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December 2022
Program Planning
Legislative Interviews
Advocacy Interest Groups
New LWVC Sheriff Transparency and Accountability Subgroup
LWVC Convention 2023
Voter Service/Engagement
Post Board Summary
President's Letter
Dear League Leaders,
Hurray! Thank You! We made it through another long election season and what feels like a very long calendar year. I am so grateful for our organization, for all League members, and for all the work done to empower voters and defend democracy in 2022.
I’d like to take a moment for us all to appreciate that we work in California. This state isn’t perfect; there is room for improvement in access to voting for all and in removing barriers that discourage underrepresented groups from voting. But we did not have to stop registering voters due to laws that could have penalized members for making a simple human error in advising a voter on how to register as Missouri Leagues did this year. We did not have to file suit using a law created to combat the KKK to stop armed, military style gear wearing people from intimidating voters at dropboxes like the Arizona League did. As we move into the next year, let us recognize the good parts of our laws and resolve to work hard to guard and perfect them.
The end of a year is a time to plan for the new year. The bulk of this letter focuses on the new.
Program and Advocacy
Toolkits for statewide Program Planning and Legislative Interviews are available right now in the Program/Advocacy section of our MyLO members only website. Webinars or town halls are scheduled to help your Leagues handle these important processes. Please note the deadlines and details in the information.
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Program Planning is done prior to the LWVC Convention to identify issues for emphasis for the coming two years. Click here for more detail.
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Legislative interviews will be particularly interesting this year because almost one third of the legislators are new to the Legislature and because redistricting always shakes things up a bit. Plus this is the chance to show legislators that the LWV members are constituents in their districts, not just some faceless organization. Click here for more details.
Over the years a number of online Advocacy Interest Groups have formed. These groups find and share resources, discuss experiences, best practices, and provide support across local Leagues, all in line with League positions. This year, an interesting subgroup of the Criminal Justice Group, called the Sheriff Transparency and Accountability Subgroup is forming up. To learn more about the other groups and a training on how they work click here.
Don’t miss the webinar on amendments to the Brown Act that governs local government public meetings. It is hosted by the LWVC and presents the First Amendment Coalition’s experts on public meetings. Register here for this January 31 event.
Convention
Another League event on the horizon is the statewide Convention located at the Hyatt Regency Downtown SOMA during the weekend of May 19-21. The Convention’s theme is Power and Possibilities. Through workshops and speakers we intend to explore how the League can expand its reach through coalition and partnerships. Click here for more information.
This location was chosen and the hotel contract was agreed upon in 2019 for the 2021 Convention. Then COVID intervened. We were fortunate to convince the hotel to move our reservation to 2023 without losing the deposit we paid or getting charged a cancellation fee. So off to San Francisco we go. Think about adding extra days to your stay. San Francisco is a unique city with so much to see and do. See you there!
For a look at the past work of the LWVC in 2022, take a look at the voter service/engagement report and our advocacy wrap up. Also please read the housing and homelessness webinar series located here. Our Trudy Schafer Public Policy Fellow rounded up knowledgeable panelists to discuss these issues.
I must say it again. Thank you League members for the fantastic, hard work you did for your communities and the state as a whole.
Happy Holidays to all. I wish you good health, love, and laughter in the coming year.
Carol
Program Planning
The LWVC program planning process occurs every two years in advance of our state Convention. It is part of what makes the League a grassroots organization; each League member has the opportunity to influence the selection of issues on which the League will focus time, talent, and money. It takes the enthusiasm and interest of our members to keep our program vital. The toolkit is here.
If you’re interested in learning more or in being involved in this at a local level, we are hosting a Program Planning Webinar on December 15. Register for the webinar here.
Legislative Interviews
Legislative Interviews will feature questions on the voter participation gap and underrepresentation, education, and water. This is the League’s opportunity to get facetime as constituents and League members with state legislators, almost one third of whom are new to the Legislature. Please do not share the interview questions before the interviews– we want an open discussion without talking points.
Legislative Interview Town Halls provide an opportunity to learn more about the process and the questions. You’re welcome to register and attend one of these Town Halls:
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January 05, 2023, Thursday at 6 PM - Register here.
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January 07, 2023, Saturday at 10 AM - Register here.
Advocacy Interest Groups
Interested in joining an Interest Group? Check out the wide range of groups available and sign up for an All-Hands Training on Thursday, February 16 at 7 PM.
Interest Groups include members of multiple local Leagues who are interested in a specific topic. They provide a forum for members to support each other in exploring advocacy and educational work around their specific topic of interest, always in line with California League advocacy positions and the One Voice policy. Members of an interest group can find and share resources, discuss experiences, best practices, and provide support across local Leagues.
Advocacy Interest Groups are growing in the areas of Criminal Justice Reform, Healthcare, Housing and Homelessness, Climate Change, Water, and Immigration. Most recently, a CJ subgroup was formed to focus on Sheriff transparency, accountability, and oversight to support local Leagues with tools to ensure robust implementation of League-supported criminal justice legislation.
Participation in Interest Groups is governed by the LWVC Interest Group Guidelines for Online Discussion Forums and Listservs and Netiquette & Tips for Success in LWVC Online Discussion Forums and Listservs. Please send Amaris LeBron an email (alebron [at] lwvc.org) for assistance in joining a group.
New LWVC Sheriff Transparency and Accountability Subgroup
The LWVC Criminal Justice Interest Group has formed a subgroup to focus on Sheriff transparency, accountability, and oversight in order to support local Leagues with tools to ensure robust implementation of League-supported criminal justice legislation. In January 2023 some California counties will have newly elected Sheriffs and District Attorneys in office. Our November 2022 meeting featured a presentation that lays a foundation to understand the power, roles, and oversight authority of county Sheriffs. Our first meeting in January will feature a guest speaker to help us better understand how to navigate new Sheriff transitions in our community education and advocacy work.
Our goal is to encourage and provide tools for local Leagues to facilitate accountability, transparency, and local oversight of Sheriff departments. This includes compliance with recently enacted criminal justice laws supported by the League. We aim to identify best practices for Boards of Supervisors and/or Sheriff departments, as well as to address specific areas of statewide public concern. For example, we’ve begun to prioritize projects, such as reviewing deaths in jails, implementation of state laws, and a closer examination of AB 109 Realignment effectiveness in reducing recidivism and incarceration rates. As we continue our research of oversight, transparency, and accountability, we may identify more priorities that require more capacity,
We need your help! All California League members are invited to join the new Sheriff Subgroup Listserv for education and advocacy. Our meetings are the third Monday of each month from 5-6:30 pm via Zoom (agenda & how to join). Email criminaljustice [at] lwvc.org with questions and to learn more.
LWVC Convention 2023
The LWVC Convention is scheduled for May 19-21, 2023 at the Hyatt Regency SF Downtown. Please send your League’s delegates to explore the Power and Possibilities.We are planning interesting guest speakers and workshops. A banquet will be held on Friday evening.
San Francisco is a unique and enjoyable city with so much to offer like the Museum of Modern Art and the Golden Gate Bridge Recreation Area. The city has a good transit system and is accessible from both the San Francisco and Oakland airports. Plan to stay an extra day or two to enjoy it!
Registration for the event opens on March 1, 2023. The hotel room rate is $239 a night. Visit the website set up for this Convention here. Bookmark it so that you can always find it, and check back often for new information!
Voter Service/Engagement
The following is a quick rundown of voter service/engagement activity undertaken by the LWVC for the November 2022 election.
Easy Voter Guide
The Easy Voter Guide, a fraction of which is funded by the California State Library, produces an online and paper publication with plain language explanations of registering, voting, and what to expect in the election. It also delivers unbiased, concise summaries of statewide ballot measures.
The LWVCEF partnered with the Center for Civic Design for community review of the draft language to ensure the content was accessible and understandable. The final draft was reviewed by the California Legislative Analyst’s Office for accuracy and content of the ballot propositions.
In the general election of November 2020 approximately 151,200 copies of the EVG were distributed through libraries, community organizations, and local Leagues across the state. Of the total, approximately 90,000 English versions, 38,000 Spanish versions and a total of 12,000 in Chinese, 5,600 in Vietnamese and 5,600 in Korean were distributed. Due to the reduction in the size of the grant for the EVG from the State Library, we were unable to provide free copies to our local Leagues as was our past custom. Leagues were able to purchase the EVG in any and all languages offered.
This year, we had a new partnership with AltaMed in Los Angeles, in which they co branded a version of EVG to distribute in their clinics and healthcare settings across the state. AltaMed has a strategic priority on civic engagement to improve healthcare outcomes, with a focus on Hispanic and Latino/a/x communities, as that is their primary patient base. Providing non-partisan voter education and outreach helps empower voters, and this partnership allowed them to work on increasing turnout of Hispanic and Latino/a/x voters, while helping us move towards our goal of decreasing the participation gap.
Voter’s Edge (a joint project of LWVCEF and Maplight)
Here are the statistics for the November General Election. Between October 1 – November 8, there were 1.2 million users on Voter’s Edge, with the most users during the 3 days prior to Election Day. Candidate participation was at 45% statewide with 2,787 out of 6,194 candidates participating. This is essentially the same participation rate as during the November 2018 election.
This election season approximately 150 volunteers worked to expand Voter’s Edge coverage to 36 counties. The local League volunteers were responsible for reaching out to candidates, nudging and sometimes nagging them via phone calls, Facebook, Twitter and personal email appeals as constituents to participate. LWVC office staff also reached out to candidates, particularly in counties where no one stepped forward to be a regional coordinator.
The LWVC was in contract on two strategic partnerships with Voter's Edge. The first was with Public Media. The following stations had Voter's Edge as their ballot guide for the 2022 election cycle: KPBS (San Diego), KPCC (LA), KCRW (LA), KVCR (San Bernardino), KCLU (Thousand Oaks), KCBX (San Luis Obispo), KVPR (Fresno), Nor Cal Public Media (Santa Rosa), North State Public Radio (Chico), Cap Radio (Sacramento), KQED (San Francisco), KALW (San Francisco), KAZU (Monterey), and KYZK (Mendocino). The second was with the Los Angeles Times. Voter’s Edge was the Times Ballot Guide. These partnerships help financially and which is good, of course, but also they extend League reach dramatically, make our work available and accessible to so many more Californians, and serve to strategically enhance our relevance and public awareness of the LWVC.
Pros & Cons
The voters got a breather from a long list of statewide ballot propositions in November 2022. Only seven were on the ballot. The Pros & Cons plus the In Depths are produced by a team of six volunteers who research, write, and edit the text. In addition, a slide deck of the Pros & Cons were prepared by staff using a format that departs from the standard LWVC multiple bullet point version in favor of distilling the information further to encourage viewers to develop a basic image of the proposition while focusing on the spoken narrative for deeper understanding. A version of the slides included video “voice over” narrative provided by staff members.
Youth GOTV via TikTok/SnapChat
This election season the LWVC continued a youth get out the vote social media campaign designed to encourage youth in underrepresented groups within specific geographic areas. The LWVC asked TikTok influencers to deliver a set of key messages developed for each week leading up to the election. We gave the influencers the key messages, which they delivered in their style and voice, in ways that will resonate with their followers and audience. The influencers maintain League’s non-partisanship stance;no endorsing candidates or parties, no sharing who they plan to vote for, etc. These young people bring their unique take and trusted voice to get their followers to register and vote.
Voter Engagement Toolkits
The LWVC offered the California General Election Outreach Toolkit, a plain language messaging & graphics kit for the November 8, 2022 General Election. The toolkit offered social media messaging and graphics that covered key voting topics with accurate, plain-language content. Also included were many voter resources, including links to the Easy Voter Guide, social media content, accessible alternative text, hashtags and handles, and links and hotlines where voters can get help. All of the content was in Spanish, Chinese, Korean, and Vietnamese. This toolkit was created by the LWVC Education Fund in partnership with the NALEO Education Fund and Asian Americans Advancing Justice-Asian Law Caucus. This Toolkit was offered to all nonprofits that engage in nonpartisan voter education.
Also offered to local Leagues was the Voter’s Choice Act Toolkit that provided resources to help Leagues craft messaging, guide local elections offices, and work with other community groups to ensure that each voter in the affected counties understands how to cast a vote. The Toolkit was originally developed for the five counties that piloted the operation of the Act in 2018. This year a total of 27 counties operated their elections in accordance with the VCA.
Election Protection
As in past years the LWVC worked with Common Cause, Asian Americans Advancing Justice, ACLU, Disability Rights California, NALEO, and other groups to monitor polls. Collectively, the groups have poll watchers, people going out to investigate complaints and problems. In addition the LWVC fields some issues that come through the 866-Out-Vote election protection line.
In the November election season volunteers were solicited to increase the program’s physical presence in polls Los Angeles, Riverside, San Diego, San Bernardino, Orange, Kern, Kings, and Tulare Counties. Poll monitor trainings were offered. In addition a ‘Social Media Monitor’ role where volunteers were trained to search for social media posts that share issues at the polls, to connect voters to resources and support, and to report election-related mis- and disinformation.
December 2022 Post Board Summary
LWVC/LWVCEF Boards of Directors Meetings
December 3, 2022 – Electronic Meetings
IMPORTANT DATES TO CALENDAR:
- December 15, 2022 – LWVC Program Planning Webinar, 6:30 to 8:00 p.m. (registration required)
- January 5, 2023 – Legislative Interview Town Hall, 6:00 p.m. (registration required)
- January 7, 2023 - Legislative interview Town Hall, 10:00 a.m. (registration required)
- January 31, 2023 – Local League Membership Information due to LWVUS
- February 27, 2023 – LWVC Program Planning Online Response Forms Due
- February 27, 2023 – LWVC Legislative Online Interview Response Forms Due
- May 19 to May 21, 2023 – LWVC Convention 2023, Hyatt Regency San Francisco
LWVC MEETING SUMMARY
The LWVC Board of Directors met virtually and acted as follows.
GOVERNANCE AND ADMINISTRATION
Ratification of LWVC Special Meeting Actions
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October 19, 2022 – Executive Committee – Amicus Brief participation, Moore v. Harper
LWVC Resignations
- Kathleen Quenneville, Board Member, effective September 11, 2022
- Tracey Edwards, First Vice President, effective September 19, 2022.
LWVC Board Committees and Task Force Appointments
- Fran Carrillo (LWVC Treasurer and LWV San Diego) to Strategic Planning Task Force
- Helen Hutchison (LWVC Board Member and LWV Oakland) to Governance Committee
- Adena Ishii (LWVC Board Member and LWV Berkeley-Albany-Emeryville) to Governance Committee.
LWVC Legislation Committee New Appointments
- Mary O’Kicki (LWV Palo Alto)
- Ashley Raveche (LWV San Francisco)
- Shelly Saini (LWVC Board Member and LWV Solano County).
LWVC Legislation Committee Reappointments
- Gloria Chun Hoo, Chair, (LWVC Second Vice President and LWV San Jose/Santa Clara)
- Maxine Anderson (LWVC Board Member and LWV San Francisco)
- Carol Moon Goldberg (LWVC President and LWV Sacramento County)
- Helen Hutchison (LWVC Board Member and LWV Oakland)
- April Oquenda (LWV Eden Area)
- Elizabeth Ralston (LWV Los Angeles)
- Susan Rice (LWV Los Angeles)
- Diz Swift (LWV Berkeley-Albany-Emeryville)
- Mia Villaseñor (LWV Los Angeles).
Policies and Procedures
- Policy M-11 – Policy on Operating Reserves was updated. See revisions at online Policies & Procedures
- Policy P-1 – Legislation Committee was amended to reflect maximum number of members. See revisions added to online Policies & Procedures.
FINANCE
- Received and filed the LWVC Balance Sheet as of September 30, 2022; Budget by Class July 2021 to September 30, 2022; and Budget vs. Actuals July 2021 to September 30, 2022.
LWVCEF MEETING SUMMARY
The LWVCEF Board of Directors met virtually and acted as follows.
GOVERNANCE AND ADMINISTRATION
LWVCEF Resignations
- Kathleen Quenneville, Board Member, effective September 11, 2022
- Tracey Edwards, First Vice President, effective September 19, 2022.
LWVCEF Board Committees and Task Force Appointments
- Fran Carrillo (LWVCEF Treasurer and LWV San Diego) to Strategic Planning Task Force
- Helen Hutchison (LWVCEF Board Member and LWV Oakland) to Governance Committee
- Adena Ishii (LWVCEF Board Member and LWV Berkeley-Albany-Emeryville) to Governance Committee.
Policies and Procedures
- Policy M-11 – Policy on Operating Reserves was updated. See revisions at online Policies & Procedures.
FINANCE
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Received and filed the LWVCEF Balance Sheet as of September 30, 2022; Budget by Class July 2021 to September 30, 2022; and Budget vs. Actuals July 2021 to September 30, 2022.
Happy holidays to all!
Caroline de Llamas
LWVC/EF Secretary
cdellamas [at] lwvc.org
