Waking Up to Our Power

Friends,

The state legislature is no longer in session. With the phrase “sine die”, the legislature has ended for the year, so that career politicians can get back to the work of keeping themselves in office and fighting off primary challengers. I would complain about their lack of focus on legislating - but given how many behave when the legislature is in session, I’ll call this a win.

This year, the Republicans in our state government behaved the way they’ve behaved every year for as long as I can remember:

They protected gun manufacturers by changing the law to prevent lawsuits from being brought against them.

They refused to allow women to stop paying taxes on menstruation products.

They shrugged their shoulders about a billion dollar shortfall for FSSA, refusing to investigate what led to this error.

They authorized the destruction of Indiana’s wetlands.

They pushed to have more children working in adult situations, even while pushing to restrict children’s access to adult websites.

They refused to take any steps towards legalizing marijuana and slow-rolled acceptance of psilocybin treatments.

They refused to take any actions at all to address the horrific conditions faced by renters in Indiana.

They attacked Indianapolis to try to override our democratic preferences - on the issues of puppy mills, traffic laws, and of course bus rapid transit.

This is how the supermajority of our state legislature behaves: they are petty, they are undisciplined, and they are more concerned with ‘owning the libs’ than passing sensible policies - or even allowing our city to pass our own. Again, this is the way they’ve behaved over and over and over again.

But something changed this year.

This year, we started organizing to fight back.  

And people noticed! People from across the political spectrum in Indianapolis, including not only socialists but the Chamber of Commerce and the Mayor himself recognized that without the advocacy and energy of the regular people getting involved in the political process, we would not have defeated SB52 and saved the Blue Line.  

Dozens and dozens of people took off work to testify in person in front of both the Senate and the House committee hearings. Over a hundred people have already donated and nearly a hundred have signed up to volunteer to unseat Aaron Freeman, the clown prince of the bad-faith Republicans in our state.

We demonstrated that we are paying attention, and we have started waking up to the immense power that we collectively have.

Now it’s time to use that power.

We cannot resign ourselves to playing defense year after year.
We cannot resign ourselves to publicly thank the Republican politicians who threaten and bully us.
We must continue getting up off our knees - and we must fight.

And fight we will.

At our local DSA convention this weekend, we talked about how to build political power. The Cliffs Notes version is this: we need both organized money and organized people in order to change the political landscape of this state.

Much ink has been spilled already about our campaign to unseat Senator Aaron Freeman. And later this week, you will be invited to our fully-funded fundraiser event in Fountain Square on the evening of April 5th, featuring food and a venue donated by a local business owner, liquor donated by a local alcohol distributor, marketing and promotion donated by local designers and promoters. It’s going to be big. We are going to raise a ton of money. We are going to need it in order to defeat Freeman.

But it’s the organized people that really offer us a chance to have a competitive difference. The millionaires and billionaires who benefit from the status quo can write a check that is very difficult for average people to compete with.

But they can’t drum up volunteers to talk to neighbors and persuade people to get out and vote.

We can.

On April 6th and 7th, my campaign is paying trainers from across the country to come and share the strategies, tactics, methods, and skills that help people-powered politicians win.

We used this knowledge to flip a Republican seat Blue in Hamilton County in 2022. We used these strategies to win my city council campaign against a better-known politician with dozens of endorsements and over four times my money. I am nobody special - I'm a political amateur and first-timer. The special thing about my campaign is that I trust and empower regular people.

We know this works. We know we can teach you. We know with your help we can win.

It’s important that we send Aaron Freeman packing and keep him far from the Statehouse if we want progressive policy in our city. But we need to go further.

The Indiana State Senate is currently overwhelmingly Republican. Even when we defeat Freeman, the Republicans will hold a supermajority in the chamber and can still simply ignore every Democrat and still pass their horrific policies.

But at the Indiana House, we are within striking distance of ending the Republican supermajority. If we flip four Republican seats this year, we allow the Democrats to block legislation if they are all ignored. This would be a massive change in the balance of power.  

So I’m inviting every political campaign running against Republicans in Indiana to join us at our training - for free! I will pay from my campaign funds to make sure every person has access to all the same resources I had to help me win - because we all win when we unseat Republicans and wake people up to their power.  

Block your calendars for the fundraiser April 5th and the two-day training April 6th and 7th. And be ready for several more large announcements coming this week. Now that the legislative session is over, we aren’t going away - we are stepping on the gas and accelerating our campaigns.

A better world is possible. We will build it together.  

In love and solidarity,
Jesse