The Baton Rouge DSA chapter passed a ban on the use of generative AI for chapter materials. Emerging AI technologies are extractive tools being used to further suppress the working class. Socialists must make a conscientious effort not to use AI.
“We are not responsible for the issue. It is not of our seeking. It has been forced upon us; and for the very reason that we deprecate violence and abhor […]
The Columbus chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America is appalled at the news of ICE agents murdering a legal observer in Minneapolis on January 7. This escalation is just the next in a long string of escalating violence and oppression from ICE specifically and law enforcement in general. ICE has repeatedly demonstrated that they do not protect working people, they serve the fascist regime taking hold of our country to continue advancing their racist capitalist agenda.
Over the last year, ICE has been on a rampage across multiple cities, including here in Columbus. We’ve seen firsthand how their presence makes people feel more scared, not safer. ICE has demonstrated that fear not safety is in fact their goal, and we have seen now where this fear campaign was always headed.
Our chapter has an active campaign to convince local governments not to support federal agents when they inevitably come back to terrorize working residents in Central Ohio once again. This tragic incident is proof that this work continues to be critical. To get involved in the fight, join us at an upcoming meeting to see the work we’re doing to change the way our cities protect immigrants. Check out our calendar of events here: https://www.columbusdsa.org/events/
Also keep an eye out on local channels for other ways to protect our community and show solidarity with those most directly targeted by this regime. This violence is a clear reminder that those who are sworn to protect and serve are not serving us, the people. We must double down on our knowledge that it is on us, the working class, to keep each other and our communities safe, and to do that successfully we must work together.
To celebrate Zohran Mamdami’s inauguration, and in honor of the mass mobilization that made this moment possible, our first newsletter of 2026 is about ways to get involved right now.
First, GMDSA is proud to endorse the following candidates:
Marek Broderick for Burlington City Council Ward 8
Matt Gile for Vermont House of Representatives (Chittenden-21)
Jeffrey Peterson for Vermont House of Representatives (Chittenden-16)
We will be canvassing for Marek starting at 1:00PM in Burlington, location TBA. Reply to this email if you would like to join, and expect many more canvassing opportunities in our next newsletter and beyond. If you’ve been considering getting involved but don’t know how, canvassing is one of the best ways to start. Zohran’s campaign knocked 3 million doors!
To that end, our Electoral and Communications Committees are launching a new, joint initiative. If you are part of a group doing something about our current crisis, formal or informal, big or small, if you’ll have us, we want to meet you in person (or, if you prefer, over Zoom) to learn how we can help.
The first stop of this tour will be at Building A Local Economy (BALE) in South Royalton on January 21 at 6:00PM. Our 2026 Electoral and Communications Chairs, Adam and Alejandro, will be giving a talk and discussing our political strategy with BALE’s Resistance Hub.
A lot is going wrong right now, and we know that there are people all over Vermont trying to do something about it. We already work with many of you, and the coalitions we’ve made are behind our biggest successes, but we know that there are more of you out there doing important things. We want to work with you. Write in, and we can do it together.
Upcoming Events:
Canvassing for Councilor Marek Broderick Saturday, January 3, starting location TBA.
GMDSA member Brandon Lawson is hosting Green Mountain IWW Workplace Organizing Workshop Sunday January 11 at 3:00PM in the Community Room in the Fletcher Free Library in Burlington.
Worker’s Circle is every 2nd and 4th Wednesday at 6:00PM at 179 S. Winooski Avenue in Burlington. The next one is January 14.
GMDSA @ BALE - January 21 at 6:00PM.
For regular GMDSA Committee meetings, see our calendar.
State News:
Starbucks workers are on strike across 145 stores and counting, and the union is asking customers to stop shopping at Starbucks.
Hospice United had a successful Honk and Wave on December 20 as they bargain their first contract.
Western New York, alongside regions across the country, faces healthcare disaster due to the dysfunction of America’s privatized healthcare system being accelerated by federal cuts and state inaction. The Buffalo chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) has run a campaign for over a year, Back Off BNP, researching, educating, and organizing WNY residents around the collaboration of local hospital systems, health insurers, and major corporations in the Buffalo Niagara Partnership (BNP).
“Quality healthcare is not just a necessity for us and our kids, it is a human right. It’s unacceptable that we live in fear of insurers, or of bosses dangling healthcare benefits like a carrot over our heads.“
The campaign seeks to publicize the chamber of commerce’s political influence in favor of private capital and corporations in the state, and against the solution of universal healthcare in New York state, legislation called the New York Health Act (NYHA; NY State Senate Bill 2023-S7590 and Assembly Bill A7897). DSA calls for an urgent focus on NYHA this 2026 legislative session as premiums for WNYers skyrocket to unsustainable amounts due to commercial health insurance plans seeking to offset Medicaid cuts and the effects of the so-called Big Beautiful Bill.
“Private health insurers, such as Independent Health, are being empowered to deny therapeutic and rehabilitative services to patients through arbitrarily and automatically requiring prior authorization. They make massive amounts of money to deny healthcare, get in the way of treatment, and I see them inflict cruelty and desertion on stroke and traumatic brain injury patients,” said Olivia Colgrove, co-chair of the Buffalo DSA Healthcare Committee that organized the picket and a speech-language pathologist. The issue referenced by Colgrove has received high-profile coverage in The Guardian, focusing on Kaleida (whose president and CEO sits on the board of BNP).
“We have been volunteers sounding the alarm on the rollback of what little public healthcare still exists, and the crisis that expansion of the role of private insurers in these programs represents. Trump’s second term is already showing how fragile a system based on private insurance is,” said Moira Madden, co-chair of the Buffalo DSA Healthcare Committee and emergency mental health caseworker. “It’s past time for urgency in the movement for universal healthcare on the state level (e.g. NYHA), as a way to protect against this worsening dysfunction. January 2026 begins a new state legislative session, and a new opportunity for public advocacy and oversight of anti-NYHA lobbyists.”
“Quality healthcare is not just a necessity for us and our kids, it is a human right. It’s unacceptable that we live in fear of insurers, or of bosses dangling healthcare benefits like a carrot over our heads. I am proud to stand with Buffalo DSA, as our campaign and chapter fight for the New York Health Act,” said Adam Bojak, Buffalo DSA member and candidate for state assembly in district 149.
On January 8, 2026 the Buffalo Niagara Partnership will be presenting their lobbying agenda for the year to their political allies at the Jazzboline restaurant in Amherst, from 4-7pm. Buffalo DSA has once again been organizing their membership, sympathetic organizations, and the signatories to their Back Off BNP campaign so far to picket the event and BNP’s longstanding role in opposing the NYHA solution to the healthcare crisis that could be led by New York.
More on NYHA and BNP
NYHA would create statewide, universal, “single payer” healthcare, meaning if passed, all New Yorkers would be enrolled in a single, public insurance program. All services requiring a medical professional of the patient’s choice would be fully covered, without extraneous fees or the negative, profit-motivated intervention of a private insurer.
Buffalo DSA has long rallied around NYHA’s passage alongside like-minded groups and unions statewide, based on its positive projected outcomes for workers’ rights, families, and individuals in all stages of life in New York, as well as the state’s health systems. NYHA, according to the organization, would provide $80 billion in savings over 10 years, as a self-sustaining program through the state’s progressive tax structure. Per their research, New York would not need to cut any essential or existing social programs to fund NYHA, and would create ~150,000 new jobs in the public sector, with retraining for and rehiring of current private insurance workers. Public hospitals would benefit from a higher reimbursement rate, which would lower chances of hospital closures, improving health outcomes for New Yorkers.
The corresponding legislation for NYHA has stalled over the course of several sessions, in part due to lobbyists like the Buffalo Niagara Partnership; the region’s most-utilized health insurers hold leadership on the BNP board and the organization enjoys close ties with local politicians. As Buffalo DSA states in its report on NYHA Opposition, the BNP’s Memorandum of Opposition against these bills, and its membership in an untraceable campaign called “Realities of Single Payer” are examples of their lack of care for the region’s residents. “The way the BNP has wielded its power to lobby against universal healthcare is cruel and unacceptable,” said Madden. “Everyday working people, who outnumber the executives of the BNP, deserve a healthcare system that works for everyone. Anti-NYHA lobbying only serves to enrich the insurance and health system executives on the leadership board.”
Western New York residents are encouraged to visit Buffalo DSA’s campaign website to learn more about the New York Health Act and sign the organization’s petition. Those interested in volunteering for further campaigning are encouraged to contact the chapter; the group says no previous campaign experience is required.
Buffalo DSA, Inc. is a member dues funded and member-directed not-for-profit in the State of New York. Democratic Socialists of America believe both the economy and society should be run democratically—to meet public needs, not to make profits for a few. Join Buffalo DSA by visiting buffalodsa.org.
The Trump Administration has started an illegal war against Venezuela. This is a nakedly imperialist war to install a US puppet government that will give Venezuela’s oil resources over to […]
Phil Christman, a writer and lecturer at the University of Michigan, is a committed Protestant Christian. He grew up attending a fundamentalist Calvinist church, and sharing in that perspective, but it was one that he struggled with from very early on. His disentangling from that approach to Christianity didn’t lead him to renounce his faith; rather, his faith evolved, and with that spiritual evolution came a political one as well. In the excellent Why Christians Should Be Leftists, he testifies to that evolution, and calls other Christians to join him as well.
The fact that Christman’s argument really isn’t one, but rather is a testimony and an altar call of sorts, must be kept in mind when assessing the book. The way he talks about “leftism”—which he refuses to capitalize, stating in an early footnote that he thinks the term describes an “overall direction” and not a destination “where a person can definitively arrive” (p. 16)—is one that flows organically from his Christian commitments. Rather than starting out by defining terms and unfolding a discourse premised on the materialist language that so much of post-Marxist leftism has been defined by over the past two centuries, his reflections are rooted in a grab-bag of deeply religious, even Biblical, concepts and concern that every believing Christian, in one way or another, confronts. What is fallen in this world? What is the nature of work? Should those who accept Jesus as their savior have a politics? Should they have kings? Should believers love their enemies? And just who, exactly, are their neighbors, and how should they interact with them? In Christman’s view, a serious engagement with all these questions and more must inevitably point believers towards some kind of socialism—but this is a conclusion which he articulates in a manner that, while deeply informed by political argument, actually doesn’t flow from the arguments which have shaped socialism over the years.
This, I think, is why a socialist review of Christman’s book may be valuable. Why Christians Should Be Leftists hasn’t become a bestselling, culture-defining book in the months since its publication (unfortunately), but it has been fairly widely reviewed…overwhelmingly by other thoughtful writers—peers of Christman’s, really—who share his Christian commitments. Kayak Oakes praised it in National Catholic Reporter, as did James K.A. Smith in The Christian Century and Samuel McCann in The Presbyterian Outlook (the more conservative publications First Things, Christianity Today, and Front Porch Republic were, perhaps predictably, less receptive to his book, though all acknowledged the power of his anti-capitalist claims). All of the above comments are worth perusing (as are thoughtful engagements with Christman by such writers as Alan Jacobs), and so are Christman’s own occasionalresponses to such. But none of any of the above, to my knowledge, have approached the book from the perspective of the Left (using a capital letter this time) as it has emerged over the course of the rise of global capitalism, the impacts of the industrial revolution, and the both important achievements and catastrophic failures attached to the Left throughout Western modernity. I’m hardly an expert on all of the above, but as a card-carrying, dues-paying member of the Democratic Socialists of America, as well as believing Christian (though a Mormon one, which I suspect at least a couple of the above might insist may not really count), let me give it a try.
Christman’s turn towards leftism, and his turn away from the conservative Christianity that defined his early life, defines the whole arc of his book, and is noted by every reviewer of it. As a college student attending a Calvinist university, he recounts being a lonely, confused, frustrated individual—feeling like a profound loser, in his own terms. And then recounts a time when he was reading from the Bible as part of group of similar losers outdoors—at least as compared to the other students playing the guitar, smoking, or flirting in their own groups all around them—and as they worked through Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount from the Book of Matthew in the New Testament, he suddenly thought about everyone around him differently:
I suddenly saw the glory of God shining out of their faces….[E]ach of these people was a subject that a person could love, and was capable of giving love to others, and was therefore infinitely precious and infinitely interesting. That whole economy of losers and winners, with its implied scarcity of worthiness, had disappeared. Or not disappeared but receded: it didn’t seem inevitable or fully real anymore. It seemed like a lie that needed to be undone by the constant practice of universal, constant, and unvarying love (pp. 8-9).
From this point on, step by step, the idea that the Christian message of God’s grace, forgiveness, and love entails an absolute, universal equality of persons comes to be unfolded in Christman’s life and thought. “Part of the point of being a Christian,” he writes, “is that you’re supposed to unlearn the human instinct to circle the wagons, identify the outsiders, prioritize the in-group,” and instead develop “the deep conviction that every stranger, every enemy, is a neighbor” (pp. 30-31). Since the structure of capitalism depends upon the private or corporate accumulation of profit and property—and thus functionally meaning the exclusion of others from possession of such of wealth—that means Christians have to move beyond it, even the more liberal and egalitarian versions of it. Similarly, since the structure of national borders depends upon the territorial claims to sovereignty—and thus functionally meaning the exclusion of others from the systems of law and care that sovereign governments establish—that means that Christians have to move beyond the state’s imposition of them, even when done so in light of comparatively democratic and humanitarian priorities. The universalizing, the absolute neighboring, of the resources of the world and the people who live within it, is the socialism that Christman believes the plain teachings of Jesus require. (And for those who insist that such “socialism” needs to take the form of personal charity rather than government policy, Christman’s succinct reproofs–so why haven’t believing Christians ever actually created charitable systems sufficient to meet Jesus’s call? and why wouldn’t such charity create the same “dependency” which conservatives supposedly fear?–are as solid as any I’ve ever read.)
Obviously, Karl Marx would have all sorts of problems with this. Not the final result–Marx’s vision of post-socialist revolution communism included the “withering away of the state” and, thus, presumably the realization of some kind of universal community of freedom and recognition, after all. Rather, Marx’s contempt would have been for Christman’s locating of the roots of this ideal in moral conviction, rather than some kind of material logic. His famous description of Christian socialism–“the holy water with which the priest consecrates the heart-burnings of the aristocrat”–makes his perspective fairly clear: if socialism is understood as something that emerges from the guilty feelings or inspired insights of religious believers, rather than something that is built historically, structurally—that is, scientifically—then it’ll never truly be a liberating and empowering social form: it’ll just be another con that the upper classes impose upon everyone else (and perhaps actually delude themselves into believing). Marx’s perspective is certainly at least partly responsible for the hostility to religion widely associated with the Left over the centuries.
But as anyone who spends any time amongst actual Leftists can tell you, this is a perspective that 1) was obviously wrong from the beginning, and has remained so over the years, and 2) has been basically ignored by tens of millions of Leftist religious believers over the same period of time, Christians most certainly included. In regards to point 1), the vital revolutionary force which Marx’s analysis of the history of capitalism provided, whatever its usefulness and insight insofar as understanding the alienation experienced under industrialization is concerned, has been questioned, denounced, re-interpreted, and re-affirmed in alternative ways that have given shape to every socialist argument since the mid-19th century on. To resolutely demand fidelity to Marx’s presumed linkage between the opposition to capitalism and the opposition to religious faith in the face of all this thoughtful debate is to do as much damage to the heritage of that ideal as is done by non-Leftists who insist that “socialism” can only ever mean the tyranny of Stalin or Mao. And in regards to point 2), the fact that Christian socialists—the Methodists who helped form the British Labor Party, the Catholics who organized the Catholic Worker Movement, and hundreds of other example—have, sometimes out of necessity and sometimes out of genuine intellectual agreement, appropriated and articulated their views in manners borrowed from Marx (talking about “class struggle,” for example), hardly means that their socialism is therefore Marxist, and necessarily carries all of his materialist, historicist, anti-religious baggage. This is especially the case for believers in the words of Jesus as presented in the New Testament, since of course those words were inspiring believers to—as recounted in the Book of Acts, chapter 4—sell their goods, distribute them equally, and have all things in common, right from the beginning. When it comes to socialism, Marx was a late addition to the tradition, and as important (for both good and ill) his contributions were, the Left has no more need to be beholden to him than it does to be beholden to Leo Tolstoy, Eduard Bernstein, Eugene Debs, Keir Hardie, Beatrice Webb, Dorothy Day, Simone Weil, or Gustavo Díaz.
Christman, for his part, elides most of this history by providing an assessment of where he sees different leftist intellectual trajectories pointing that is, in his view, “pretty vibes-based,” treating Marx’s thought “as we’d treat a buffet: you pick the stuff you think is helpful and ignore the rest, the same as you would any other economist or political theorist” (pp. 144-145). For people whose approach to these matters is grounded in historical and theoretical arguments over ideology and the writings of particular individuals, this is a pretty frustrating approach. Partly because it gets stuff wrong—as Christman does, such as when, earlier in the book, he goes too far in condemning the liberalism of John Locke as incapable of responding to the threats of capitalism, forgetting that Locke himself wrote that the rights of the property-owner oblige them to make sure that “enough, and as good” will always be available to everyone else—and partly because these are, by necessity, political debates that we are having, and as such being guided by one’s revelatory experience with the Sermon on the Mount leaves much unsaid.
But that doesn’t mean, and shouldn’t mean, that defenses of socialism like Christman’s need to be considered wrong; they aren’t. They just aren’t complete—as I think Christman himself would be quick to acknowledge. Again, his book isn’t really an argument for why Christians should be on the Left; it is a testimony of why, and how, the Christian message made it clear to him how he should think about inequality, about capitalism, about war, about borders, about wealth, and thus found himself moving leftward, hand-in-hand with his faith. He very thoughtfully considers all sorts of Left arrangements which the socialist tradition has inspired reformers and revolutionaries alike to consider over the centuries—worker co-ops, redistribution via taxation, government ownership of industries, wealth funds, and more—and acknowledges that there is plenty of thinking and working yet to be done in pursuing these Christian ends (“I don’t think it pays to get too dug in at this point on any of those systems,” he comments ruefully—p. 121). But that just means that Christman, like any other religious believer whose eyes have been opened to the socialist imperative, is in the same condition as the rest of us: making our way towards more justice, more fairness, more beloved communities in our world, and being attended by God’s grace and forgiveness in the midst of our own unavoidable involvement in all that challenges those aspirations along the way.
It should be noted that many of the Christian reviewers of Why Christians Should Be Leftists do, in fact, recognize that any proper understand of Christianity imposes a universalist vision of neighborliness and love upon believers, and they consequently recognize that there is truth to Christian condemnations of how even liberal democratic states (and their richest citizens and corporations) police their borders and protect their wealth, even if they demure from recognizing that such condemnations put them on the Left. But what about personal sin, they ask? What about moral purity? The records we have of Jesus’s words suggest that he didn’t talk about sexual morality nearly as much as he talked about sharing your goods with your neighbor, and didn’t condemn personal lifestyles nearly as much as he condemned exploiting the poor—but to insist that he never talked about the former isn’t correct either. So yes, those who want to find reasons to doubt the sincerity of Christman’s Christian faith solely on the basis of what he thinks about abortion or homosexuality or any other culture war issue can certainly do so. And when I put on my political scientist hat, I can explain at length how predictable it is that Christman, as he moved away from the Calvinist socialization of his youth, likely came to follow well-established patterns of liberal thought which granted enough importance to individualist expressions of moral choice such that he simply couldn’t take the sexual traditionalism of much of American Christianity seriously. But frankly, as something of a leftconservativemyself, I am happy that Christman felt no need to warp his testimony so as to encompass and defend those elements of his current political beliefs that actually have nothing to do what’s going on at their heart.
Their heart is, simply, a pious conviction that political, much less pragmatic, disputes about what can or should be done when it comes to applying the Sermon on the Mount, to applying a complete abandonment of any kind of distinction between winners and losers, are secondary. Towards the end of the book, Christman writes (in a vein very reminiscent of the theologian Stanley Hauerwas, though he never mentions his name):
The machinery of history is not ours to operate even if we could, which we can’t. But that’s OK, because there isn’t any machinery anyway. There’s the kingdom of God, which God is bringing about and will bring about. We live in a way that anticipates it. We forgive debtors, we hasten to resolve conflicts, we try to love our enemies. We try to build a society where the meek, the peacemaker, the person on the bottom of things is abundantly blessed. Leftism at its best helps us to do that. We are leftists only insofar as it is a name for our doing that (pp. 153-154).
Christman’s final words of testimony are, appropriately, “Even so, come quickly, Lord Jesus” (p. 174). Both the unreconstructed Marxist, and the MAGA-influenced Christian conservative who refuses to accept Jesus’s call for those who follow him to have complete solidarity with the poor, with their enemies, and with everyone else, would likely sniff at such a conclusion. But this Christian socialist loved it, and the book itself as well. To Mr. Christman, I can only say, as our mutually acknowledged lord and savior is reported to have said, “Well done, good and faithful servant.” (And to everyone else, myself included, I can only also add: “Go and do likewise.”)
A statement from our City Council Non-Cooperation Campaign
ICE and their “Operation Buckeye” are present in Central Ohio and they are kidnapping families, friends and neighbors from their homes, jobs and off the street. They are working to create terror and distrust in our communities so that we stand weaker and more divided from each other, knowing that in unity we are strong.
We condemn their presence here and stand in solidarity with our immigrant neighbors. Migration is a basic part of being human. Migrants have moved here in the best interest of their families, for safety, for opportunity. They do not deserve to be targeted, imprisoned and brutalized by our government.
Help protect yourself and our community by making sure you know your rights and sharing with others their rights, reporting verified sightings of ice to the appropriate channels, checking on your neighbors and staying vigilant. We keep each other safe!
For other ways to get involved, join us at an upcoming meeting to see the work we’re doing to change the way our cities protect immigrants and keep an eye on our story for other ways to protect our community – even the smallest act of solidarity is a sign of strength. Check out our calendar of meetings & events here: columbusdsa.org/events
Atlanta DSA is proud to once again endorse our comrade Gabriel Sanchez for re-election to the Georgia State House, representing District 42.
In 2024, we made history by electing Representative Sanchez, the first Democratic Socialist in Georgia’s State House, on a platform of housing, healthcare, and an economy that works for all of us. Now, he’s running for re-election in 2026 to continue to fight for working families, stand up to fascism, and build a better Georgia for all. Atlanta DSA is thrilled to back our comrade once again.
Gabriel has been an active member of Atlanta DSA since 2019 and has spent years supporting striking workers on picket lines, organizing to Stop Cop City, campaigning for abortion rights, and advocating for a Free Palestine. During his first term, Gabriel continued fighting for working Georgians in the State House with support from a staff made up of DSA members. He introduced bills to raise the minimum wage to $20 and end corporate ownership of Georgia homes, voted to eliminate subminimum wages for disabled workers and against tax cuts for the wealthy, and authored and held a hearing for a bill to end rental price fixing via AI software. Gabriel also brought his many years of experience as a community organizer into his first term. Over the past year, he has hosted in-district mutual aid events in partnership with Atlanta DSA, as well as town halls and meet and greets to speak directly with residents about the pressing issues they’re facing right now. Our chapter is extremely proud of the work Representative Sanchez has done, and we look forward to continuing to build a Georgia for all alongside him.
As a proud Democratic Socialist, Gabriel is refusing money from corporations or their PACs. Just like last time, we’re running a grassroots campaign of, by, and for working people, and we need your help to win this election. Donate now at SanchezForGeorgia.com
In the lead-up to the 2024 election, Atlanta DSA knocked thousands of doors in District 42 to talk directly to voters about Gabriel’s campaign for housing, healthcare, and an economy for all. We’re planning to do the same next year. Sign up now to volunteer with our campaign at atldsa.org/Volunteer4Gabriel and stay tuned for info about a kickoff canvass in the new year. Let’s re-elect Representative Gabriel Sanchez!
There are several ballot initiatives circulating petitions this cycle. The members of the GRDSA are proud to endorse Invest in MI Kids, MOP Up Michigan, and Rank MI Vote. If successful, these initiatives would mean real change for Michiganders.
We are circulating petitions! Our goal is to contribute 1,000 collected signatures for the Invest in MI Kids and MOP Up Michigan campaigns. If you are interested in volunteering, please fill out this form.
UPDATE: We have exceeded our goal! But there is still more work to get MOP Up Michigan on the ballot this November.
We support this ballot initiative because every student deserves access to excellent public education. This excellence requires proper facilities, educational material, and well-paid teachers. To fund these vital elements of education, this initiative would create a 5% fair share surcharge on income over $500K ($1M filing jointly) to be deposited in the State School Aid Fund. It will also add a requirement that money from the School Aid Fund be spent exclusively on local school districts.
We deserve fair utilities, a clean environment, and honest elections. But as our bills continue to grow, utility companies use political contributions to avoid accountability and slow down reform. This ballot initiative would reign in corporate control of government by prohibiting companies with over $250,000 in government contracts from making campaign contributions. Additionally, the initiative introduces finance laws which would require donor information to be made more clear in political communications.
We believe every voter should feel comfortable voting for their best option, rather than the better of two bad options. Rank choice voting is an alternative voting system where the voter ranks up to five candidates for each office, as opposed to picking one option. This allows the voter to rank their favorite candidate first, even if they aren’t likely to win, before ranking their second, third, etc. Voters may still vote for just one candidate or leave that office/section blank. If the votes are tallied and no candidate has enough votes to win, candidates with less votes are eliminated and back up choices are used until one candidate wins.
Dishonorable Mention
There are a few bad petitions circulating as well. There are some that would require IDs to vote and one to cut taxes, Ax MI Tax. Decline to sign these regressive initiatives.
Christianity didn’t lead him to renounce his faith; rather, his faith evolved, and with that spiritual evolution came a political one as well. In the excellent Why Christians Should Be Leftists, he testifies to that evolution, and calls other Christians to join him as well.
