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Blog Featured News: Tenth Dems offering internships that make a difference

January 2, 2012 – 4:40 pm

Tenth Dems interns at work

Highland Park, IL. – The Tenth Congressional District Democrats (“Tenth Dems”) is accepting applications for its Spring Semester Internship Program. Internships are available to high school juniors and seniors, college students, and graduate or law students with a desire to help the Democratic Party.

The internship offers candidates the opportunity to develop transferable skills to whatever career path they may choose to follow. Several former interns have gone on to internships in Washington, D.C., to college majors in political science or law, or to paid political and nonprofit staff positions locally and nationally.

Internship coordinator Max Boton, himself a former intern, describes his experience: “This internship provides a fun yet challenging environment to work, and it is a great way to meet key political figures from the 10th District and beyond.”

The election season for 2012 has just begun, so there are plenty of opportunities for interns to learn about campaigning and the issues affecting the 10th District. General assignment interns may do research, walk door-to-door with candidates, work in campaign offices, staff events and issue forums, and meet many political figures. Specialized assignments are also available in the areas of research, new media, IT management, and political outreach.

In the past, interns have assisted at Tenth Dems events featuring then state legislator, and now President, Barack Obama, Senator Evan Bayh of Indiana, Senator Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, former Presidential nominee George McGovern, Governor and Presidential candidate Howard Dean, and U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, as well as numerous Illinois state and locally elected officials and candidates.

Spring interns are expected to commit eight hours per week during the school year. Computer skills are desirable. The organization is looking especially for applicants with web administration and/or data management skills.

Internships are unpaid educational volunteer positions. Course credit is available with cooperating high schools and colleges. Acceptance into the internship program is selective and contingent upon an interview. Applicants should submit a brief paragraph explaining why they want this internship, along with a resume of their educational background and activities. Neither need be formal.

The work that interns do is always welcomed and appreciated.  At the Tenth Dems Spring Fundraiser, keynote speaker, U.S. Senator Mark Begich of Alaska noted the presence of the 2011 summer interns. He acknowledged that the event was one of the most well organized functions he had ever attended and he called the turnout of interns at the event “exciting because the future rests not with us but for young people, especially those here.”

The Illinois Tenth Congressional District Democrats is a volunteer group with members from all parts of the 10th Congressional District. The 10th District contains portions of both Cook and Lake Counties stretching from Winnetka through Waukegan and from Lake Michigan west through Round Lake. The District includes all or part of the following townships: Avon, Benton, Deerfield, Grant, Libertyville, Moraine, Shields, Waukegan, West Deerfield, Vernon, Zion and parts of Fremont, Lake Villa, Maine, New Trier, Newport, Northfield, Warren, Wheeling

For more information on the intern program, or how to apply, email us at info@tenthdems.org or call 847-266-VOTE (8683).

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Blog Featured: A Year of Progress

December 28, 2011 – 7:11 pm

As the year closes and with new challenges ahead in 2012, Tenth Dems wishes you a Happy New Year.  Thanks for your help in making 2011 a productive year for Democrats throughout our district.

As you know, 2012 is an important election year.  Your contribution of $5 (or as much as you can give) helps build the infrastructure to elect Democrats to all levels of government.

Can you help us win in 2012?  Click here to contribute $5, $10, or whatever you can.

Here’s just some of what we accomplished in 2011 with your help:

  • The year started with a bang when Tenth Dems proudly opened the doors of the Community Connection in Waukegan.  Our mission is to connect government with people, because Tenth Dems believes that politics should be about more than just elections.
  • Working to engage young minds, Tenth Dems sponsored an inspiring Poetry Competition, followed a few weeks later by a standing-room-only Poetry Slam, for North Chicago and Waukegan public and private high school students.
  • Realizing that Wisconsin had become Ground Zero in the Republican war against the middle class, Tenth Dems helped our beleaguered northern neighbor make a stand.  We delivered carloads of volunteers to march in Madison and to assist in the recall elections after Governor Scott Walker and State Senate Republicans stripped state workers of their collective bargaining rights.
  • The Community Connection sponsors Job Interview Workshops to help ex-offenders make a success of life after prison.  Numerous attendees now have jobs and are contributing to society in a positive way.
  • Volunteers canvassed and collected signatures for Democratic candidates. They’re currently working together to ensure President Obama and his delegates have enough signatures to be on the ballot.
  • The Community Connection served as a cool refuge (and provided food) when July storms caused power outages during a heat wave and also partnered with Envision Scholars to help high school students transform their college dreams into reality.
  • In June, Senator Mark Begich told a packed crowd at our Candidate Appreciation Membership Event how he became the first Democrat to win a Congressional seat in Alaska in nearly thirty years, and we welcomed and thanked those candidates who were willing to put themselves forward to run in local elections.
  • For our annual Volunteer Appreciation Dinner, we hosted Senator Amy Klobuchar from Minnesota, cited by the New York Times as one of the 17 women most likely to become President.  We honored Terry Blaurock and Adrienne Kirschbaum with our Volunteer and Founder of the Year awards, respectively.  Retiring State Senator Susan Garrett received the coveted Mikva Leadership Award, presented by Hon. Abner Mikva, the last Democrat elected in the 10th Congressional District.
  • New York Times best-selling author Jim Hightower and Washington Correspondant for The Nationmagazine and MSNBC contributor John Nichols spoke to huge crowds at Tenth Dems University events.

With your support, we can have more bright moments like these in 2012 and win in November.

Click here to give $5, $10, or as much as you can give.

Click here to Contribute
Thanks so much and Happy New Year,

Lauren Beth Gash and the rest of the Tenth Dems team

P.S. — Please follow Tenth Dems on Facebook and Twitter.

P.P.S. — Tenth Dems members will be allowed to vote in the Congressional straw poll at our second presidential year district-wide convention on March 4, 2012.  Entry is free.  Click here to purchase a membership today!

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Blog Featured: Membership in Action

December 22, 2011 – 12:21 pm

Looking for a last-minute gift idea for a hard-to-buy-for Democrat?  Click here to purchase a gift membership!

If you would like to purchase a gift membership, please let us know the name, address, and email address of the recipient. Tell us if you would like us to send the recipient a personal email confirmation of their gift, and we will send it the same day.

 

U.S. Senator Mark Begich joins a few of Tenth Dems' interns at our Spring 2011 Event

U.S. Senator Mark Begich joins a few of Tenth Dems' interns at our Spring 2011 Event

Now is the time to join or renew your Tenth Congressional District Democrats membership for 2012.

This month saw electoral victories against overreaching Republican agendas in Ohio, Mississippi and Maine.  Your support of Democratic candidates and issues helped fuel this momentum for change.  But 2012 presents its own unique challenges, and we need your help to meet them.  This election will determine which party sets the agenda for the next four years.  Will it be the party that passed the Affordable Health Care and Jobs for Main Street Acts, or the party that gave tax breaks to billionaires while taking rights away from workers?

From the presidency to your municipality, we must elect Democrats at all levels to preserve our basic freedoms and continue the change that we have fought for.  And we must do this while battling new voter laws designed to suppress turnout, and the unlimited corporate spending unleashed by the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision.

MEMBERSHIP DUES IN ACTION

Your membership dues help underwrite the work we do to support federal, state and local Democratic candidates throughout the 10th District.

Your 2012 Membership dues will continue to:

  • Assist in helping to elect Democrats at all levels of government.
  • Sponsor Tenth Dems University forums, films and panels exploring current and long-range topics such as the Citizens United decision, framing the issues, and sponsoring events with top-tier speakers such as John Nichols of The Nation magazine and Jim Hightower.
  • Organize and staff phone banks, canvassing and election legal support. Sponsor venues to meet the candidates.
  • Run advertisements, distribute literature and work to support Democrats with strategic consulting and media relations.
  • Provide outreach through our Community Connection office in Waukegan and through events such as our High School Poetry contest, because Tenth Dems believes that politics should be about more than just elections.

Tenth Dems is a grassroots volunteer organization running on YOUR financial support. Every dollar you donate has significant impact. This means that each new membership or renewal is extremely important today and for the future.

Please click here to purchase a Tenth Dems membership. Whether it’s $35 or $5000, your help makes the difference in the 10th.

Thank you,

The Tenth Dems Team

Looking for a last-minute gift idea for a hard-to-buy-for Democrat?  Click here to purchase a gift membership!

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Blog: Dold Pushes to Weaken Investor Protections

December 12, 2011 – 4:49 pm

Grover Norquist supports Bob DoldOnce again Bob Dold has shown that he cares more about the Wall Street scam artists who nearly brought down the global financial system than Americans who are saving and investing for their retirement and their children’s education.

Dold is front and center among House Republicans who are doing all they can to reverse the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. A front page article in the December 8, 2011 Bond Buyer reported on how one of the industry’s trade organizations, the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (SIFMA), has spent $3.96 million in the first nine months of 2011 lobbying Congress for changes in Dodd-Frank. Among SIFMA’s $185,000 in campaign contributions was a check for $1,000 for Dold, who sits on the House Financial Services Committee.

Dold works cheap. For only $1,000 he serves as principal sponsor of H.R. 2827, a bill that seeks to weaken several provisions of Dodd-Frank intended to require many players in the financial industry to assume a fiduciary responsibility on behalf of their clients. In other words, under Dodd-Frank investment firms would be prohibited from knowingly selling hopelessly defective securities. As reported in books such as Michael Lewis’s The Big Short, during the run-up to the financial crash, investment firms concocted a number of securities – bonds backed by sub-prime mortgages, for instance – which they sold to clients and then turned around and took short positions, betting their own firm’s money that the bonds would drop in price

Not all of Wall Street supports SIFMA’s and Dold’s efforts to weaken Dodd-Frank. According to a July 17 article in The New York Times, the Council of Institutional Investors, a lobbying group that represents pension and employee benefit funds, endowments and foundations, said that the Dodd-Frank Act was “a clear win for investors.”

“Excessive risk by Wall Street fueled the market meltdown that wiped out millions of U.S. jobs and billions in retirement savings,” Ann Yerger, the council’s executive director, said in a statement. “The Dodd-Frank Act, if implemented as intended, will be a critical bulwark against such massive abuse of investors.”

Yerger represents that part of Wall Street that serves to help families save for their future. Dold represents the bunko artists of Wall Street who crowed about selling financial instruments they compared to barnyard excrement.

And on another front, in case anyone is confused about where Republicans stand, the same week that Bond Buyer article appeared, Mark Kirk voted with Senate Republicans to block President Obama’s nominee to head the Consumer Financial Protection Agency established to enforce Dodd-Frank, former Ohio attorney general Richard Cordray.

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Blog News: Take Congress off the Auction Block

December 2, 2011 – 6:19 pm

Take Congress off the Auction BlockAlmost two years ago, in its Citizens United ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court said that Congress cannot limit corporate spending on political campaigns. That ruling reversed decades of work by reformers. Laws designed to make sure the rich and powerful cannot control Congressmen by donating huge amounts of money to their campaigns were thrown out.

Thankfully, there are many federal officials—notably led by Illinois Senator Dick Durbin—who are willing to stand up for working Americans and say that it’s time to reverse the Court’s ruling. We can do that by passing a Constitutional Amendment.

If you agree, speak up. Sign our petition and remind Congress that America should be a government of the people, not of special interests.

“I support the constitutional amendment to give Congress and the states the authority to limit corporate and special interest money in our elections.”

Why should you click on the statement above and sign the petition?

Some corporations are willing to invest thousands of dollars to elect candidates who believe environmental protection is not important. Some are spending huge sums to help candidates who are willing to weaken banking regulations, scrap worker safety laws, and gut agencies that protect consumers. Some corporations want to boost their profits by getting tax breaks, and these corporations are willing to buy the help of candidates who want to fund those corporate tax breaks by cutting back on money for education, childhood development, and programs that help the poor and middle class. But while we don’t have the money to match the special interests, candidates are swayed by voters, as well as by donors.

“I support the constitutional amendment to give Congress and the states the authority to limit corporate and special interest money in our elections.”

Join with Tenth Dems to speak in one loud and strong voice and let our elected representatives know how we feel. We will submit this petition to Senator Durbin and other federal officials leading this charge.

Speak up! Don’t sit silently by and allow special interest money to be the only voice Congress hears. In America, people…not special interests…should always come first.

With your help, and your secure donation of $5, $10, $25 or whatever you can manage, we will return our elections to the people.

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