Congressional District Organizing Plan

Participating Organizations: Democrats.com, Progressive Democrats of America, After Downing Street, Gold Star Families for Peace, Hip Hop Caucus, Democracy Rising, Velvet Revolution,

With your help, we want to organize grassroots teams in all 435 Congressional Districts plus 5 Delegate Districts (DC, PR, VI, GU, and AS). Please volunteer below!

Our Mission: to persuade each of our Representatives to support

(1) Impeachment: Support John Conyers' Watergate-style investigation (H.Res. 635) of Bush's Iraq War lies - and immediately introduce Articles of Impeachment for Bush and Cheney

(2) Getting Out of Iraq: Support John Murtha's bill to remove troops from Iraq (H.J. Res 73) and Jim McGovern's bill to end funding for the Iraq War (H.R. 4232)

The Problem: For a year, we have tried all of the traditional lobbying techniques including marches, petitions, emails, letters, calls, town hall forums, and even face-to-face meetings with our Representatives. Yet despite all this effort, not one Representative is willing to introduce Articles of Impeachment, while fewer than 30 have co-sponsored Rep. Conyers' Watergate-style investigation. On Iraq, John Murtha's bill has nearly 100 co-sponsors but not the 218 needed to force a floor vote; Jim McGovern's bill has fewer than 20 co-sponsors, even though George Bush just asked for $120 billion more for a war America does not support and cannot afford.

The Solution: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King faced far worse resistance from political leaders when they tried to end segregation in the South. So they took their movement to the streets and marched peacefully directly into the face of that resistance. We will take our inspiration from them, and bring our movement peacefully into the face of our resistance: the 435 Members of Congress who are supposed to represent us but refuse to do so. (We'll make an exception for the House Honor Roll - Members who support our three priority bills above. For those Members, we will focus on Member Meetings to persuade them to introduce Articles of Impeachment.)

• Home Protests: Every weekend, we will march peacefully in front of the homes of our Representatives. (We suggest Saturday at 10:00 a.m. because that is when Members are most likely to be home, but local groups can set their own times.) We will carry signs and distribute flyers to their neighbors with our simple demands. If your group is really energetic, here are some "extra credit" ideas.

• Birddogging: Whenever our Representatives appear at public events in our communities, we will protest peacefully with our signs and flyers

• Member Meetings: We want to schedule face-to-face meetings with our Representatives in their district offices to get immediate action on our legislative demands. The best dates are:February 20-24—Presidents Day RecessMarch 17-24—St. Patrick's Day Recess ** March 19: 3rd anniversary of start of war *** April 10-21—Easter Recess

Volunteers: For each Congressional District chapter we will need volunteers with these skills:

• Protest: an experienced grassroots organizer capable of scheduling events, showing up, recruiting friends, bringing signs and flyers, and dealing with any problems (unruly activists, unwelcome pets, aggressive passers-by, inquiring or unfriendly police)
• Web: a computer user with very basic HTML (using this site's built-in WYSIWYG editor to put links onto text) and search skills to find local activists by researching our outreach links and using local networking sites like Meetup and CraigsList
• Outreach: a good networker who can contact potential local allies (identified with the help of the Web coordinator above) and persuade them to join our efforts
• Lobby: a confident speaker who can clearly communicate our simple goals to the Representative in a friendly, professional manner, and who is prepared to rebut the most frequently-offered objections
• Media: a well-organized person who can keep a list of local reporters with phone/cell/email, get friendly with them, keep them informed of upcoming events, and respond quickly to their inquiries
• Email: an experienced list moderator who can create and moderate a Yahoogroup for CD chapter members

MORE INFORMATION CAN BE FOUND HERE: LINK