Highway Clean Up a Success

In this Email

June 27 2023

• Party News

  • Newsletter Switches to New Service Provider Next Week

  • Highway Clean Up a Success

  • Next General Meeting on July 5

  • Volunteer Opportunities This Summer

  • Michigan Voting Rights Act Introduced

  • Trump in Michigan

  • Updated: More Good Things Happening in Lansing

• Upcoming Events

  • Updated: Save the Date - Upcoming HCDP Events

  • Updated: Community Events

Party News

Just a reminder that, as we mentioned last week, we are changing the service provider for our weekly newsletter starting with next week’s email.

Next week your HCDP weekly email will come from [email protected]. Please add this new email address to your contact list to help ensure you continue to receive our emails right in your inbox. For more tips on how to prevent newsletters like ours from going to your spam folder, check out this helpful guide with hints for a number of email clients.

Along with the newsletter we send from our new provider, we’ll also send you an email from our old provider to remind you of the change. If that’s the only email you get from us let us know and we’ll do our best to figure out how to make sure the new newsletter gets into your inbox.

Eight Houghton Dems came out last week for our first Adopt-a-Highway clean up of the season. Volunteers included Don & Carol Carli, Steve Blackburn and Tony Villa-Real, Craig Waddell, Audrey Gerard, William Keith, and Barb Turuc. All together they collected 26 bags along our two mile stretch of M-26 just outside of Dollar Bay. They were a hard working group - so hard working that they forgot to get a group photo!

If you didn’t get a chance to participate this time there will be additional clean ups later in the season and we welcome anyone to help.

Thanks to all who volunteered!

Parade season is fast approaching. With 4th of July, Strawberry Fest, and Pasty Fest coming up we have lots of opportunities for you to walk with fellow Dems offering a friendly smile and a positive message, and a few treats for the kids. You can bring along friends and family, and we can outfit you with a new Houghton Dems t-shirt for the day too.

Interested in joining us? Drop a line to [email protected] and let us know which parade you’d like to join and how many of you will be coming.

This past Thursday the Democratic majority in the state Senate introduced legislation to establish the Michigan Voting Rights Act. The Act, in four bills, follows the recent historic legislation to expand access to voting as passed in Prop 2 last year.

The Michigan Voting Rights Act will do four things:

1. Prohibit voter denial, dilution, and/or suppression.

2. Require and expand the jurisdictions that must translate election-related information into languages other than English, to ensure that language minority groups in our state have an equal opportunity to participate in the voting process.

3. Enhance and clarify protections for voters with disabilities or who otherwise need assistance to vote.

4. Prohibit intimidation, coercion, and deceptive practices of government and private actors with the intent or results in protected classes not participating in the election. The action can be before, during, or after the election.

The Act is sponsored by Sens. Darrin Camilleri (D-Trenton), Stephanie Chang (D-Detroit), Erika Geiss (D-Taylor) and Jeremy Moss (D-Southfield) and was developed with Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson.

On Sunday the former President, fresh off his federal indictment on 37 felony charges, was in Oakland County in lower Michigan. There he received the county party's "Man of the Decade" award. His speech was filled with his usual talking points, including boasts about his time in office and how wonderful it was for the state of Michigan.

Not everyone was enthusiastic, including some of his fellow Republicans. One former Republican US Representative, Dave Trott, was quoted as saying “Trump largely is the reason why the Michigan Republican Party is dead”. Most Michigan Republican lawmakers have not endorsed Trump's third bid for the presidency.

The Detroit News covered Trump’s speech in an article that illuminates some of the disarray within the Michigan Republican Party.

News was made in Lansing this past week in and out of the legislature:

• One year after the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision, Michigan is being recognized as a beacon of hope for reproductive freedom. As MLive notes, the state Legislature is not done making updates to abortion policy.

• The state House passed legislation to allow speeding tickets to automatically be issued by cameras in construction zones. If the bill becomes law Michigan would be the 17th state with such a system.

• Charges were brought by AG Nessel against the three “principal actors” in the signature forgery plot that led to primary ballot petitions being disqualified for five Republican gubernatorial candidates.

• Democrats are leading the way on a total ban on child marriage in Michigan. The House passed a 10 bill package on the matter last Wednesday that garnered strong bipartisan support.

• Last Tuesday the House passed legislation expanding the existing Hate Crimes law to include sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, disability or age. A companion bill also passed the House, allowing for a new class of hate crime for vandalizing, defacing or otherwise threatening institutions including churches, synagogues, mosques, schools, libraries or museums.

Upcoming Events

Here are dates to hold for upcoming HCDP activities:  

• July 4th: Independence Day Parades (Participation TBD, but likely Lake Linden & South Range)

• July 8th: Strawberry Festival Parade in Chassell

• August 19th: Pasty Fest Parade in Calumet

• August 24 thru 27th: Booth at Houghton County Fair

Wed 6/28

• The Houghton City Council meets at 5:30 p.m. on Wednesday. The Meeting Agenda can be found in the Searchable Document Center of the Council's website. Zoom attendance information is available here.

• Pride Marches and related events have occurred across the country this past weekend, and throughout Pride Month. But it’s on Wednesday that we mark the day that started it all. Wednesday is the 54th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, six days of protest at the Stonewall Inn in New York that led to the beginnings of the modern LGBTQ+ rights movement. Seven years ago President Obama named the Stonewall Inn a National Monument. You can find a number off resources, including a 15 part video series on the meaning of the events at Stonewall on the Monument’s National Park Service website.