Three Wins Today: Nov 24, 2025
Some terrible bills stay terrible in the dark.
This past week, you’ve probably noticed I’ve name dropped (MA-07) a lot. Every day I seem to have some quote of hers to share. That’s cause I was in a meeting with her on Tuesday, minutes after the House voted to release the Epstein files, when we still thought we were going to have to pressure Majority Leader, John Thune.
But this meeting was about so much more, and I am finding myself quoting it constantly, so I want to share some of the details, because she basically just gave me so many quotes to strengthen the things I’m already saying.
A lot of my audience wonders why X Dem hasn’t signed on to Y bill. Well:
“Cause at any given time there’s 12,000 pieces of legislation. Don’t assume because somebody’s not on a bill, it’s because they don’t care about that issue. Sometimes we just haven’t been briefed on it yet, we’re just not aware.”
You want more Dems to show more strength? So does she:
“Democrats should be more unapologetic in our desire to build power. To build people power, to build movement power to build electoral power…I think we operate with a lot of scared power…we can’t just be communicating, we ain’t him, we can’t just be doing resistance, we have to be offering, what is the affirmative view.”
She also said she wants to be held accountable only for the things SHE has the power to do. How can people keep holding Congressional Dems accountable for things that have nothing to do with them?
“You can’t hold me accountable to the work of a Democratic AG, you know, our levers and what is available to me are different. Hold me accountable to the levers that are available to me.”
And finally, everything our Dems are doing is leveraging the powers they DO have. This is where those pesky letters everyone loves to hate come in:
“[Being in the minority] doesn’t stop me from introducing bills, I’m still doing that, but I’m also leveraging the power of my platform, I’m leveraging the power of my letterhead, I’m leveraging the power of convening, I’m leveraging the power of movement. Like I said, the resistance strategy is litigation, legislation, agitation and mobilization.”
The meeting was about 40 minutes long and I have never left a meeting with such a strong messaging outlook, but, I mean, can you blame me? These quotes hold so much power, and hopefully change some hearts and minds.
Hold your Dems accountable for the levers they DO have, and praise them when they use them, even if you personally still don’t get the importance.
And thank you to Ayanna Pressley for this incredible meeting. I will continue quoting you daily.
Baltimore, Maryland
Wed, Nov 12 - The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops have issued a “Special Message” on Immigration during their Fall Plenary Assembly.
“Special Messages” are regulated. They may only be issues at a certain event, in certain circumstances and approved by the President of the Conference, the Administrative Committee or the majority of the membership. So this is not a small thing.
The message begins:
We are disturbed when we see among our people a climate of fear and anxiety around questions of profiling and immigration enforcement. We are saddened by the state of contemporary debate and the vilification of immigrants. We are concerned about the conditions in detention centers and the lack of access to pastoral care. We lament that some immigrants in the United States have arbitrarily lost their legal status. We are troubled by threats against the sanctity of houses of worship and the special nature of hospitals and schools. We are grieved when we meet parents who fear being detained when taking their children to school and when we try to console family members who have already been separated from their loved ones.
I know this quote is long, but this entire section is so powerful I couldn’t cut it further.
The Catholic Church has really stepped up and it’s truly incredible and hopeful to see. Every time I’m convinced they’ve done what they’re gonna do, they announce they’re doing more.
Clovis, California
Mon, Nov 17 - For the past month, Clovis City Council has been working on creating an emergency SNAP fund. It will include $20,000 and hopefully be enough to support the 248,000 residents on SNAP, should something like this happen again.
Clovis is a purple area, but, while the US government is making this a poltical issue, local communities just can’t.
At the first meeting, back on Nov 3, Councilmember Lynne Ashbeck said exactly that”
think we can’t sit back and act like it’s okay that people don’t have enough to eat. Politics aside, whether you think SNAP is good, bad, or indifferent, it’s a reality for these folks that they don’t have food.
And it really is that simple. Nothing about this should be political.
At last week’s meeting she also spoke up:
We’ve never given money to anyone like this effort. We barely bought a table at the Chamber of Commerce breakfast. So it’s kind of a new territory. We need a rapid response, and people can’t go hungry. So I think we need to craft a little bit of a framework around it.
This is what mutual aid means, by the way. Neighbors helping neighbors. People putting aside everything to support those in their local community.
You don’t expect this from Fresno County, but it happened, and it’s incredibly hopeful.
If you’re interested in hearing more of this discussion, you can find the full city council meeting below, and I even have the start time when this discussion started at last week’s meeting:
South Carolina
Tue, Nov 18 - South Carolina Republicans were trying to pass an abortion ban that made it illegal to get an abortion from the second it is “clinically diagnosable.”
I think there’s this idea that when bad bills are introduced in states with a Republican trifecta, they’re automatically becoming law. And that’s just not the case.
This bill got killed in a Committee vote. Now, this is rare for a bad bill in South Carolina. Typically, if a bad bill is introduced, it just sits in the subcommittee untouched.
The issue here, is the person who introduced it was the chairman of the committee. He was determined to see it get a vote. And get a vote it did, against him.
The final vote was 3-2 with four Republicans refusing to vote.
It’s also worth noting that the Dems didn’t try to make the bill better. It didn’t matter what the proposed amendment was, they voted it down every single time.
Minority Leader Brad Hutto explained:
You can’t make something bad better by voting for things, so we just voted against everything.
I don’t know if that tactic would have the same success in US Congress, but it’s good to know it worked here.
And next time, if you see a terrible bill introduced in a place with a Republican trifecta, breathe before automatically assuming it’s about to be a new law.
So those are today’s wins. I hope they make your day brighter!
Our voices are our superpower, but only when we use them!