Thank you to everyone who showed up to the January general meeting yesterday; it was longer than normal but we covered a lot of important voting. We’re proud to announce Franklin Bynum for Harris County Criminal Court 8 and Molly Cook for Texas Senate as re-endorsed and newly endorsed candidates respectively! The membership also passed a resolution calling on the NPC to expel Jamaal Bowman and uphold BDS in our own work.
Again, thank you to everyone who showed up, expressed their point of view, or ran for endorsement. It was exciting to see so many people show up and forge a path for our chapter through debate. We hope to see you at canvasses and other organizing events in the future!
We extend our appreciation to everyone who came to our general meeting last Thursday! For those that don’t know, our monthly general meetings are where we gather to discuss ongoing meetings and conduct official chapter business. Our next general meeting will be Thursday, December 10. We hope to welcome you there!
Local News
Endorsements Committee
The Endorsements Committee has 7 openings up for election! This committee is responsible for screening candidates seeking our endorsement, and then presenting that information to the general body. The committee makes recommendations, and the membership then votes on endorsement. Elections for these positions will be held at the next general meeting on December 10th. Send all nominations (whether they be for yourself or someone else) to info@houstondsa.orgbefore then!
Abolition Working Group Resolution
We passed a new resolution to recenter our Abolition Working Group’s efforts on targeting the surveillance capabilities of the Houston Police Department, specifically their ability to access the footage of Amazon Ring Doorbell surveillance devices. This is an important step on the road to abolition as we aim to inform our community about the dangers of these devices, divest HPD funds from these and other predatory technologies, and deepen our partnership with other local organizations while making winnable demands. Look for further information on how you can become involved with this new campaign!
Get Involved: Charter Amendment Campaign
We’re collecting petition signatures to make our city more democratic. Come canvass with us this weekend at Hermann Park! We have three separate shifts you should attend (Saturday at 10:30am and 1:30pm, and Sunday at 10:30am). We will be meeting at the North entrance of the park at the Mary Gibbs and Jesse H. Jones Reflection Pool. Look for our gray shirts! You may have difficulty parking, so arrive early.
The nearest rail stop is the Red line at Hermann Park/Rice U. Check Hermann Park’s website for parking. There is street parking Northeast of the park as well. Email the Steering Committee (info@houstondsa.org) if you have any questions.
As some backstory, our membership has voted in favor of a resolution to join a coalition aiming to amend the charter of the city of Houston in order to take some of the power of the Mayor of Houston and give it to City Council Members. Under our current system, the Mayor has complete control over the City Council agenda. Even if all 16 Council Members want to vote on an issue at a Regular Session, only the Mayor has the power to let that happen.
Fortunately, the people of Houston have the power to change this. Houston DSA is working with IAFF Local 341 on an amendment to the Houston City Charter that would allow any group of three Council Members to add items to the Council agenda. While mayors come and go, our City Charter stays the same. Let’s use our power to build a more democratic, more functional City of Houston where everyone’s voices are heard.
If you are interested in getting involved this weekend or beyond, please fill out this interest form. Contact the Steering Committee if you have any questions.
We welcomed a bunch of new members as we continue to grow both locally and nationally as part of our goal of 100,000 DSA Members! At the National Convention in Atlanta last year, delegates established to goal of growing DSA membership to 100K by 2021. Nationally we’ve had over 12,000 new members join since October, and over 40 in Houston!
Again, we extend our joy welcoming all who came last Thursday! Be sure to subscribe to our local calendar and the DSA National Calendar for a full update of all upcoming events.
We we glad to welcome everyone who attended the October General Meeting!
Local News
There were two Steering Committee positions up for election. The body reelected Dan D. as Internal Secretary, and elected Henry M. as Co-Chair, replacing Bryan L. Congratulations to all, and thank you to Bryan, who has faithfully served our chapter in an official capacity and will continue to do so as a rank and file member.
We debated a resolution for the creation of a Housing Working Group. This passed with 31 yes votes, 0 no votes, and 0 abstentions. You can read the text of the resolution here. They certainly will be doing good work soon, so make sure to keep an eye out for opportunities to help fight for housing justice in Houston.
National News
The membership committee ran a presentation on the DSA100K recruitment drive. At the National Convention in Atlanta last year, delegates established to goal of growing DSA membership to 100K by 2021. To meet those goals, Houston needs to increase our membership by 10%, or 78 members. We are asking all members to sign the pledge to recruit 3 new members by going to dsausa.org/recruit. The first 500 members to reach this goal will get a nifty DSA hat, and the next 1000 will be getting some swag as well! We’ll be having an in-depth training on how to ask people to join DSA Saturday, October 17th at 2pm. We’ll see you there!
We were glad to welcome people to our general meeting! It’s always great getting to see y’all’s faces. If you couldn’t make it this time, no sweat! That’s what this recap is for. We hope to see you at our next meeting, which will be Thursday, October 8th.
Local News
TwoSteering Committee positions, Co-Chair B and Internal Secretary, are open for election in our October General Meeting. Nominations are open now, and will be closed during that meeting! For more information on these positions, you can read section 5.2 of our bylaws. If you would like to nominate yourself or someone else, send an email to nominations@houstondsa.org, or send a message to our nominations committee on Mattermost. You can only vote if you attend the next general meeting, so make sure to attend next month on October 8th to help shape our leadership and vote on these two positions!
The Houston DSA Org Chart
Our Solidarity Fund, as managed by the Mutual Aid Working Group, has given out around $2,500 to help our fellow Houstonians! Please continue to support them with donations here: https://houstondsa.org/solidarity-fund/
UFCW455 is battling with Kroger to get a fair contract that protects grocery workers, and they need your help! Our Steering Committee endorsed supporting their struggle, and last Thursday we had some members join the picket. We’d like to continue our support of local labor, so be on the look out for upcoming events to guarantee Kroger employees get good healthcare, hazard pay, and a seat at the table.
National News
DSA nationally is almost at 100,000 members! If you’d like to help close the gap, look out for the Membership Drive Kickoff Call on September 27th at 8pm, and consider joining Houston DSA’s Membership Committee. Talk to Will Lira for more information on that.
Meeting Events
We were honored to welcome Fred Glass of East Bay DSA. Fred spoke about California’s upcoming election on Proposition 15, a way of closing a corporate property tax loophole that has allowed giants like Google and Disney to get away with not paying their fair share for decades. Thanks to Fred for speaking with us! Learn more about EBDSA’s endorsement of Prop. 15 here: https://www.eastbaydsa.org/endorsements/
Lastly, we had three breakout discussion groups! In the Housing breakout group, we discussed how to use the current eviction moratorium to keep people in their homes. The Mutual Aid breakout group discussed ongoing efforts to assist after Hurricane Laura. Finally, our Welcome to DSA breakout group welcomed new members into the fold. All in all it was a successful general meeting! Again, we’d love to welcome you to these meetings, which happen on the second Thursday of every month! Next month’s is on October 8.
Our May General Meeting is coming up! We’re very excited for this one, because now that things are beginning to settle down, members are ready to start organizing on the issues that we find most important.
Just a few topics this month include:
– Nominations for delegates for DSA National Convention
– Updates on past actions
– Updates from our working groups
– New proposed working groups (LGBTQ+, Local and State Policy)
The last part of the meeting will involve everyone splitting into working groups to discuss future meetings, plans, ideas, etc. This meeting will be very good for those who are ready to DO something!
Everyone is welcome! We hope to see you there and on the streets!
