Thursday November 17,  2022

Come at 6:00 to socialize or at 6:30 for the meeting.

This meeting is hybrid. Either join us at the JoCo Dems office

UPDATE: We will now be meeting at

Kc daiquiri and bistro..
8725 Metcalf Ave, Overland Park, KS 66212

or on Zoom.

Special Guests: Melissa Diehl and Kristy Childs from Veronica’s Voice

We will have a combined North and South meeting on November 17. We will hear from Veronica’s Voice, an organization that helps women leave a life of sexual exploitation. They have several programs, which include a residential program, men’s education, and policy advocacy. They also have a cottage industry, A Just Cause, that sells soaps, lotions, candles, etc. They will bring some items for us to purchase, so plan to get some Christmas and Hanukkah presents! It will be a hybrid meeting, and you can order items if you attend via Zoom.

Melissa Diehl is the Community Liaison of Veronica’s Voice. She loves to connect with survivors on a personal level, and help empower and encourage them as they embark upon their own journeys to freedom. She became interested in volunteering with Veronica’s Voice as she was already a staunch human rights activist within our city, so this was a natural progression for her, one that would become especially dear to her, as she holds the same name as these women Veronica’s Voice assists: Survivor. Melissa looks forward to engaging within our community moving forward as we work together to free others from human trafficking and commercial sexual exploitation.

Let’s Win Big in November! 

With the election weeks away, our amazing state and local candidates are working hard to reach as many voters as possible, but they cannot do this alone! To reach every voter, to squeeze every vote in races that will be decided in the margins, we need all hands on deck. Will you knock doors or make phone calls for your local Dems? 

To learn more about how you can help, visit the The Johnson County Democratic Party voter guide, which includes candidates names and links. 

What a terrific event! Special shout out to Juliet Sinclair, our new Vice President of Fundraising, who managed her first event spectacularly. Our total fundraising, after accounting for expenses, was right around $5,000. This money will go to the candidates we endorse next month.

Thank you to everyone who attended, donated, volunteered, and came out to have a great time. We could not have done it without you!

It was a pleasure to welcome Governor Laura Kelly to Johnson County and have her address our JCDW of Kansas Joint Meeting on June 2nd. She imparted the importance of voting, promoted the Golden Shovel Award (now won 2nd consecutive year), investment in roads and highways, and the Food Tax. She has pulled Kansas from nearly last place under Brownback to first in the nation for business investment winning the coveted “Golden Shovel for economic development last year, and again, this year).

Thank you too, for the volunteers who assisted with set up and tear down and all that came. We had about 125.

Points from Governor Kelly’s visit

• Governor Kelly’s talk focused on her economic and business successes. She thanked us for working to get her elected in 2018, and asked us to work even harder this year.
• After several years trying to eliminate the food tax that was imposed to offset the disastrous Brownback tax cuts, Governor Kelly succeeded this year in ending the food tax in incremental amounts over the next few years.
• Governor Kelly has prioritized education funding, in contrast to the Brownback education cuts.
• The Site Selection magazine awarded Kansas the Governor’s Cup, given to the state with the most capital investment and economic development projects per capita. In two years, with Governor Kelly’s leadership, Kansas has moved from #20 to #1 with an influx of $8.7 billion in business investment.
• Brownback let our roads and highways fall into disrepair as he used the Kansas Highway Fund to fill budget holes. Governor Kelly has invested money in the highway and bridge infrastructure for maintenance and repair.
• Governor Kelly inherited a $350 million budget deficit and managed it into a $3 billion surplus. She has cut taxes for everyday Kansans and has added to the rainy day fund.
• Governor Kelly cut property taxes for everyday working Kansans and provided more tax credits for veterans and teachers.

At JCDW, our passions run with a woman’s right to determine her life path and health decisions, in trans girls getting to play team sports, and peaceful transfer of power. But these financial details are essential in running a state, and the economy is important to everyone, but especially conservatives. Get ready to tell a few conservatives about her financial successes!

Please consider donating to Governor Kelly’s campaign. It is the most important race in our state this November because we need her to have our backs when it comes to women’s reproductive health, LGBTQ rights, and voting rights. It’s going to take a real team effort to raise the funds needed to court voters across this state. 

JCDW South’s biggest annual fundraiser, Flip it Blue, is right around the corner, and we need your help to make this the best event ever!

Raffle items needed: In addition to being a crowd favorite, each year the raffle brings in thousands more that we turn around and donate to Democrats running for state and local office. With the entire Kansas House of Representatives up this year, we’ve got a lot of races to support! You can support our efforts by donating a raffle item or basket. Please contact JCDWS with your donation pledges. 

Early Bird Special: Early ticket sales help a ton when the caterer (this year, a food truck), asks for a head count. So we’re offering 2 free raffle tickets for each Flip It Blue ticket purchased by June Friday, June 24th. 

This just in: We will have LIVE music!

When: Saturday, July 9^th from 4-8 PM

Where: Sar-Ko-Par Trails Park and West 87th Street Parkway, Lackman Rd, Lenexa, KS 66215

Tickets

Member: $25

Nonmember: $30

Child Under 10: $15

We strive to make this event as family friendly and inclusive as possible, but if you can donate a bit more, we welcome your contribution and honor your efforts to help move Kansas Forward. Special recognition will go to those who donate at the following levels (unless you request anonymity):

Sapphire: $50

Royal: $100

True Blue: $250

Get Tickets Now

Our THEME is patriotism, so come in red, white, and blue. Feel free to get competitive; prizes will go to the most patriotic outfit.

This year, we will be joined by candidates running in the 2022 election including Sharice Davids, Lynn Rogers, and Chris Mann!

Long before Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973, desperate women sought solutions to seemingly impossible problems. And there have always been ways, especially for those with means. In the years before the landmark Supreme Court decision, the nation was a patchwork quilt of restrictive abortion laws that had an outsize impact on poor, disadvantaged women without the ability to travel. Those poor women, disproportionately women of color, also sought solutions, but with far more frightening and evocative results. To this day, though it was hardly the only sharp implement used, the coat hanger is symbolic of a long and bloody fight for freedom sometimes waged on the corpses of women whose self-inflicted or back-alley abortion took a deadly turn.

Those days are not over. Once again, the nation is fragmenting, with unequal abortion laws from state to state putting undue burdens on women who cannot drive or fly halfway across the country. Women from Texas were fleeing to Oklahoma, but now Oklahoma has shut its doors. Where will they go next? Here, to Kansas? Our rights, too, are in jeopardy.

Make no mistake: the coat hanger abortion is not a thing of the past. In 2015, a Tennessee woman, unable to obtain a safe, legal abortion due to her state’s restrictive laws, used a coat hanger on herself to terminate her pregnancy. She was jailed for more than a year before finally being released, all because she could not seek the medical care she required.

When JCDW chose the hanger and the slogan “Never Again” to put on our merchandise, it was intended to evoke a response, to remind us all of what’s at stake. Our freedoms, our health, our very lives are at risk.

But let’s not forget, too, that most of us at JCDW are privileged. Should this constitutional amendment pass and our access to abortion be denied, many of us can fly to New York or California or even Canada (assuming the need is non-urgent). What about our friends? What about our neighbors? What about the poor women, who are still disproportionately women of color? 

Protecting every woman’s rights is a central tenet of the National Federation of Democratic Women, the Kansas Federation of Democratic Women, and Johnson County Democratic Women. This is why we have taken up the Kansas Constitutional Amendment fight, and why you can count on us to have the health and well-being of every woman in Kansas at heart.