Select Page

On Tuesday Jan 24, 2017, seven members of Indivisible Santa Barbara went to Los Angeles to participate in the first #ResistTrumpTuesday event. IndivisibleMoveOn, and Working Families are working together at the national level to identify weekly actions, and educate progressives to use local advocacy to influence their local representatives. This week’s “call to action” was for local groups across America to visit their senators’ offices to demand that they reject Trump’s unqualified, corrupt Cabinet nominees.

California’s Senator, Diane Feinstein, has not committed to voting “no” to the appointment of Jeff Sessions as Attorney General. Before the inauguration, Senator Feinstein’s office told Indivisible Santa Barbara that she had “only received 5,000 calls to vote “no” on Jeff Sessions’ appointment.” This incited our our own “call to action” and we began spreading the word across the state to call her offices.

When we heard about the #ResistTrumpTuesday event, Invisible Santa Barbara’s contingency went to Senator Feinstein’s Los Angeles office to remind her of her responsibility to represent her constituency, who overwhelmingly do not support the appointment of Jeff Sessions, and to strongly demand that she vote “no” to this appointment.

In the spirit of local advocacy, many other groups also showed up at Senator Feinstein’s office, demanding that she vote “no” to many of the appointments, including Price, Pruitt, DeVos, and Sessions. This Tuesday’s action for Indivisible SB turned into participation in a rally in front of Senator Feinstein’s office. The rally was attended by 250-300 protesters and was punctuated by continuous support of cars, commercial trucks, and even a Concrete Mixer!

Speakers spoke about the dubious qualifications, ethics, and troubling records  of the various cabinet appointees and several had compelling personal stories regarding the impact of affordable care, or the lack of it,  on their own families.

Laura Smith, from Indivisible SB, gave a very compelling speech describing how devastating Jeff Sessions, as Attorney General, would be for the LGBTQ community.

Several of Senator Feinstein’s representatives were present, and planned to meet directly with a few MoveOn members after the rally. Senator Feinstein was not present, as she was in Washington, where in fact she requested, and was granted, a delay in the Sessions vote, in order to further examine his record, in light of the massive marches across the country on Jan 21.

Sessions “must be a zealous advocate for the American people. All the American people,” Feinstein said Tuesday, citing the issues of women’s rights, abortion, equal pay, the environment and others.The least we can do is tell marchers we’ll be as careful as possible about who we put in place to make these decisions,” she said.

On Thursday, Feinstein issued the following tweet:

It appears she is beginning to get the picture. Our methods are working!