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12/18/23 Missouri Mondays - Happy Holidays! Thanks for helping to protect and defend democracy in 2023! See you next year!



Welcome to Missouri Mondays!  It’s our last e-newsletter of 2023 and we can’t thank you enough for staying informed each week and taking action! Your help is vital for protecting our democracy, fundamental rights, and freedoms under threat by the extreme Missouri GOP.  We hope you enjoy the holiday season with family and friends and also hope you will share our resources, upcoming events, and this link to sign up for Missouri Mondays weekly email https://bit.ly/3pF99Uw. Our work together makes all the difference!  


UPCOMING EVENTS - ACTIONS TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE


TAKE ACTION WITH THE MISSOURI VOTER PROTECTION COALITION (MOVPC)

TO PROTECT THE RIGHT TO VOTE 



This is the last MOVPC meeting of 2023*


Join the MOVPC weekly online meeting MONDAYS at 10 AM

Text “MOVPC” to 66866 or register HERE: bit.ly/protectmovoters


Our work to protect the vote requires our continued attention! So we hope you'll join our next MOVPC call where we will discuss the necessary steps in our fight to protect the right to vote in Missouri. MOVPC is a nonpartisan statewide network promoting access to the ballot and working to remove barriers to voting in Missouri!


MOVPC 2024 Missouri Legislative Tracker

The 2024 Missouri Legislative Session bill pre-filing began Friday Dec. 1.  See a breakdown pre-filed elections related bills on MOVPC's Voting Rights Legislative Tracker here:  bit.ly/movotingbills


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Missouri Workers Center 

Good Jobs and Affordable Housing for All Rally

TODAY MONDAY DEC 18 

9:30AM  

Jackson County Courthouse steps

415 E 12th St

Kansas City, MO  64106


The Kansas City Royals want our tax dollars to fund their new multibillion dollar stadium project. But they haven’t even picked a site, nor have they brought us to the table to negotiate a CBA that guarantees the people of KC — stadium district workers and the surrounding community — actually benefit from their massive development project.


The Jackson County Legislature will hold a hearing on an ordinance on Monday morning that, if passed, would put a countywide sales tax on the April 2024 ballot to publicly fund a Royals stadium for 40 YEARS.


We need YOU to join us on the steps of the Jackson County Courthouse at 9:30am on 12/18 to let our electeds know that we OPPOSE any public funding for a new Royals stadium that doesn’t give low-wage workers a secure seat at the table to negotiate a strong Community Benefits Agreement with living-wage union jobs and truly affordable housing.



Emergency Town Hall on Anti-Trans Youth Healthcare Law in Missouri

Virtual on Zoom

TONIGHT Monday, December 18

6:00PM - 7:00PM CT 

Hosted by PROMO, The GLO Center, TransParent, and the Campaign for Southern Equality.


Following the passage and implementation of SB49, a law that prohibits access to medically necessary healthcare for transgender youth in Missouri, community advocates in Missouri and beyond are coming together for a virtual event focused on helping families navigate the landscape of gender-affirming care while feeling supported and uplifted by their communities.


Please join us Monday, December 18 from 6:00-7:00pm CT for this special event.


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SAVE THE DATE!

The Greater Kansas City Women’s Political Caucus Campaign School

Saturday, January 20, 2024

9AM - 3PM

Sylvester Powell Community Center

6200 Martway St

Mission, KS 66202


The GKCWPC Campaign School is an annual event focusing on supporting women who are interested in running for office and for people interested in working on campaigns at all levels of government. The event, which will be held at Sylvester Powell Community Center in Mission, KS from approximately 9am - 3pm will include all the basics: fundraising, public speaking, recruiting volunteers and talking about women's reproductive rights. The training is free of charge thanks to a grant from the Women in Politics Foundation.  Apply Here: https://forms.gle/F8xEfDd9KAVu6FYT7


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AFL-CIO Union-Made Holiday Gift Guide


Find that perfect holiday gift that carries a union label and is made in America. Shipping gifts this year? Make sure to ship using a union carrier like the U.S. Postal Service or UPS.  Links here: https://aflcio.org/MadeInAmerica/holiday-gifts


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Everytown for Gun Safety

Debunking Gun Myths at the Dinner Table


Every day, 120 Americans are killed with guns and more than 200 are shot and wounded. There are a lot of widespread myths and conflicting information about guns, gun violence, and gun safety laws in America. To set the record straight, we’ve developed a series of graphics to help you “fork over the facts” and dispel some of the most prominent myths about gun violence.


Help educate the people in your life about these important issues by sharing this information with your friends and family. Download and share these graphics on social media: https://www.everytown.org/debunking-gun-myths-at-the-dinner-table/#download-share-on-social-media


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SAVE THE DATE!

The Greater Kansas City Women’s Political Caucus Campaign School

Saturday, January 20, 2024

9AM - 3PM

Sylvester Powell Community Center

6200 Martway St

Mission, KS 66202


The GKCWPC Campaign School is an annual event focusing on supporting women who are interested in running for office and for people interested in working on campaigns at all levels of government. The event, which will be held at Sylvester Powell Community Center in Mission, KS from approximately 9am - 3pm will include all the basics: fundraising, public speaking, recruiting volunteers and talking about women's reproductive rights. The training is free of charge thanks to a grant from the Women in Politics Foundation.  Apply Here: https://forms.gle/F8xEfDd9KAVu6FYT7


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Meet Crystal Quade Democratic Candidate for Missouri Governor


“Growing up in rural Missouri, young Crystal Quade made the trek before daylight every morning to help her mom prepare the diner where she worked double or triple shifts waitressing.


They lived in a small house on a gravel road, and Crystal was the first in her family to graduate from high school. She worked her way through Missouri State, began her own family – and then became the Democratic Leader of the Missouri House of Representatives.


Crystal is leading our most important fights to restore our abortion rights, standing up to the biggest corporate special interests, and stopping China and Russia from buying up our farmland and squeezing Missouri farmers out.


Crystal will take on extremist Jay Ashcroft, who says he will ban abortion forever, and give more tax breaks to the wealthiest and most privileged families like the one he grew up in.


If you are looking for a new kind of leader, who will stand up for our working and farming families – meet Crystal Quade.”



Support Crystal's Campaign for Missouri's Future: https://crystalquade.com/


The Heartland Pod Interview with Rep. Crystal Quade https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJwbn8m4_q8


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Missouri in the News


“Missouri S&T to distribute K-12 scholarships for private, homeschool students - 

Missouri’s tax-credit-funded scholarship program will gain a new partner in one of the state’s largest public education institutions”


“Missouri University of Science and Technology will grant K-12 scholarships through the state’s tax-credit-based program MOScholars beginning in the 2024-2025 school year.


A nonprofit within Missouri S&T will become the seventh educational assistance organization, or EAO, in the MOScholars program. EAOs receive donations through a process overseen by the state treasurer and remit the money into scholarships for private-school and homeschool expenses.


According to emails obtained by The Independent in an open records request, Stephen Roberts, vice chancellor of strategic initiatives for Missouri S&T, shared information about the program with other administrators as early as May, describing MOScholars as a “philanthropy opportunity/vehicle.”


He told The Independent on Wednesday that the program’s objectives align with the goals of the university and its partnered nonprofit, the Kummer Institute Foundation.


“Missouri S&T is a public land grant university, and as such has a responsibility to provide broad access to educational opportunities in the K-12 community,” he said in a statement. “The aims of the Missouri Scholars program have strong overlap with these objectives.”


Roberts wrote in a May 10 email that students could potentially use MOScholars’s $6,500 funding to pay for Missouri S&T camps or dual-enrollment programs.


Andrew Careaga, who leads the university’s communications, had the same impression in May after talking to the treasurer.


“State Treasurer Vivek Malek describes this program as an opportunity for individuals to earn tax credits by designating funds to scholarships for our summer camps if we were to become designated as an EAO,” he wrote in an email.


Roberts told The Independent that the K-12 scholarships only cover costs administered by a student’s school.


“The rules prohibit award of scholarships so that students can access educational programs offered directly by the EAO,” he said. “For a student to be awarded a scholarship, the educational programs must be offered directly by the eligible schools.”


But the idea of participating in MOScholars wasn’t enthusiastically received by all administrators.


Missouri S&T is a public higher education institution with public K-12 partnerships, such as Project Lead the Way — a program with STEM courses for high school students offering college credit. Beth Kania-Gosche, chair of the university’s department of teacher education and certification, wrote in an October email that she had a “PR concern” about participating in MOScholars.


“The other EAOs are all religious organizations,” she wrote. “We have to submit a fundraising plan as part of the application, and I have concerns about publicly connecting the STEM Center to fundraising for a controversial topic like school vouchers.”


“We partner with public schools on all of our programming,” she continued, “and if they have the perception we are raising funds for school vouchers, it’s problematic. “


Facilitators of the MOScholars program shy from the term “vouchers” because Missouri’s K-12 scholarships are not a direct state appropriation, although the program does affect state finance. Donations made to the program, because they receive a 1:1 tax credit, come out of the state’s general fund.”


“The application listed 11 schools the university is willing to issue scholarships to, with the disclaimer that the “list may not be inclusive.” All but one of these schools are religious.”



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National News


“US Supreme Court to decide fate of medication abortion access nationwide”


The U.S. Supreme Court announced Wednesday it will hear oral arguments and decide whether broad access to the abortion pill can remain legal across the United States.


The justices’ decision to hear the case this term will put abortion access and the politics that comes with it back in front of the nation’s highest court just before voters head to the polls for the 2024 presidential election.


The drug at the center of the case, mifepristone, is used in more than half of pregnancy terminations within the United States as part of a two-pharmaceutical regimen that includes misoprostol as the second medication. Both are also used in miscarriage treatment.


Patients’ ability to access mifepristone cannot change until the Supreme Court issues its ruling, under an order the court put out earlier this year.


The nine members of the court will be answering three questions in their ruling, including whether changes the U.S. Food and Drug Administration made to prescribing and dosage in 2016 and 2021 were “arbitrary and capricious.” Those changes that expanded access included shipping the abortion pill to patients through the mail.


The Supreme Court will also decide if the federal district court judge who ruled earlier this year to overturn the FDA’s original 2000 approval of the pharmaceutical “properly granted preliminary relief.”


Nancy Northup, president and CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights, said in a written statement the Supreme Court “has never invalidated a long-standing FDA approval like they are being asked to do here.”


“Abortion pills have been used safely in the U.S. for more than 20 years, and they are more important than ever in this post-Roe landscape,” Northup said. “That is precisely why the anti-abortion movement is attacking them.”


Missouri Senator Josh Hawley’s wife, Erin Hawley is the Senior Counsel of the Alliance Defending Freedom.  “She said in a written statement the anti-abortion organization urged the Supreme Court to determine “that the FDA acted unlawfully in removing common-sense safeguards for women and authorizing dangerous mail-order abortions.”


“Like any federal agency, the FDA must rationally explain its decisions,” Hawley said. “Yet its removal of common-sense safeguards — like a doctor’s visit before women are prescribed chemical abortion drugs — does not reflect scientific judgment but rather a politically driven decision to push a dangerous drug regimen.”



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“Rudy Giuliani to pay $148 million in Georgia election worker defamation case: Recap Ruby Freeman and her daughter, Wandrea “Shaye” Moss, asked for at least $24 million each for Giuliani’s defamatory statements about them following the 2020 election.”


“The jury delivered its verdict Friday afternoon in Rudy Giuliani's civil defamation trial related to false claims he made about two former election workers in Georgia. Jurors awarded the plaintiffs, Ruby Freeman and her daughter, Wandrea “Shaye” Moss, $148.17 million total in damages. Freeman and Moss asked for at least $24 million each for Giuliani's defamatory statements about them following the 2020 presidential contest when he baselessly accused them of election fraud. U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell, who is overseeing the trial, ruled this year that Giuliani defamed the two women with his remarks.”




“Giuliani Was Ordered to Pay $148 Million. What Happens Now?”


“A federal jury in Washington ordered Rudolph W. Giuliani last week to pay $148 million in damages to two former Georgia election workers he defamed by spreading baseless claims that they tried to steal votes from Donald J. Trump on Nov. 3, 2020.


Mr. Giuliani, who faces a litany of legal and financial troubles, has said he will appeal the verdict.


Here’s what happens next:”



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“Republicans Want To Make It Harder to Vote and Easier to Cheat

By Marc Elias


“Republicans have a math problem, and they know it. Regardless of their candidate, it is nearly certain that more people will vote to reelect President Joe Biden than his GOP opponent.


In 2008, former President Barack Obama received more than 9.5 million more votes than then-U.S. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.). In 2012, he bested Mitt Romney by nearly five million votes. Former President Donald Trump lost the popular vote by 2.8 million in 2016 and by seven million in 2020.


Unable to attract the support of a majority of eligible voters, Republicans are left to try to rig the voting rules and exploit election loopholes. Put simply, to ensure their electoral survival, Republicans need to make it harder to vote and easier to cheat.


Their plan is simple and dangerous. First, Republicans want to make voting as difficult as possible for minority and young voters. Second, the GOP seeks to bolster the election denier movement to undermine the accurate counting and certification of election results.


Left unchecked, we will face a 2024 election where eligible voters are turned away and lawful votes are left uncounted. Results will be set aside by partisan certification boards. Trump and his allies first tried — and failed — to achieve this result through litigation brought across the country after the 2020 election. They now aim to achieve the same goals preemptively, through restrictive voting rules and election processes designed to allow the will of the people to be subverted.”



MISSOURI MONDAYS NEWS SUPPLEMENT!


With so much important news each week we don’t want you to miss a thing! Check out our MISSOURI MONDAYS NEWS SUPPLEMENT here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/13cokjWlCh2EkY5K6bM357rjVPizZDzxlMqjAuoBQfoI/edit?usp=sharing


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THANK YOU! for staying informed and taking action to make a difference!

Invite your friends and neighbors to join us and sign up for Missouri Action Alliance and this Missouri Mondays weekly email at bit.ly/3pF99Uw

Follow us on X (formerly Twitter) at @MissouriAction, on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/MOActionAlliance and check out our website at http://www.MOActionAlliance.com

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