Cville Dems

The Charlottesville Democratic Committee

Fish Fry Fundraiser has a Fantastic Finale!

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wide shot photo of crowd State Senator at 6-24-2022 Fish FryLast Friday’s Fish Fry Fundraiser at the Jefferson School was a big success in every way:
  • Attendance was great —200+ people signed up, 59 of them at the sponsor levels. Thank you all!
  • Actually, attendance was even greater — another 100 people were a block away at the Federal Building protesting the Supreme Court decision to strike down Roe v. Wade, and when they heard Sen Lucas was speaking they came over to hear her… so in the end, we had a crowd of 300!
  • Financial success — we think this will put us in a good financial position to work hard on all the political issues facing us.
State Senator Louise Lucas was amazing; the crowd greeted her enthusiastically and she really returned the love, pumping up the crowd to “fight like hell” to defend women’s right to choose from Republican attacks. Watch these CBS19 and NBC29 clips (we got them to come over from covering the Federal Building protest to interview her about the Supreme Court’s Roe decision).
For more Fish Fry pictures and details go here!

The Fight for Abortion and Reproductive Rights Continues!

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Graphic entitled We Won't Go Back showing photo of street crowd protest holding large horizontal banner reading Our Bodies - Our AbortionsThe Cville Dems had a very busy week on this front.
Last Thursday night, 6/24, we partnered with Blue Ridge Abortion Fund to present a free webinar about how an overturning of Roe would impact the Charlottesville region. BRAF Development Director Deborah Arenstein and our Bekah Saxon gave welcoming and closing remarks, and the panelists (clearly already tired and frustrated preparing for the ban) gave a great presentation.
Friday morning 6/25 the overturning of Roe was announced. By Friday afternoon, we had coordinated with NOW and Bans Off Our Bodies for a 5pm rally at the Federal Building, arranged for the media to interview Sen. Lucas for comments at 6pm (see Fish Fry coverage above), and organized a ​​well-attended Cville Dems 11am Saturday 6/26 rally (here’s CBS19’s coverage, photos below).
As Sen. Lucas said, we are most definitely not giving up the fight (Pres. Biden came out Thursday in favor of a Senate filibuster exception for abortion rights)… but Virginia is on the edge of losing the next and deciding round of this fight. Gov. Youngkin has promised to push for an abortion ban, and if the Republicans gain seats in this November’s midterms then Dems won’t be able to stop Youngkin and his allies from outlawing abortion in Virginia too.
As we’re seeing, elections have very profound consequences.
Help the Dems organize and mobilize for November… join this fight!

Report: 6/27 Executive Committee Meeting

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cartoon people sitting around a meeting tableErin Monaghan presented the recommendations of the Bylaws Committee, chaired by Dave Chapman, which proposed numerous reforms (the bylaws hadn’t been looked at for 11 years!), including:
  • adding language to promote inclusiveness
  • giving the Full Committee flexibility in setting dues
  • establishing renewable 10-year terms for ex-officio members (instead of the existing lifetime term)
  • codifying that online meetings have the same official status as in-person meetings
  • enabling the Executive Committee to call an emergency meeting of the Full Committee to pass a resolution on a subject of pressing importance. Note: There was some disagreement about this issue at the meeting, with some members pressing for the ability of the Executive Committee to issue statements on its own behalf to maximize ability to respond.
Unfortunately, because there was no quorum for an official meeting, no vote could be taken on the bylaws, which meant we also couldn’t vote on issuing a statement condemning the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe (or any other matter). Reminder– it’s important to come out to the Full Committee meetings whenever possible!

Support Local Abortion Access with a Donation

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photo of dozens of protesters holding banner We Won't Go Back

Here are some of the leading organizations who have been and are continuing to do the very hard work of ensuring abortion access in our area:

Blue Ridge Abortion Fund: The regional fund is part of a national network of abortion funds that provides assistance to people seeking abortions — from money to help cover the procedure to transportation costs. Last month the Blue Ridge Abortion Fund was already recieving calls for assistance from people out-of-state. The fund provides financial assistance on a first come, first serve basis. They estimate that abortion providers and assisting funds in Virginia will face a continued uptick.

Planned Parenthood Advocates of Virginia (PPAV): The state chapter of the national organization provides health services like birth control, pregnancy-related care, general health care, and transgender hormone therapy, as well as abortions. [Note– this is a 501(c)4 political organization.

Whole Women’s Health of Charlottesville: This is a local clinic and abortion provider that is part of a national organization. The organization also provides counseling, pap smears, STD testing and birth control. It can also mail abortion pills to clients.

[Above excerpted from Charlottesville Tomorrow, another good organization to support]

Planned Parenthood South Atlantic (PPSAT): This is the nonprofit health care provider that operates theCharlottesville Health Center (and 13 other locations in North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, and West Virginia).

Rally to Protest the Overturning of Roe v. Wade

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We’re  holding a rally at this morning (Saturday 6/25) at 11am at the Free Speech Wall to protest the outrageous (Republican-engineered) Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, throwing out decades of legal precedent and going against the will of the American people.

If you’re still feeling this outrage, please join us for an hour to share your feelings with other community members and show your commitment to reversing this injustice.

We’re still lining up speakers for this last-minute event, but confirmed speakers included:

  • our State Sen. Creigh Deeds
  • Charlottesville City Council member Michael Payne
  • a representative from Blue Ridge Abortion Fund
  • a representative from the UVA Dems
  • a recent high school graduate

In addition to these and other in-person speakers, we will be reading excerpts from the statements of some key local leaders and groups.