Folks from Indivisible Columbus presented a workshop called Indivisible: How to Get Involved 101 at ComFest on Saturday, June 24, along with Bethany Sanders from the Ohio Statehouse. We had several questions from the audience, and this post will recap some of the resources that were mentioned during the panel discussion.
Go to house.gov to enter your information and find out what US Congressional District you’re in. Then visit the Find and Contact Your US Representative page on our site for contact info! We also have contact information for Ohio’s US Senators. Remember, though, US Senators are elected by the whole state for 6-year terms. Ohio is divided into 16 Congressional Districts, each with about 700,000 people, and only the voters in each District vote for their US Representative. Representatives serve 2-year terms, so your voice is 16 times more powerful if you’re contacting your US Representative, and even more if you consider that they literally are constantly running for re-election. They must be more accountable to their voters than the US Senators need to be, so much of the Indivisible action is concentrated on US Representatives, especially Republicans. For example, Ohio District 3’s US Representative is Joyce Beatty (D), so folks in her district have much more time to put pressure on Republican Junior Senator Rob Portman.
Read the Indivisible Guide to find out more about the Indivisible movement.
Find Facebook Groups for Indivisible Columbus, Indivisible Columbus District 3, Indivisible: Ohio District 12, and Indivisible Ohio District 15. Indivisible Columbus also has a public Facebook Page, that doesn’t require joining a group to follow. Districts 3 and 12 also post calls to action, including phone scrips, to help you make those calls. Follow us on Twitter: Indivisible Columbus, District 3, District 12, District 15. Twitter and Facebook info for all the Central Ohio US Senators and Representatives is included in their contact info, listed in the Find and Contact Your US Representative and on the page for Ohio’s US Senators.
On the Statehouse level, here’s the Facebook group for How Things Work at the Ohio Statehouse. Innovation Ohio has created the Ohio Resistance Guide, which applies the principles of the Indivisible movement to state-level politics here in Ohio.
The Fair Districts = Fair Elections website has more information about the gerrymandering reform petitions Indivisible members are circulating.
Several tools are available to help you get active, too. 5Calls.org provides contact info and scripts on a variety of topics. Daily Call to Action sends you an action item every day when you sign up. Remember – if you don’t want to talk to a person, you can still call during non-working hours and leave a voicemail! Resistbot will turn your texts into faxes to your US Representative and Senator. Just text ‘resist’ to 50409 to get started. You can also get daily calls to action and participate in phone trees for social accountability on the District 3 & District 12 Facebook Groups.
That’s all I can remember from the workshop, but if something was mentioned during the discussion not covered in this post, or if there’s anything you wanted to ask during the workshop but didn’t have a chance to, please send email to IndivisibleColumbus(at)gmail.com or join one or more of the Facebook groups to ask! Remember, you don’t have to do everything, you just have to do SOMETHING. Get out there and get heard!
