To celebrate President Obama’s acceptance of his nomination as the top Democratic candidate, Tenth Dems will host a free Convention Watch Party on Thursday, September 6th, at the Renaissance Hotel in Northbrook, Illinois. The festivities start at 7:00 pm and will feature the televised broadcast of the Convention from the Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte, North Carolina. Food and drinks will be available for purchase.

When President Obama accepts his party’s nomination on Thursday, September 6th, the hundreds of attendees in Northbrook will join with thousands of others at their watch parties around the United States.

Tenth Dems helps elect Democratic candidates running for office in local, statewide, and national races. The organization’s hundreds of volunteers work year-round to mobilize Democrats and independent voters.

Journalists are welcome to attend the event, and pre-interviews with watch party organizers are available. Please contact Tenth Dems for more information at 847-266-VOTE (8683).

• When: September 6th, 7:00 p.m.
• Where: Renaissance Hotel,  33 Skokie Boulevard, Northbrook, IL
• Cost: FREE!
• Contact: RSVP online, call 847-266-VOTE (8683), or email info@tenthdems.org

All Democrats are welcome to attend. For more information about this event and to register, please visit http://www.tenthdems.org/convention or call 847-266-VOTE (8683).

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 Zion 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, and Wheeling.

On July 11, Tea Party Republican Robert Dold of Kenilworth voted to repeal the Affordable Care Act, thus continuing his streak of NEVER voting opposite the Republican majority on any key vote.

This was the 31^st time the Republicans voted to repeal, defund, or dismantle Obamacare. Ezra Klein noted that House Republicans have had “as many health-repeal votes as Basking Robbins has ice cream flavors.”

The Affordable Care Act is not perfect. Compromises rarely are. But by voting again with the Republicans, Dold chose the all or nothing, my way or the highway approach instead of the bipartisan, reaching across the aisle approach that our country and our district need and deserve.

For a look at the benefits to all of us that Dold voted to repeal, click here. There’s a tremendous amount of good in the Affordable Care Act. Instead of voting to repeal and leave millions either without coverage or forced to pay more for health care, why not move forward and fine-tune the bill over time? That’s the approach Dold rejected, and that’s why voters in the Tenth District should reject Dold and vote for Brad Schneider.

What does Dold’s vote mean for residents of the Tenth District? Repeal of the Affordable Care Act would:

• Allow insurance companies to deny coverage to 114,000 to 290,000 individuals, including 9,000 to 41,000 children, with pre-existing conditions.
• Rescind consumer protections for 466,000 individuals who have health insurance through their employer or the market for private insurance.
• Eliminate health care tax credits for up to 16,000 small businesses and 91,000 families.
• Increase prescription drug costs for 9,500 seniors who hit the Part D drug “donut hole” and denying new preventive care benefits to 97,000 seniors.
• Increase the costs of early retiree coverage for up to 9,700 early retirees.
• Eliminate new health care coverage options for 1,700 uninsured young adults.
• Increase the number of people without health insurance by 12,000 individuals.
• Increase the costs to hospitals of providing uncompensated care by $30 million annually.

And that’s just within the Tenth District.

Last week many Tenth District residents received a mailing from Dold prepared, published, and mailed at taxpayer expense.  Let’s look at some of the biggest whoppers in Dold’s mailing:

Dold voted against women’s access to quality health care. Dold’s mailing says that he is “fighting to protect women’s access to quality health care.”  In fact, Dold voted for HR 3, a bill that would ban abortion coverage in state health-insurance exchanges; impose tax penalties on small businesses and many individuals who purchase private health plans that include abortion coverage; and make permanent several restrictions that block many women from accessing abortion care. Dold also voted to allow hospitals to refuse to provide emergency abortion care to women who could die without it.

Dold follows the Republican party line. Dold’s mailing says that he’s “one of the most independent Representatives in Congress.” In fact, Dold votes with John Boehner 81% of the time–more than four out of every five votes. Dold NEVER voted opposite the Republican majority on a key vote.

Other members of Congress do vote even more often with their party than Dold. Dold appears to side with President Obama a whopping 35% of the time, a bit more than his Republican colleagues–which shows how far apart the entire GOP is from President Obama. He’s not insane like Joe Walsh and he casts enough votes the right way to appear centrist relative to other members of Congress, which is a sign of how far to the right this country has drifted.

But the existence of even more partisan members of Congress does not mean that Dold is not highly partisan. Dold is moderate the way Chuck Hayes was short. Chuck Hayes was the shortest starting center in NBA history. Relatively speaking, he really was a short guy. But at 6′ 6 he was still pretty tall.  If your definition of “independence” is voting with the Republicans on every key vote and more than four out of every five times overall, then Dold’s your guy.