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Unity Rally 2023, Ybor Tampa Petitioner Perspective [1]
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Date: 2023-05-12
Me, Rachel D Brown (left) and Sophia White (right): two ambassadors for the FL Right to Clean Water ballot initiative, gathering signatures at the Tampa Ybore Unity Rally (Democrats rally) 2023.
On May 7th, 2023 democrats from across Florida came together for a rally in Tampa. The rally was organized by Nikki Fried, chair of the party. It was an opportunity for caucuses to get together and support each other and to ignite the fire through speeches by democrats across the state.
I was especially excited to hear from the people who got arrested with Nikki Fried and Lauren Book, and are now facing charges against them for protesting, some of them while in high school. The ultimate highlights were Nikki telling DeSantis that he will never be president and Jennifer Jenkins talking about the harassment she lived with in the year following her appointment to the school board. I also ran into an old friend, Lisa Staehley from Sawgrass Progressives who supported me during my 2020 Senate campaign.
I am now vice president of the Lee County DEC and co-chair of the Right to Clean Water DECF committee, but at heart I’m a petitioner. I was there gathering signatures for the Right to Clean Water ballot initiative along with two other organizers from Tampa. I was able to get two other volunteers from Lee County to join us, one of my 15 volunteers from the college and one from my Community Cleanup project. All together we only got 200-250 signatures, though it seemed like everyone signed. Some people had already signed.
The party recently adopted the effort into their 2023 goals, and as co-chair of the RTCW DECF committee I will be spearheading the parties canvassing efforts across the state. This is a big responsibility, and if we do it right, we might be able to reach the 900,000 signatures we need to make it on the ballot. Even if we don’t make it on the ballot, however, we will have rallied democrats across Florida for a noble cause; they will see our efforts, see that the party is still active, and some will join in our efforts.
The grand scheme here is to organize Democrats. Everyone agrees that Democrats need to be more active in single issue politics like ballot initiatives otherwise all they have is elections. It’s harder to persuade someone to vote for person x than it is to get them to vote for clean water or for freedom of marijuana use or body autonomy. Single issues are directly relatable to people and really one of the reasons we have parties. The party has resources. I see it as a symbiotic relationship. The party has its values and resources and single issues have concrete action plans like a ballot initiative. Together, we make positive changes.
Did you like this article? click here so help support my writing and activism.
Please sign the petition to drop all charges for the teen protesters, here
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https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/5/12/2169053/-Unity-Rally-2023-Ybore-Tampa-Petitioner-Perspective
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