our state.

Currently this bill is on the House floor calendar for a second reading. It needs your support to come up for debate and a vote.

ACTION: Go to https://app.leg.wa.gov/billsummary?BillNumber=5207&Year=2019&Initiative=false and click the Comment box. Then comment. Also, call each of your local Reps and ask them to support getting the bill to the floor and done.

Today (Thursday 4.11.2019)

Gun Violence Prevention

Machine printed plastic firearms are extremely dangerous and undetectable! SHB 1739 Concerning firearms that are undetectable or untraceable.

House Substitute bill #1739 has passed the House, is in the Senate and was referred to Senate Committee Law and Justice on March 6th.

ACTION: Contact the Senate Rules Committee and ask them “Please support SHB 1739 Concerning firearms that are undetectable or untraceable and move this bill forward to a vote.

Talking Points:
  • Machine printed plastic firearms have no legitimate purpose in self-defense, sport shooting or hunting.
  • Machine printed plastic guns can be carried undetected aboard airplanes, into courtrooms and into school classrooms.
  • Machine printed plastic firearms are dangerous and without Constitutional protections.

Chair Lt. Governor Cyrus Habib (360) 786-7700 Vice Chair Senator Karen Keiser (360) 786-7664 Ranking Senator Mark Schoesler (360) 786-7620

Senate Rules email: ltgov@ltgov.wa.gov, Karen.Keiser@leg.wa.gov, mark.schoesler@leg.wa.gov

Friday (4.12.2019)

Reform Washington State’s Regressive Tax Code

Background: We have an upside-down tax code that forces the poorest among us pay the largest share of their wages in sales tax, people are seeing their property taxes skyrocket, and businesses are cutting deep into their margins to pay their tax bills.

Extraordinary Profits Tax – A targeted 9.9 percent excise tax that only applies to the extraordinary profits made on a sale of very high-value assets like stocks and bonds. The profits that are under $200,000 for couples and

$100,000 for single-filers will be TOTALLY exempt. Retirement accounts; single-family, duplex, and triplex homes; most agricultural and farm-related sales; and certain qualifying small businesses are also 100 percent exempt.

ACTION: Contact your State representatives and ask that they vote in favor of more progressive revenue changes in the budget. Support of constituents for legislators taking these actions is imperative to offset the special interest lobbying in favor of keeping the more regressive system in place.

Progressive Revenue Talking Points:
  • The Extraordinary Profits tax, formerly called the Capital Gains tax
  • Making the REET Real Estate Excise Tax slightly progressive
  • Funding for Working Families Tax Credit
  • Reducing the B&O tax on small businesses
  • Increasing the B&O tax increase on high end service businesses like lawyers, architects and accountants
  • Keeping the Rainy-Day Fund intact

Sample script: Please be sure that the Capital Gains Tax, progressive REET, and closure of certain preferential tax rates are included in the final budget to increase fairness in the tax structure and to fund essential services for Washington State residents.

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Upcoming Events

Ancestral Waters

A fight for treaty rights, water, and way of life.

A film screening hosted by the Native Daily Network

Ancestral Waters is a story of the Puyallup Tribes fight for their treaty, their water and their way of life. We have stood at the side of tribal members fighting a Liquefied Natural Gas plant that violates their treaty. Ancestral Waters is their story.

Wednesday, April 17, 2019 at 6:30 p.m. – 8:30 p.m.
Evergreen Tacoma, Lyceum Hall, 1210 6th Ave, Tacoma, WA 98405

For more information http://www.nativedailynetwork.com/ancestral-waters/

Our Next General Meeting

Voter Registration 2.0:  New technology, New Laws! With Julie Anderson, Pierce County Auditor

Learn about how Washington State’s new voting laws will affect the 2020 election and beyond.

Wednesday, May 1, 2019
6:30 p.m. – 7:30 p.m.
Tahoma Unitarian Universalist Congregation
1115 S 56th St, Tacoma, WA 98408

Help us reach our $500 goal!

Donate to Indivisible Tacoma Today!

WA’s Tax Code is Wildly Unfair. Here’s Why.

Wednesday’s meeting on our state’s upside-down tax code was very informative. We hope you were there to benefit. Steve Kelly and Lynn McDonald, representing All in For Washington, helped us better understand where our taxes come from, what they are used for, who pays them and who hardly does.

What an eye opener! Our state has the most regressive tax code in the nation — ranking 50th out of the 50 states — which means that those with the lowest income pay a larger percentage of their income in taxes than do those having high incomes. In our state that’s 17% compared to less than 3%. Worst in the country! Definitely not a fair system.

Unlike neighboring states, our state government is funded by a combination of state and local sales tax, state and local property tax, and the business and occupations tax, mostly based on what we buy and what we own. Oregon and Idaho tax earnings, as well. We have a constitutional prohibition on taxing income and earnings.

People with lower incomes spend a greater percentage of their income on sales and business taxes than do people with higher incomes. So, those who have the least pay the most and those who have the most pay the least.

To make matters worse, the total amount of taxes we pay don’t supply enough revenue to properly fund the programs and obligations of the state. Education is underfunded with a court order deadline dead ahead. Mental health programs and institutions are underfunded with legal cases likely to lead to similar court mandates soon. Homelessness is at or near epidemic levels. If nothing changes, we are headed for serious fiscal problems.

Visit the All in For Washington website to find ways to support their efforts to reform the tax code and to learn more about the overall problem. You’ll find several short, clear and concise videos. They are very helpful.

And mark your calendars for our May 17th Indivisible meeting, because Steve and Lynn will return to give us tips on how we can talk to our state legislators about this issue. One of the best things about their presentation is their insistence that we tie taxes to our values, that we see taxes as investments in our future and in each other’s lives. Better information makes us better advocates for change.