More Action Items

We’ve compiled a list of action items you can take to move the needle forward. To help you save time, we’ve divided them into categories and ranked them by the effort required for each item. Green being easiest and light orange needing a bit more time investment.

News & Media – How to Learn What’s Going On

CalMatters – CalMatters is a nonpartisan and nonprofit news organization bringing Californians stories that probe, explain and explore solutions to quality of life issues while holding California’s leaders accountable. Their mission is to improve California’s democracy by making its government more transparent and accountable, and providing Californians with the information they need to understand and engage with their government.

Letters from an American by Heather Cox Richardson – Heather Cox Richardson is a professor of American history. Her Substack has 2.5M subscribers and chronicles today’s political landscape. Cox Richardson explains today’s politics through the lens of history, including the Constitution, laws, the economy, and social customs, while exploring what it means, and what it has meant, to be an American. Another wonderful option for busy working people. The newsletter takes no more than 15 minutes to read and arrives every morning with a thorough recap of yesterday’s news.

Politics – Building A Better Democracy

Organizing – How to Plug In and Develop an Activism Habit

Take Action San Diego (A local chapter of Swing Left) – Take Action San Diego’s mission is to drive positive change by supporting progressive candidates and policies; targeting key electoral opportunities; and providing citizens with effective tools to stay politically engaged at the national, state and local levels. Take Action San Diego meets monthly over Zoom and provides opportunities to get involved and learn about national and local issues. This is a great group to join if you are brand new to political activity.

Indivisible – You may have heard of Indivisible, the progressive grassroots movement of millions of activists across every state who fights to defeat the rightwing takeover of the American government and build an inclusive democracy. Well, they have chapters all over San Diego who meet regularly, engage in actions, get educated on the issues, and contribute to the rebuilding of American democracy. Find your chapter today and get plugged in!

To Read – Books for the Curious and Committed Californian

On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century by Timothy Snyder – Is a call to arms and a guide to resistance, with invaluable ideas for how we can preserve our freedoms in the uncertain years to come.

How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them by Jason Stanley – Identifies ten pillars of fascist politics—an appeal to the mythic past, propaganda, anti-intellectualism, unreality, hierarchy, victimhood, law and order, sexual anxiety, favoring “the heartland,” and a dismantling of public goods and unions—that amount to an urgent diagnosis of the tactics right-wing politicians use to break down democracies and a critical lens on the current moment.

Bad Law: Ten Popular Laws That Are Ruining America by Eli Mystal – Reimagines what our legal system, and society at large, could look like if we could move past legislation plagued by racism, misogyny, and corruption. Through accessible yet detailed prose and trenchant wit, Mystal argues that these egregiously awful laws—his “Bill of Wrongs”—continue to cause systematic and individual harm and should be repealed completely.

Actions & Strategies – What Can I Do

Find Contact Information for Your Elected Representatives – Simply enter your address to locate contact information for your Federal, State, and Local elected officials. Pro tip – For State Electeds the key offices to focus on include the Governor, State Senator, and State Representative (Assemblymember) while for Local Electeds the key offices to look for are Mayor, County Supervisor, and City Legislator (City Councilmember). Also, make your life easier and save their contact information in your phone and use 5 calls which has scripts for you to use to talk to your reps.

Raise the Minimum Wage for Hospitality and Tourism Workers – Councilmember Sean Elo-Rivera has drafted an ordinance to raise the minimum wage for hospitality and tourism workers (hotel, janitorial, and event workers) to $25 an hour. Already, corporations, professional sports teams, and millionaires are crying poor if they are forced to pay workers what they rightfully earn. The vote on the ordinance takes place on September 16th so sign the petition and call your councilmember and tell them to back the wage increase for hospitality and tourism workers because tourists, corporate hotels, millionaires, and even the Padres need to pay their fair share.

Redistricting – Californians have an opportunity to ensure that the midterm elections are not stolen from the American people before the first vote is even cast. So in addition to voting YES on Proposition 50 on November 4, 2025 and helping protect democracy and provide a check on MAGA, you can get involved in helping turn out your fellow Californians to vote YES on Proposition 50 by:

• • Writing postcards
  • Calling voters
  • Writing letters to the editor
  • Talking with your friends and neighbors about Proposition 50 and why it’s important

Ranked Choice Voting – The Justice Workshop is working to pass an amendment to the San Diego city charter that will implement the ranked choice voting system for all San Diego elections. This voting method is already in use in places like Alaska, New York City, Maine, and San Francisco. With a ranked choice voting system, voters will rank candidates in order of preference, starting with their favorite as #1, their second favorite as #2, and so on. If their first choice doesn’t have enough votes to win, their vote is automatically transferred to their second choice. If their second choice doesn’t have enough votes to win, their vote is automatically transferred to their next choice, and so on. This process continues until a candidate wins. Ranked choice voting will modernize San Diego’s election process, creating a system that is fairer, simpler, and more representative. They hope to have it on the ballot in 2028 if they can get enough signatures. So sign the petition and help build a better democracy in San Diego.

Display Dissent – Get loud about the type of American you are and the version of America you want to live in. If you think “diversity, equity, and inclusion” are good American values then get a t-shirt that says so. Post a pro-democracy sign on your business. Get a Melt ICE bumper sticker or write a letter to the editor. But refuse to be silent. We need the majority of Americans who do not support this MAGA agenda to let that be known as loud and clear and as often as possible. Dictators hate dissent so dissent we must!

Divest $2B of California’s Public Pension Funds from Tesla – Did you know that the California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS) and California State Teachers’ Retirement System (CalSTRS) have a total of roughly $2B invested in Tesla stock?! It’s time for them to dump this risky financial asset that also enriches a billionaire who just gave another $15M to MAGA Republicans in June of this year. Through the Divest from Tesla website you can sign the petition, email the boards, submit statements, and more. Pressure is building on both the CalPERS and CalSTRS boards to drop Tesla and you can be part of the final push. If you want to make a major impact, this is low hanging fruit that can really hurt MAGA and Elon.