PAD General Meeting Wednesday, May 25th 2022 at the Plymouth Senior Center at 5:30pm.
Thats right! This month PAD is excited to announce that our monthly meetings will be back at the Senior Center. Our potluck will start at 5:30 and the zoom portion of the meeting will start at 6:00 pm.
Please join us, bring a friend, and bring a dish to share. If you aren't able to bring a dish, come anyway.
Potluck dinner breakdown by last name:
J-R Side dish or salad
S-W Entree
A-I Dessert or wine
Are you running for office? Share a few words with your supporters at the next PAD meeting! Candidates in attendance will be offered a breakout session offering social media support, campaign message development and campaign photos. PAD will also host Emma Greenberg from the Hassan Campaign and Sam Weis from Organize New Hampshire.
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BILL NESHEIM - CHAIR'S CHAIR
Dear PAD Members,
As I write I’m enjoying a visit with my grandkids perfectly timed for this week’s fine weather. I hope you all have had a chance to get outside and enjoy the natural beauty of the wonderful area we all call home this week. And yet as much as I’m loving seeing the little ones play, I’m concerned for the future we will be leaving them.
Melanie and I volunteered to help count ballots in the 2020 general election. As we worked I couldn’t help but be struck by the number of ballots that didn’t include votes for down-ticket positions. Reviewing the results for several the PAD towns I found that more than 15% of the ballots cast in Plymouth did not include votes for state rep, in Holderness this was about 10%, and in Thornton about 5%. In several towns this “no-vote” gap was larger than the margin of victory for the position. It would seem that some voters are simply not paying due attention to down-ticket races. And yet the members of our state house and senate have tremendous power over the State’s influence in our day to day lives. Indeed the 10th amendment to the US constitution declares that the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.
And as we’ve seen in the past few weeks, it appears that the conservative majority on the supreme court is taking an increasingly narrow view of what is meant by “delegated to the United States by the Constitution”. In my view the net result is that we need to be really, really sure that the people we elect to our state legislatures indeed represent the will of the people. We cannot simply leave it to federal laws and federal courts to defend the values of fairness, equity and respect for human dignity that we hold dear.
Over the next few months, we hope to give us all a chance to get to know the democratic candidates for the 27 NH state house seats and 7 senate seats representing our PAD towns. Several will be attending our May meeting. I hope you can attend. As we get to know our candidates better we can all work to support them in our own towns, and help make sure that the down ticket races get as much attention as the national races. I am confident that when voters in our towns get to know our democratic candidates they will vote for them and return a democratic majority to our statehouse this fall.
Sincerely,
Bill
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The heavily gerrymandered Senate map, signed into law last Friday, brings a new set of challenges to Democrats in New Hampshire. The new map includes 16 districts leaning Republican and eight Democratic. The new map significantly impacts Senate representation in our PAD towns, splitting our area amongst 5 Senate districts rather than the previous 3. It is critical that Democrats in our towns understand the impacts to their towns and to understand who currently represents them. Democratic candidates from both the House and the Senate are invited to attend our May meeting. |
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New Volunteers Welcome!
- Visibility - Chair, Joyce Weston
- Fundraising
- Bylaws Committee
COORDINATED CAMPAIGN VOLUNTEERS NEEDED - This is how we win!
PAD needs volunteers to fill the following roles for the upcoming elections:
- Office Manager(coordinated campaign)
- Volunteer Manager(coordinated campaign)
- Visibility, Canvasing and Phone Banking Volunteer Coordinator(coordinated campaign)
- Yard Sign Captain (coordinated campaign)
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ENVIRONMENT
HB1454, which will improve the siting criteria for landfills in NH, passed the NH House Thursday. On to the Governor's desk! This bill is good for New Hampshire and environmental protectionism! Linked below is a short video of the passage of both HB1454 and HB1420. https://youtu.be/Eaotvu_WdtA
PUBLIC EDUCATION
In spite of the concerns raised by child welfare, civil liberties, education and LGBTQ+ rights advocates, the Senate passed HB 1431, the so-called parental rights bill. Instead of building upon the on-going parent-teacher relationship we have now in New Hampshire, HB 1431 takes the opposite approach. Its broad language around so-called rights and notice, particularly on the heels of the banned concepts law, coupled with the threat of litigation will only provoke a greater chill in our schools. Rather than working to encourage educators to make their schools and classrooms welcoming, safe places for all students, HB 1431 installs a system based on vague rules and intimidation. You can read the full statement released by NEA-NH here.
Concerns surrounding this bill are similar to ones raised about the Florida bill championed by Ron DeSantis in Florida. Now the bill heads back to the House for a vote as to whether to concur with the house changes, non-concur (killing the bill), or non-concur and request a committee of conference. This means we have one more opportunity to kill this before it would go to Governor Sununu, who we would also ask to veto this bill should it pass.
►ACTION REQUESTED: Please visit our legislative action page here to contact your State Representative and ask that they vote to NON-CONCUR, with the Senate on HB 1431, so we can keep our classrooms and schools the welcoming places all educators want them to be for our students.
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Gubernatorial Candidate Dr. Tom Sherman Visits Plymouth
Location: Pease Public Library
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About Dr. Sherman
Dr. Sherman has spent his career dedicated to public service, from working as an EMT in high school, to designing a medical clinic in a homeless shelter while in medical school, to more than 30 years of working as a doctor, and serving in the State House and now as a State Senator over the past decade. He worked across the aisle to expand healthcare to 50,000 Granite Staters, lower prescription drug costs, protect our drinking water, and expand the number of beds available for people in a mental health crisis. He’s running for governor because he knows we need to get New Hampshire back on track and address the issues facing us all: rising property taxes, the need for more affordable housing, expanding access to childcare, and protecting our public schools for our kids and grandkids. You can learn more about him at www.drtomsherman.com
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Please join us on Thursday, May 19th
Bring a friend!
Spread the word!
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Queen City Pride Parade & Festival
Saturday, June 18 at 10 am
“All young people, regardless of sexual orientation or identity, deserve a safe and supportive environment in which to achieve their full potential.”
-Harvey Milk
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National Youth Poet Laureate Amanda Gorman Roe vs Wade Poem |
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Plymouth Area Democrats
info@plymouthareademocrats.org
www.plymouthareademocrats.org
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See what's happening on our social sites: |
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