October, 24 2008, 12:58pm EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Laura Bonham, PDA Communications Coordinator
Laura@pdamerica.org, (435) 336-2123
Tim Carpenter, PDA Executive Director
Tim@pdamerica.org, (413)-320-2015
Progressive Democrats of America (PDA) Is Taking on Republicans in Conservative Strongholds Coast to Coast
WASHINGTON
PDA Communications Director Laura Bonham said,
"We have volunteers working in several traditionally Republican areas.
We're supporting strong congressional candidates from California to
Virginia and from New York to Florida. We're mobilizing progressive
activists for Obama / Biden in those states as well as in Ohio,
Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, West Virginia, Indiana and even Arizona."
PDA Executive Director Tim Carpenter said, "I'll be touring Ohio this week with Healthcare NOT Warfare co-chair Donna Smith
and the California Nurses Association. Then I'll travel to Phoenix for
an exciting 'Arizona Divorces McCain' Rally on November 1st with the
California Nurses, Code Pink, retired Colonel and former State Department official Ann Wright and others. With a week and a half to go, we're more excited than ever. We hope this will be our year."
PDA-endorsed, Healthcare NOT Warfare Candidate Debbie Cook's challenge to Dana Rohrabacher
in California's 46th District is one of the key contests PDA is
targeting. PDA, the Orange County Labor Council, and the Teamsters are
joining together for two days of events and a week of volunteer efforts
supporting Cook who is currently the Mayor of Huntington Beach, CA.
Cook is making the strongest challenge Republican Dana Rohrabacher has
seen in his long career. PDA launched the Healthcare NOT Warfare
campaign last January to focus progressive activism on these key issues.
Tim
Carpenter said, "PDA endorsed Debbie Cook in the heat of the summer
last July, and she is turning up the heat on global-warming denier Dana
Rohrabacher. Cook is a leader on issues important to Orange County.
Rohrabacher represents the divisive, short-sighted, highly ideological
politics of the past--immigrant bashing and other tired old rhetoric.
He blindly supported the failed Bush / Cheney policies. Voters in
Orange County want better. They want change, and they're supporting
Debbie Cook."
Carpenter
said, "We're proud of Debbie Cook. She took it to her opponent in the
debate at Orange Coast College Tuesday afternoon. We helped lift her
from a long shot--because of the Republican registration advantage and
Rohrabacher's big money backing--to highly competitive. We were on the
ground working for her early, and now we're seeing other organizations
putting her on their radar. We're excited about helping Debbie Cook
win. We've been in Orange County in force. Last week, I visited two
area high schools, while Laura Bonham and PDA California State
Coordinator Bill Honigman registered voters at the University of California Irvine Campus. We can tell we're having a big impact here."
Bonham
added, "Debbie Cook is within striking distance of an eight-term
incumbent because her opponent is just wrong on the issues. Rohrabacher
claims people have nothing to do with global warming, and insists we do
nothing about this crisis. As Mayor, Debbie Cook led her city in
supporting the U.S. Mayor's Agreement on Global Warming. She's also a
leader on healthcare. She knows we need a cost-efficient,
patient-centered, privately-administered, publicly-funded system that
covers all Americans: a single payer healthcare system as proposed by
Rep. John Conyers. The local Orange County Democratic
headquarters was abuzz with progressive Democrats as news of the
fantastic efforts at voter registration is tipping in favor of
Democrats in one of the most Republican areas in the country."
Saturday,
October 25th, PDA and labor volunteers will canvass for Debbie Cook
after meeting in Costa Mesa. Sunday, November 2nd at 11:30 a.m. PDA and
the Teamsters will hold a "Get Out the Vote Countdown to Victory Rally"
at the Machinist Union District Lodge 725, 5402 Bolsa Ave,. Huntington
Beach. After the rally, PDA and labor volunteers will canvass for Cook
again. The Rally will feature Debbie Cook; Teamsters Labor Leader, Patrick Kelly; Healthcare NOT Warfare Campaign Co-Chair, Norman Solomon; Michael Lighty, California Nurses Association; David Clennon, Actor / Activist (Syrianna and thirtysomething); and PDA Executive Director, Tim Carpenter.
For more information on the Debbie Cook / Dana Rohrabacher contest, please click here.
Progressive Democrats of America was founded in 2004 to transform the Democratic Party and U.S. politics by working inside and outside of the party by working to elect empowered progressives and by building the progressive movement in solidarity with with peace, justice, civil rights, environmental, and other reform efforts. For more information about PDA, please see PDAmerica.org.
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Abortion providers and reproductive rights advocates demanded that that Florida Supreme Court consider "the will and the well-being of the people" in the state on Friday as an attorney for the ACLU argued before the court that it should block the 15-week abortion ban signed into law by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis last year.
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Groundwork Action highlighted that the agency's new moves are "all possible thanks to additional resources from the Inflation Reduction Act," while its sister organization Groundwork Collaborative said, "Just think of what we can accomplish with a fully funded IRS and a tax code that makes corporations and the wealthy pay their fair share."
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In addition to welcoming the "historic crackdown on rich tax cheats," Congressman Bill Pascrell (D-N.J.) said, "Reminder: every single Republican in Congress voted against this crackdown on big business tax cheats."
Senate Finance Committee Chair Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) similarly praised the IRS while calling out the congressional GOP.
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The New York Timesreported Friday that "the fight over IRS funding is continuing, as the House and the Senate try to agree on spending legislation to avert a possible government shutdown at the end of the month. Senate Democrats want to hold the base budget of the IRS steady while holding on to some of the Inflation Reduction Act money that lawmakers had agreed to rescind as part of the debt limit deal, while House Republicans are pushing for far deeper cuts that would eat into the tax agency's enforcement budget."
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