Matthew Brusky 
The U.S., including Wisconsin, is facing a twin catastrophe: an out-of-control COVID-19 pandemic and a cataclysmic economic meltdown. Public health efforts – masks, social distancing and contact tracing – have been undermined nationally by Trump and by Wisconsin GOP legislators. However, Wisconsin Democratic Governor Tony Evers has not given up. He joined GOP-led Indiana and Ohio in issuing a statewide mask mandate. Why?
More than 4.6 million COVID-19 cases nationally, over 54,000 in Wisconsin. U.S. deaths are about 155,000, approaching 1,000 in Wisconsin. Sun Belt states are setting one-day death records. Moreover, COVID-19 is spreading widely to rural areas, including Iron County, Wisconsin which has no hospital. Currently, almost all 72 Wisconsin counties have high COVID-19 activity.
A surging COVID-19 is crippling the economy and stymieing a recovery. “The U.S. economy shrank by a stunning 9.5 percent from April through June, a historic contraction …” (Washington Post-WP). Moreover, new claims for unemployment benefits totaled over a million for the 19th straight week. Yet the U.S. Senate refuses to act as over 30 million Americans, including hundreds of thousands of Wisconsinites, have lost $600 weekly federal jobless benefits. A delusional Trump said: “I think the recovery has been very strong. We’ve set record job numbers.” And, Wisconsin GOP Senator Ron Johnson, 7th-wealthiest U.S. senator, supported cutting the benefits to a paltry weekly $200!
Back in May the Democratic-led House saw the coming train wreck and passed relief and recovery legislation. All Wisconsin Democratic representatives voted yes, while state GOP representatives were opposed. The bill would help struggling state, local and tribal governments facing huge budget deficits due to declining revenues and increasing COVID-19 costs. The bipartisan National Governors Association said: “(W)ithout federal revenue replacement, state and local governments would need to cut more than $500 billion … eliminating more than 3 million jobs.” The bill also extended federal jobless benefits, funded education, food assistance, health and housing needs.
However, for months the GOP-led Senate did nothing. At the 11th hour the Senate finally rolled out a response – a glaring contrast to the House bill. Republicans have proposed billions for new military weapons, despite U.S. defense spending already accounting for about 60 percent of federal discretionary spending. Almost nothing for the millions going without enough food, but “boosts the ‘three-martini-lunch’ (tax) break, not food stamps” (WP). Then there is the easing of capital requirements for big banks, put in place to reduce their risky behavior. Help for Wall Street not Main Street.
Reminiscent of expanding the pass-through tax break in the March COVID-19 relief bill, inserted by Senate Republicans. What role did Wisconsin GOP Senator Ron Johnson play? He is the leading advocate of this tax break for the wealthy (70 percent of pass-through income goes to the top 1 percent). Finally, the Senate bill does little for millions of Americans who can’t pay their rent or mortgages. Shame.
As talks continued between Democratic congressional leaders and the Trump administration, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell adjourned the Senate and went home to Kentucky. Pathetic.
–Kaplan wrote a guest column from Washington, D.C., for the Wisconsin State Journal from 1995 – 2009.
Both the text messages and the call scripts will incorporate the Race Class Narrative Messaging that we’ve been testing over the past couple of months, and the call program will give you an intro into the Deep Phone Canvass model we’ve been developing with People’s Action!
Citizen Action of Wisconsin and SEIU Healthcare are taking a stand against medical debt. Join us for a socially distant rally and protest to let Gundersen know that they need to stop suing their employees and the community over medical debt!
Citizen Action has rolled out a brand new public Facebook page for the Driftless region. This page is the best place to stay up to date on important events, calls to action and campaigns Citizen Action is working on locally. This public page also makes it very easy to share this important information to everyone on your Facebook friends list with one simple click.
On August 20th the La Crosse County Board will be voting on a resolution committing La Crosse to 100% clean, renewable energy We need to let them know that La Crosse County has to stand up and lead the way by committing to 100% clean, renewable energy by 2050. 
Citizen Action of Wisconsin endorsed candidate Josefine Jaynes is running in a tight primary for the Democratic nomination in Wisconsin’s Assembly district 96 covering Vernon, Crawford and Monroe counties.
Voting is one of America’s most important rights. Elections during the age of COVID-19 should not be a choice between voting and your health. The City of La Crosse can take steps RIGHT NOW to expand voting access and ensure safe, free and fair elections through the rest of 2020. Please take a moment and complete this form to send an email to La Crosse’s mayor, city clerk and deputy city clerk to let them know that you support the following plans to expand voting access and make sure that every La Crosse resident can vote safely.
On August 29th the Citizen Action of Wisconsin Driftless Co-op will have its one year anniversary of organizing in the area. In honor of the big day we will be hosting a virtual meeting for all our members, friends and allies.
Progressives have a chance to flip Wisconsin’s State Senate district 14 this year! Citizen Action of Wisconsin member and endorsed candidate Joni Anderson is running as the State Senate district 14 Senator. District 14 is an open seat in a very gerrymandered, rural area but we can win if we start organizing RIGHT NOW.
Join
NC Co-op member, community activist, and Wausau City Alder Tom Kilian was interviewed by CHEJ (Center for Health, Environment and Justice) as a part of their weekly living room leadership series. CHEJ is an affiliate of the Action Network and People’s Action. Tom started a grassroots fight in Wausau, in regard to decades of environmental contamination from industry in his neighborhood. He lives in a working-class neighborhood, and believes that it has not been a priority to remediate the years of pollution because of this fact. Tom’s activism led to the creation of the grassroots group 
After a second attempt (in 4 years) the Marathon County Board of Supervisors has passed a Fair Maps resolution, 19-17! Newly elected Supervisor Will Harris (Who was also endorsed by Citizen Action of Wisconsin) and Jean Maszk sponsored the resolution. Those voting in favor were Supervisors Harris, Maszk, Beastrom, Buttke, Cihlar, Conway, Christensen, Fisher, Gonnering, Johnson, Krause, Lo, Leahy, Opall, Overbeck, Robinson, Rosenberg, Van Krey and Xiong. This was the result of a coalition of grassroots community members, who organized around this issue, contacted their Supervisors, and fielded calls to Supervisors from community members. At least half a dozen members of the NC Organizing Co-op played an active role in making this happen.
Citizen Action released a report on the impact of cutting the $600 federal supplemental unemployment insurance payment in Wisconsin. See details on our findings and full video of the press conference 
We discuss President Trump’s disturbing pronouncement that the 2020 election should be delayed because mail-in ballots will make it inaccurate and fraudulent. Trump’s statement comes on the heels of a cratering economy and complete absence of Republican leadership on extending desperately needed COVID relief. We celebrate the extension of the moratorium on utility shutoffs last week and thank the leadership of Citizen Action’s new North Side Rising organizing co-op. We welcome progressive State Assembly candidates Kristina Shelton and Josefine Jaynes to discuss their August 11th primary elections.
We discuss President Trump’s disturbing pronouncement that the 2020 election should be delayed because mail-in ballots will make it inaccurate and fraudulent. Trump’s statement comes on the heels of a cratering economy and complete absence of Republican leadership on extending desperately needed COVID relief. We celebrate the extension of the moratorium on utility shutoffs last week and thank the leadership of Citizen Action’s new North Side Rising organizing co-op. We welcome progressive State Assembly candidates Kristina Shelton and Josefine Jaynes to discuss their August 11th primary elections.
Back in May the Democratic-led House anticipated that the toll from COVID-19 and its economic consequences would continue to be devastating. The House passed relief and recovery legislation, largely along party lines. The $3 trillion bill would help
Brian Wooldridge 
Last week, North Side Rising and community allies held a rally and march to We Energies calling for an extension of the moratorium on We Energies and utilities from cutting of power to those who can’t currently pay their bills. As of early this week, We Energies had not agreed to a moratorium extension Therefore, Northside Rising held another march and protest at We Energies this Wednesday.
Driftless Co-op Anniversary Meeting, Saturday, August 29th
Vote safely
Meet Wisconsin State Assembly district 96 candidate Josefine Jaynes by watching her Citizen Action town hall.
Vote August 11th & Volunteer for Citizen Action Candidate Kristina Shelton
North Central Organizing Co-op is Working on a Solar Group Buy…Help Create Union Jobs and Cut Your Energy Bills and Carbon Emissions All at Once!
“Uncontrolled Contagion” Battleground Wisconsin Podcast
Senate District 16: 
All Registered Wisconsin voters are eligible to vote with an absentee ballot. You can request ballots for both the primary and general elections in 2020.
Green Bay Mayor Eric Genrich and state Sen. Dave Hansen joined other Democrats this week as they endorsed Northeast WI Co-op member Kristina Shelton in the 90th Assembly District primary.
This Wednesday, July 15th, Citizen Action held 4 media events and a rally and march in Milwaukee telling Congress and the President to take urgent action in the next ten days to maintain existing pandemic relief efforts and expand them with new investments to address the full depth of the employment crisis in Wisconsin. The media events and the march in Milwaukee demanded that WE Energies and other utilities end planned “cut offs” of customers on July 25th.
In Milwaukee, Citizen Action’s 
“I’ve always been one of those people that has kept a job, a good job. To me, being out of work is not easy … my life has changed. The community has changed; the world has changed,” said Johnson. Member of the Milwaukee City/County Climate Equity Task force and NAACP leader, George Martin, spoke passionately at the rally about the huge opportunity before us to make a transition to a green economy that creates good paying green jobs for Milwaukee residents.
Citizen Action of Wisconsin hosted a major press event with Executive Director Robert Kraig, Madison’s Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway and representatives from Kids Forward and the United Way to advocate for pandemic relief packages. Presenters spoke of the need to pass Tammy Baldwin’s legislation to extend the federal pandemic unemployment benefits AND to create millions of federally subsidized jobs. You can read more about this event 
“We really don’t have the resources to respond in a way that’s necessary, so that’s why we’re relying on the federal government that does have the resources at their disposal… They need to act expeditiously, as quickly as possible to respond to the needs of these families that are going to have these benefits cut off in the next few weeks.” Green Bay Mayor and co-op member, Eric Genrich
The ladies of the Care in Action team held a zoom party with the main goal of advocating for better benefits for home healthcare workers. There is a shortage in this workforce and because now, more than ever people are starting to realize how valuable and noble these workers are. They allow people to live as independently as possible in their own homes.
es can’t work if nobody can afford them. That’s why people all across the country are coming together to MAKE MEDICINES WORK. Lt. Governor Mandela Barnes, Maine State Senator Rebecca Millett, experts on pharmaceutical monopolies and grassroots leaders directly impacted by this crisis joined us last Thursday in a special live event hosted by the Action Center on Race & the Economy (ACRE), Center for Popular Democracy (CPD), People’s Action, Public Citizen and Social Security Works.
This week the La Crosse County Board of Supervisors approved a resolution calling on Senator Ron Johnson, Senator Tammy Baldwin, and Representative Ron Kind to work toward the immediate implementation of universal health care, like Medicare For All Act of 2019.
Volunteer
We will be having numerous “Coffee w/Your Co-op” events in July! We are working on building our membership and activism in the rural communities across Northwestern Wisconsin and we need your help! Please ask 1-2 friends to join us virtually on the date that corresponds to where they live and let them know how they would be paramount to our important organizing work in 2020 and beyond! Please register for one of the dates below (BYOCoffee!)
Please join Citizen Action on July 21st at 6:00 PM for a very special town hall with State Assembly candidate Josefine Jaynes. Josefine is running for the 96th Assembly seat covering Vernon, Crawford and Monroe Counties.
Citizen Action and SEIU Healthcare are taking a stand against medical debt. Join us for a socially distant rally and protest to let Gundersen Healthcare System know that they need to stop suing their employees and the community over medical debt!
Claire Zautke 
As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to surge, and Wisconsin state government is at a standstill, Wisconsin municipalities are stepping up with new mask ordinances. Citizen Action holds news events around the state to call attention to the damage inaction in Washington is doing to the economic well being of working families. Without urgent action by the middle of next week, the unemployed will be cut-off of enhanced unemployment assistance, and we are already facing a wave of utility cut-offs, evictions, and foreclosures. As corporate leaders and their political puppets demand the reopening of schools, we welcome Ben Ward from the MTEA (the Milwaukee teacher’s union) to discuss whether it is even possible to have in-person classed safely when the pandemic continues to rage. We also talk with Voces de la Frontera’s Christine Neumann-Ortiz and Mario Ramirez about their follow up meeting with the Wisconsin Department of Health Services concerning the outrageous decision to withhold the COVID-19 infection numbers of businesses.
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News Clips
Loss of Federal Unemployment Stimulus Will Devastate Wisconsin Working Families, lead to over 65,000 additional jobs losses
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News Clips
Senator Baldwin & Citizen Action Call for Bold COVID-19 Economic Relief