https://www.facebook.com/events/191728390949032/

We’ve been asked to submit names of volunteers by the end of this week.  If you’re interested, send an email to Jordan (service@gomyd.com) by Friday at noon.  Thanks!

2012 Convention Revitalizes Democratic Youth Organization

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 21, 2012
Contact: Michael J. Murphy, mjmurphy.astoria@gmail.com
The New York State Young Democrats convened in Albany, NY during May 18th through May 20th to elect a new Executive Board, marking a renewed commitment to building a sustained Democratic movement in New York and engaging young Democrats statewide. The new Executive Board officers and caucus chairs are:

President: Glenn Oldhoff (Westchester)
Executive Vice President: Joseph Coe (Rockland)
Treasurer: Jon Reznick (Manhattan)
Secretary: Michael J. Murphy (Queens)
National Committeeman: Jahi Lafayette (Westchester)
National Committeewoman: Jugba Santi (Brooklyn)
Legal Director: Jenifer Rajkumar (Manhattan)
Downstate Region Vice President: Benjamin Yee (Manhattan)
Hudson Valley Region Vice President: Christopher Smith (Rockland)
Central Region Vice President: Jenni Royer (Broome)
Chair of Council of Presidents: Amanda Pizzuti (Brooklyn)
Caucus of Color: Rachel Walton (Queens)
Disability Caucus: Seamus Campbell (Brooklyn)
High School Caucus Chair: Julia Raphael (Dutchess)
LGBT Caucus: Katherine Brezler (Westchester)
Women’s Caucus: Angelica Katz (Queens)
Labor Caucus: Eric Katz (Westchester)
Jewish Caucus: Sam Hudis (Manhattan)
Rural Caucus: Jamie Duchessi (Montgomery)

In addition to selecting new leadership, the organization adopted a number of reforms to strengthen the democratic process, empower local chapters and promote transparency and accountability.

“It’s my great honor to serve as President of the New York State Young Democrats,” said Glenn Oldhoff. “Together, we’ve taken the first steps toward a revitalized Democratic youth movement in New York State. Now, we’ll continue that progress and work to build new chapters from the North Country to the South Shore. We stand united to elect Democratic leaders statewide and support the Democratic vision for our state and our nation.”

“We look forward to working with the new caucus leadership that provides voices for marginalized communities,” said Joseph Coe. “We are committed to working with our partners in government to help secure social justice and equality for all New Yorkers.”

The Women’s Issues and Transportation committees have teamed up with New Yorkers for Safe Transit, a coalition of organizations and advocates dedicated to eliminating harassment and assaults, particularly gender- or discrimination-based, on public transportation in New York City. On Sunday, May 20th, we will be at subway stops along the 4/5/6 in East Harlem from 2-5 p.m. collecting survey data from straphangers on experiences with harassment in transit. This survey will help New Yorkers for Safe Transit understand the types of violence and harassment that are happening in our communities.

Join us! Email women@gomyd.com and transport@gomyd.com to volunteer. Can’t volunteer but still want to help out the cause? You can take New Yorkers for Safe Transit’s survey and share your stories here: www.nyfst.org/survey

In related news, at Engendering Progress, Emily May of Hollaback! announced she was working with members of the City Council to create a new app for iPhones and Androids that will allow New Yorkers to report street harassment directly to 311, and they are one step closer to this goal! Speaker Quinn’s office has donated $20,000 to the development of this app. According to May’s op/ed in the Daily News, once the app is created, the information collected will be publicly available on ihollaback.org, for a first-ever full portrait of harassment in NYC.

Want to get involved? Join the Women’s Issues and Transportation Committees! Check the MYD calendar for upcoming meetings and events.

Each year, YGID honors 5 leaders under 35 who have kicked ass, and made a successful contribution to our communities.

As YGID continues to establish itself as the marquee Young Democrats event of the summer, we thought it would be a great idea for our readers, members, and friends to submit nominations for this year’s Top 5 Leaders Under 35. All submissions are Anonymous (link below)

Submit your choice here:

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/N72QB6X

Our past nominees have been:

2009: Lt. Dan Choi, Hon. Micah Kellner, Justin Krebs, Hon. Jessica Lappin, Hon. Daniel Squadron

2010: Hon. David Carlucci, P.J. Kim, Micah Lasher, Ari Melber, Hon. Jumaane Williams

2011: Marvin Bing, Natasha Dillon, Ava Farkas, Lincoln Restler, Jose Luis Zacatelco

This is also the third anniversary of the signing of the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act.  If you haven’t read it yet, check out a recent blog post – A Call to Serve (ow.ly/1Ju09h) – on the significance of this day.

Our team site for this day of service is the Friends of Dag Hammarksjold Plaza, the “Gateway to the United Nations” (ow.ly/1JUnvv).  We’ll be rolling up our sleeves to get this historic space ready for the summer.  More details to follow about the project.

Would you like to join us?

· Visit www.newyorkcaresday.org
· Select “Register”
· Choose “Join a Team” and select “Manhattan Young Democrats” from the drop down menu

As MYD is a past participant, the registration fee to join the team is half price ($10).  When signing up, use discount code NYCDS12HALF.  The funds defray the considerable costs that go into the day.

Team registration is underway and will last through next Friday, April 13th.  Sign up soon to get your spot.

Would you like to be our team leader?

On New York Cares Spring Day, team leaders work with the Site Captain to setup supplies, keep the team on track and coordinate post-volunteer drinks.

This is open to anyone and will be a great opportunity to come together as a team to give back.

I hope to see you on April 21st!

Nearly 200 people packed into Greenhouse on March 21st to join MYD in honoring some amazing women and their inspiring work: Pamela Barnes, President and CEO of EngenderHealth; Rachel Soares, Senior Associate of Research at Catalyst; and Emily May, Co-founder and Executive Director of Hollaback!, who is working with the City Council to connect Hollaback! apps to New York City’s 311 system.

We also got to hear from another great advocate for New York City women, City Councilmember Jessica Lappin, who was our keynote speaker.

You can see all of our photos from Engendering Progress, courtesy of MYD New Media Director Jon Reznick, here.

Thanks to everyone who attended, our amazing honorees, Councilmember Lappin, the host committee and all of our co-sponsors: Brooklyn Young Democrats, Eleanor Roosevelt Legacy Committee, Greater NYC for Change, NARAL Pro-Choice NY, NYSYD Caucus of Color, NYSYD Women’s Caucus, Paradigm Shift, Richmond County Young Democrats, Tall Girl Productions, WomenElect, W-Spin

See you next March!

Interested in getting involved? Join the Women’s Issues Committee! Email women@gomyd.com.

ARTICLE VII – STANDING COMMITTEES

Section 1
The standing committees of the Manhattan Young Democrats shall be: the Finance Committee, Healthcare Issues Committee, Economic Issues Committee, Community and Social Equity (CASE) Committee, Environmental Issues Committee, Foreign Affairs Committee, Transportation Committee, Education Committee and Women’s Issues Committee.

To vote on this amendment you must be a dues-paid member of MYD.  If you have any questions about this amendment, please email Kim at president@gomyd.com

We saw the power of social media organizing when tons of people voiced their support online for Planned Parenthood, and we can bring the same energy to the birth control debate. What you can do:

Change your Facebook photo to the iheartbc logo!

Take pictures with these Valentines, tweet them to your representatives and use #iheartbc!

MYD Women's Issues Committee: Hands Off My Birth Control! (thanks to Jordan Reisner for taking the photo!)

Sign this petition!

President Obama offered a  compromise on Friday that would not require religiously-affiliated institutions to include birth control in their health care plans, and instead, the health care insurers would have to offer free birth control coverage to women employed by these institutions. But conservatives and religious leaders are still fighting to eliminate birth control coverage entirely.

From the NOW-NYC Action Center:

You can support women in film here in Manhattan — specifically, uptown at Barnard College. The second annual Athena Film Festival kicked off Wednesday with four days full of films by, for and about women.

The Athena Film Festival is a joint partnership between Barnard College, the Athena Center for Leadership Studies and Women & Hollywood. On Friday, February 10th, members the MYD Women’s Issues Committee will be attending a screening of Ann Richards’ Texas, a documentary work-in-progress, followed by a talk-back with the directors.

MYD is partnering with Athena Film Festival, along with many other great organizations, so members can receive discounted tickets to Ann Richards’ Texas. Email women@gomyd.com for more information.

If you can’t make the screening, there are many other great films to check out. The Festival boasts a diverse range of films that exemplify its mission—to illuminate the stories of courageous women who have made a difference across the globe – with a lineup of over 30 features, documentaries and shorts set to screen. Here’s the schedule.

Interested in women’s issues? Join the MYD Women’s Issues Committee! Our next meeting is February 13th (coincidentally “Galentines Day,” if you watch Parks & Rec) at 7 p.m. at Starbucks (Park Avenue at 29th Street). Email women@gomyd.com.

Thanks to Women’s Issues Committee member Amy Chen for contributing to this post!

Events of last week left little doubt about the political clout of the Internet. Thanks to an online firestorm, Planned Parenthood not only emerged from a three-day flap with funding intact, but also 10,000 Facebook fans stronger and about $3 million richer. “Online Backlash Boosts Planned Parenthood” and “Social Media Flexes Muscle” were headlines we saw over and over again.

There’s no question that social media organizing has come of age. Twitter and Facebook are beating the drum of every modern civic protest, catapulting peripheral issues into the nationalconversation through #hashtags and ‘likes.’ But who is the driving force behind social media — and by extension, contemporary political movements?

Young people. And in 2012, it makes us a “must win” constituency.

There’s a reason that a threat to Planned Parenthood can spark online furor the way, say, an attack on the AARP might not — reproductive health issues fire up the “Internet crowd.” According to the organization’s 2009 Annual Report, roughly 81% of Planned Parenthood patients are between the ages of 18 and 39, with more than half of those under 24.

Social media activism largely mirrors this demographic.

It’s true that online networks are hugely popular in every age group, with Baby Boomers and seniors flocking to Facebook and Twitter in record numbers every day. But when it comes to political activity, online participants remain disproportionately young.

This flies in the face of conventional wisdom (and statistics) on civic engagement. Offline, young adults are still the group least likely to take political action. But when it comes to online activity, it’s seniors — traditionally seen as the most reliable vote bloc — who are the least politically active.

The Internet not only narrows the participation gap between young and old, it lends a powerful platform to a typically quiet constituency — we’ve grabbed the bullhorn and, all of a sudden, our agenda is beginning to resonate.

Take the Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA) and Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) uproar of earlier this month. Both anti-piracy bills were moving full speed ahead through Congress until millions spontaneously protested online, halting both bills dead in their tracks.

It was a victory chalked up to the “power of the web,” with Google and Wikipedia out-muscling Hollywood lobbyists. But if a site goes down in the forest, and no one is around to see it… The fact is, the Internet “won” because Internet users — read: young adults — got angry and took action.

SOPA and PIPA fell to the sword of the Net before ever cracking mainstream consciousness. According to the weekly news interest snapshot by Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, only 7% of the general public followed the online piracy legislation issue. Yet it was the top story followed by young people ages 18-29 the week of January 16th, with nearly a quarter of them tracking the issue.

Yes, it was a win for the Internet. But beyond that, it was a true testament to the power of the Internet constituency.

And Millenials’ newfound political heft isn’t merely playing out across the web. Through online engagement, young people are — perhaps unwittingly — beginning to influence the discussion in mediums typically dominated by older demographics, as well.

CNN’s social media-infused election coverage is a great example of this. Producers aren’t padding political segments with viewer emails or “man on the street” interviews anymore. Instead they’re gauging voter reaction by tracking tweets and aggregating online conversations — thus, skewing the sample pool younger and melding fresh sentiments into the core narrative.

Campaigns have caught on to this — recognizing that social media outlets provide an immediate and continual feedback loop that spurns traditional media stories, they’re harnessing Twitter and Facebook to engage voters, monitor reactions and anticipate press topics. So how long before candidates begin pandering to Internet users the way they do other early influencers, like the Iowa Caucus-goers?

Only time will tell.

At the end of the day, the 18-34 set may never have the political upper hand; we are by no means the wealthiest constituency. We don’t have the firepower of corporate lobbyists. And our ballot box turnout is less than stellar.

But before writing off our issues, lawmakers would do well to remember: We’re at the helm of the world’s most powerful mobilizing apparatus — and we’re not afraid to use it.