In this issue:
- Presidents Message
- Candidate Forums
- Education
- How to Find Other Members
- Susan B. Anthony Awards
- Opportunities for Member Engagement
- New Members
- LWVD General Information
| PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE
From the Desk of Diane Tasian
Dear League members and friends,
The 88th Texas legislature is in full swing. This is our time to shine.
In theory our elected representatives represent us. But they can’t read minds. Now that bills have been coming out of committee, we can start giving meaningful feedback. There are many opinions about what is the most effective means of communication. Phone calls seem to be high on the list, but any means you use will be counted if you are reaching out to YOUR elected officials. Help your legislators by mentioning bill numbers if you can. And contact them often. My daughter makes it a daily practice to contact, and I am trying to get there too. If you will be in the Austin area before May 31, put a personal visit at the top of your list!
If you like to make phone calls, I recommend our Your Elected Official page: lwvdallas.org/yeo. It is easy to print a copy to have by the phone. Or you can just use the info on your screen.
If email is your favorite, LWV-Texas has made it incredibly easy to reach out to the people who represent you. You don’t even have to know who they are – just use the Take Action page.
lwvtexas.org/take-action. All you need to do is enter your address. It will even remember you for next time. Incredibly easy!
There are some messages already crafted – these just require you to click SEND. If you want to create your own message, just scroll to the bottom, enter your address, click GO and start typing. You will receive a copy of what you sent in your Inbox from League of Women Voters of Texas.
How many bills are there? March 10th was the deadline.
- 2,565 filed in the Senate.
- 5,292 filed in the House.
A brief description of the stages of a bill:
- Stage 1 - Filed
- Stage 2 - Out of committee into the chamber (either Senate or House)
- Stage 3 - Voted on by the chamber, if it passes it is sent to a committee in the other chamber.
- Stage 4 – Out of committee
- Stage 5 - Voted on by that chamber. If it passes it is sent to the Governor
- Stage 6 – Governor Action.
- Stage 7 – Bill becomes law.
Bill tracking is an interactive sport. By the time this issue of the VOTER is published we will have that sorted out. Please know that those communications will be via email.
Once you know a bill number, I recommend Texas Legislature Online to follow bills. The homepage is a gold mine of information: https://capitol.texas.gov/Home.aspx
Only Representative Tam Parker of the senate or house members representing Dallas County is on the committees focused on voting, but as you can see from the stages, if a bill has made it out of committee, there is at least one occasion for it to be considered by each member of the senate and house. So, please send messages about all bills you want to support or defeat. Any suggestions you have for amendments would be very helpful.
The May 6 Joint & Special Election will be municipal and school board races.
- April 6 is the last day to register to vote in this election.
- Search www.VOTE411.org to see what is on your ballot:
- VOTE411 will go “live” about April 6.
- Printed Voter Guides will be distributed a week or so later.
LWV Texas is looking for volunteers to be Election Protection poll monitors in all of the following priority areas - Austin, Dallas, Houston, Lubbock, Port Aransas, Galveston, Arlington, Brownsville/Cameron, and Hidalgo - primarily for the first day of early voting (April 24), last day of early voting (May 2), and election day (May 6). Please sign up. T-shirts will be provided and will be available to pick up from the office. Training is available on the following dates and can be signed up for at Mobilize Link :
- Fri, Apr 14, 12:00 pm-1:30 pm CDT
- Wed, Apr 26, 6:00 pm-7:30 pm CDT
- Wed, May 3, 6:00 pm-7:30 pm CDT
March 14, 2023, was National Equal Pay Day. This memorial began in 1966 as a public awareness event to illustrate the gap between the wages of men and women. In 2020 the difference in pay between white men and women was about 82 cents to every dollar. For women of color the gap is much wider (about 62 cents to every dollar white men make).
The LWVD Annual Meeting planning is under way. It will be held on Saturday, May 20, from 10:15 am to 1:15 pm downtown at the Eric Jonsson Dallas Public Library on the 6th Floor. We have many accomplishments by our amazing volunteers and members to share with you. I offer a hearty thank you to all the committees who have been working on this! We will email/mail the Annual Meeting Workbook at the end of April.
In League,
Diane Tasian – President
| Candidate Forums
Click on Events to view the calendar
There will be a full slate of municipal races across Dallas County for the May elections, and LWV-Dallas plans to hold a number of candidate forums across the metroplex.
We will need multiple volunteers to attend the forums to keep time and ensure a league presence. We will need volunteers to do prep work that includes securing locations, finding non-partisan forum partners, wrangling candidate for participation. The groundwork is in place for several forums with multiple organizations, but we are always looking for additional community partners.
Please contact Chelsea Keller (candidateforums@lwvdallas.org) should you have any questions as well as any specific responsibilities for which you would like to volunteer and or assist.
Submitted by: Chelsea Keller | Education
Texas House Priority Bills Related to Education to Watch
- School Safety and Security, House Bill 3, Rep. Dustin Burrows-R Lubbock.
- Community College Funding, House Bill 8, Rep. Gary Van Deaver R, New Boston.
- Teacher Recruitment and Retention, House Bill 11, Rep. Harold Dutton D Houston.
- School Active Shooter Plans, Mental Health Resources, HB 13, Rep. Ken King, R Canadian
- Minimum Salary Schedule for Teachers and Specific School Employees and use of enrollment data rather than daily attendance to stabilize school funding, House Bill 100, Rep. Ken King, R Canadian.
- Annual Cost of Living Raise for Retired Teachers, House Bill 600, Rep Greg Bonnen, R Friendswood.
- Requires book vendors to review and rate sexually explicit or relevant material. House Bill 900, Rep Jared Patterson, R- Frisco.
- Vouchers or parental educational spending accounts were not included as a priority for House Speaker Dade Phelan.
Texas Senate Priority: Education Spending Accounts
Voucher like educational spending accounts are one of the priority items for Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick. A bill was submitted to the Texas Senate by Conroe Senator, R-Brandon Creighton, Chair of the Senate Education Committee and Texas House Rep James R Frank R-Wichita Falls. These bills provides parents with education spending accounts of up to $8,000 to send a child to private school or spend on other educational items or tutoring. The first public hearing of the bill was scheduled for Wednesday March 22, 2023. Rural school districts have not historically supported voucher type bills.There is discussion about a $10,00 per student stipend for rural school districts (under 20,000 students) that lose students and the funding that follows, to private schools because of this proposed legislation. City schools would not receive a stipend if this legislation causes them a loss of students and funding. The cost of this proposal is estimated to grow to one billion by 2028.LWVTX does not support this bill.
From: Eileen Rosenblum PhD.
March 22, 2023
| How to Find Other Members
Even before the Dallas League went to Club Express as our membership management database in June of 2020, we have not printed a member directory. So how do you find other members?
Go to lwvdallas.org and log in. If you can’t remember your user id, email membershipvp@lwvddallas.org She can help you with your user id. Once you have your user id, you can reset your password when you try to log in. If you click on the Remember Me button, you should not have to re-enter your user id and password the next time you log in.
Once you are logged in, choose For Members and from the pull down under For Members, choose Our Members. This will take you to the Directory. From there you have the option of looking up a specific member by last name or leaving the search field blank and pulling up the entire membership. What you will find is that all members are not there because they elected to show no information in the directory. You may not find yourself in the directory!
To remedy this, go to your profile. Next to your name in the upper right-hand corner choose the down arrow. This will take you to your profile. This is a great time to update your data from when you first logged on. Do you have new interests? A new phone number, address, or email address? You can also check out how you want your information shown in the directory. For the Directory to be useful, it would be great if everyone could at least provide permission for your name and email address.
In addition, there is a new section to add the information from your Voter Registration card with you your districts. This is important data we would like to have to target advocacy emails.
Please note that LWV Dallas never sells or shares our member database outside of the League of Women Voters organizations (state and national).
Submitted By: Sandy Thornton
March 23, 2023 | SUSAN B. ANTHONY LUNCHEON
AWARDS
Nominations are now being accepted for the 2024
Susan B. Anthony and the Eleanor Sutherland Volunteer Awards
Earlier this year we were proud to host our annual Susan B. Anthony Award Luncheon, honoring an extraordinary community leader, Carol Donovan with the SBA award. We also honored Mark and Lauren Melton with the Eleanor Sutherland Volunteer award.
We have already begun the process of planning next year’s event. The selection of our next honorees is of great importance to help us raise funds to support the efforts of the League of Women Voters of Dallas to continue to empower voters and defend democracy.
Potential nominees must be available to attend the Susan B. Anthony Luncheon on February 8, 2024.
Complete nomination forms must be received no later than June 1, 2023 to be considered.
We are making an appeal to our members and key community organizations to help us identify the twenty-seventh Susan B. Anthony Luncheon Award recipients and make our major fundraising event a continued success.
We thank you for your help.
| 2024 Susan B. Anthony Award
This Nomination Form can be downloaded by going to Document Library - Susan B. Anthony Luncheon
If you don't have internet access, call 214-688-4125 to request a form and we will send it to you.
You do not need to be a member to submit a nomination.
This award is presented annually to a person who exemplifies the characteristics of Susan B. Anthony, her independence, persistence, determination, and dedication to obtaining equal rights for all.
Past Recipients
1997 - Elizabeth Cowles* 2010 - Julie Lowenberg
1998 - Cathy Wilkins-Moffitt 2011 - Ellen K. Solender*
1999 - Joanne Hill* 2012 - Jan Sanders
2000 - Elizabeth Johannaber* 2013 - Beverly Mitchell Brooks, Ph.D.
2001 - Catalina Garcia-Gary, M.D. 2014 - Hon. Harryette Ehrhardt, Ph.D.
2002 - Rebecca Russell Sykes 2015 - Hon. Ann Margolin
2003 - Suzanne Ahn, M.D.* 2016 - Regina Montoya
2004 - Vivian Castleberry* and Louise Raggio* 2017 - Debbie D. Branson
2005 - Patricia Patterson* 2019 - Susybelle Lyons Gosslee
2006 - Essie Reed* 2020 - Hon. Lois Finkelman
2007 - Laura Estrada 2022 - Natalie Jenkins Sorrell
2008 - Virginia Bulkley Whitehill* 2023 - Carol Crabtree Donovan
2009 - Cecilia Guthrie Boone
*Deceased
Criteria for this Award:
- Must be available to attend the Susan B. Anthony Luncheon on February 8, 2024.
- The nominee must have significant history of leadership initiatives, accomplishments, and contributions to the advancement of equal rights for all.
- The nominee’s political or other orientations should not be considered as factors in the selection of an award recipient.
- The nominee must not be serving in or actively running for a partisan office.
- An organization or individual may submit more than one nomination for consideration.
- The award recipient must allow recognition in the LWVD website and other publications.
- Incomplete nominations will not be considered.
- Complete nominations must be received no later than June 1, 2023, to be considered.
Questions required to be answered as part of the Nomination:
Limit answers to two pages.
- Give examples of the nominee’s community achievements to obtain equal rights for all.
- Explain how the nominee persevered in the face of adversity to achieve goals.
- What are some of the nominee’s leadership initiatives focusing on women’s rights?
- Show evidence of leadership initiatives at the local, state or national level.
Reminders to complete the nomination:
- Add a biography.
- Include no more than two letters of recommendation.
- All attachments must be legible.
- Documents submitted with the Nomination Form will not be returned.
- An organization or individual may submit more than one nomination for consideration.
- Incomplete nominations will not be considered.
Return the completed Nomination Form and other pertinent attachments by June 1, 2023, via:
Email: lwvdallas@sbcglobal.net
Or
Mail: LWVD
Susan B. Anthony Award
6060 N. Central Expressway, Suite 500
Dallas, TX 75206
For further information contact Cecilia McKay – SBAL Project Manager at (214) 500-8848
or
League of Women Voters of Dallas at (214) 688-4125
|
Eleanor Sutherland Volunteer Award
This Nomination Form can be downloaded by going to Document Library - Susan B. Anthony Luncheon
If you don't have internet access, call 214-688-4125 to request a form and we will send it to you.
You do not need to be a member to submit a nomination.
The League of Women Voters of Dallas established a Champion Volunteer award in 2018 to recognize the efforts and achievements of Volunteers in the Dallas community. The award is named after long time volunteer and valuable member, Eleanor Sutherland.
Past Recipients
2018 - Nancy Luban & Richard Marcus
2019 - Will Tolar
2020 - Karla Garcia
2022 - Jeana Foxman
2023 - Mark & Lauren Melton
We are looking for a deserving individual(s) whose volunteer efforts are making a difference in the community.
Criteria for the award:
- Must be available to attend the Susan B. Anthony Luncheon on February 8, 2024
- Must be at least 21 years old.
- Must demonstrate service and commitment to the community by volunteering.
- May be nominated by an organization, a colleague, or may self-nominate, based on her or his own volunteer work.
- Nominee may not be an employee of the nominating or affiliated organization(s).
- An organization or individual may submit more than one nomination for consideration.
- The award recipient must allow recognition in the LWVD website and other publications.
- Incomplete nominations will not be considered.
Complete nominations must be received no later than June 1, 2023, to be considered.
Questions required to be answered as part of the nomination:
Limit answers to two pages.
- Describe the Nominee’s volunteer activities in the Dallas Community, including length of service.
- Describe the need for the Nominee’s service.
- Describe the difference that the Nominee’s service made to the community. Who was positively affected and how?
Reminders to complete the nomination:
- Add a biography.
- Include no more than two letters of recommendation.
- All attachments must be legible.
- Documents submitted with the Nomination Form will not be returned.
- An organization or individual may submit more than one nomination for consideration.
- Incomplete nominations will not be considered.
Return the Nomination Form and other attachments by June 1, 2023, via:
Email: lwvdallas@sbcglobal.net
or
Mail: LWVD
Eleanor Sutherland Volunteer Award
6060 N. Central Expressway, Suite 500
Dallas, TX 75206
For further information contact Cecilia McKay – SBAL Project Manager at (214) 500-8848
or
League of Women Voters of Dallas at (214) 688-4125
| Opportunities for Member Engagement!
|  | Calendar
Click Events for the latest information
Regularly Scheduled Meetings
Advocacy Interest groups: On Zoom - see Events calendar to register for link.
LWVD Health Care Advocacy Meeting - First Thursday at 6:00 p.m.
Texas State Education Issues Advocacy Meeting - Third Thursday at 6:00 p.m.
Housing - Fourth Wednesday at 6:00 p.m.
Voter Service and Voter Rights - Fourth Tuesday at 6:00 p.m.
Membership Connections - members meeting new members every other month - third Saturday at 10 am. The location is on the Events calendar.
Neighborhood Unit meetings - members discuss issues: on Tuesday and Thursday of the third week of the month, 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m., and on Wednesday of the third week, 5:30 to 7 p.m. The locations of the meetings are on the calendar.
To calculate which week of the month - if the month starts with a day in the week that is the first week. Example: If March 1 is on a Wednesday, then that is Week One.
The above meetings occur from September through May.
Observer Corps
DISD Board of Trustees meet once a month on the fourth Thursday
Dallas City Council briefings are on the first and third Wednesday
Dallas City Council meets on the second and fourth Wednesday
Dallas County Commissioners Court meets on the first and third Tuesday
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WELCOME TO OUR NEW MEMBERS!
Elizabeth Caudill McClain
Jennifer Farmer
Electra Ford
Maureen Milligan
Ann Louise Rowe
Karen Williams
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LWVD General Information
LWVD Office Hours
Monday – Friday 10 am to 2 pm
Please call Sandy Thornton at 214-827-1988 or text to 214-415-1801 for
office access
LWVD Office
6060 N. Central Expwy, Ste 500
Dallas, TX 75206
214-688-4125 email: info@lwvdallas.org
Office Physical Location
If you don’t know the location of our office on the second floor, see the Receptionist on the 5th floor. They will direct you to our office.
To view the LVWD Board Of Directors go to Home - About Us - Board of Directors
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LWVD Office
6060 N Central Expwy, Suite 500
Dallas, TX 75206
Phone: (214) 688-4125
Email: info@lwvdallas.org
www.lwvdallas.org
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