Photo credit: Alan McDonell. Used with permission.
By Linda Lemons
WILPF Des Moines Leadership Team
As the nation, Iowans, and WILPF Des Moines are getting organized for our first in the nation presidential caucus, WILPF Des Moines members are supporting each other as we each advance our WILPF Talk in our community.
When we learned that the Democratic Party would be voting at their National Meeting in August on whether to hold a debate with the 2020 Presidential Candidates solely focused on climate crisis, WILPF Des Moines took a resolution to our local Polk County Democratic Central Committee requesting that they vote for the Democratic National Committee to do so. The resolution passed by a loud shout out for, and a quiet voice against. Locally WILPFers were creating change from the ground up and experiencing what a democracy should look like.
When we heard that the Sunrise Movement was holding a rally at the Iowa Democratic Office on August 20th to advocate for a Democratic Presidential Debate focused entirely on Climate Crisis, ten WILPF members showed up to share our voices and provide our support. It was wonderful to experience and hear the voices of young people, to hear their language and the change in narrative they are calling for, and to sing songs bringing us together. We were well received, and the energy we created was vibrant and alive.
We followed up with a letter to Iowa’s five members of the Democratic National Committee and by encouraging our folks to continue their calls and emails until the very moment their meeting was gaveled into session.
Although we have learned that the Chair of the Democratic National Committee was able to convince the committee to vote against holding a debate entirely on Climate Crisis, we’re pleased to learn that they voted to remove their rule banning candidates from participating in any kind of climate debate. Up until now, the DNC’s stance was not only that they would not host a climate debate, but they also ruled that any candidate who took part in a climate debate hosted by a third party would be banned from all future Democratic debates.
WILPF Des Moines will keep doing our part in helping to change the narrative and build a grass roots movement for change.
