Please note: When I share petitions to sign, please keep in mind that signing petitions, while worth doing, is nowhere near as strong as reaching out as an individual. A thousand calls and letters make far more noise than one letter with a thousand signatures. (Puts me in mind of the wonderful scene in Miracle on 34^th Streetwhen all those huge bags of letters to Santa are dragged into the courtroom to prove that Santa is real.)  

Action Items to choose from (or do all of them: your choice!): Scroll down to the matching number of your option. 

1)      Fight to save freedom of speech 

2)      Fight for a fair budget 

3)      Support the Restore Trust in Congress Act 

4)      Speak up against Trump’s use of the DOJ as his political retaliation enforcers 

5)      National NO KINGS protests on October 18^th! 

6)      Maine-specific Actions 

Reminder: When you call vs when you email via our reps’ websites (best way to contact them in writing), don’t forget to begin with: “Hi, my name is [name] and I’m a constituent calling from [zip code]. That is important, because if they don’t know you’re actually a constituent, your opinion will be ignored. 

Angus King
DC: (202) 224-5344
Augusta: (207) 622-8292

Susan Collins
DC: (202) 224-2523 
Augusta: (207) 622-8414
Bangor: (207) 945-0417

Chellie Pingree
DC: (202) 225-6116
Portland: (207) 774-5019
Waterville: (207) 873-5713

Jared Golden
DC: (202) 225-6306 
Bangor: (207) 249-7400
Caribou: (207) 492-6009
Lewiston: (207) 241-6767

Find your State Representative: 
By name: Here
By district: Here

Actions 

1)  Fight to save freedom of speech: 

(UPDATE-Jimmy Kimmel is back on the air, but SInclair is refusing to broadcast the show on their stations. If you live near a Sinclair station, like WGME in Portland, contact the station and tell them to air it. Note the advertisers and contact them. This is likely not the end of the story ~~I.B.)

      We need to speak up against the weaponization of the FCC under Brendan Carr who just pressured and threatened ABC and its parent company, Disney, to suspend Jimmy Kimmel’s show because he criticized MAGA people. Carr, sounding like a movie mob boss, actually said, “We can do this the easy way or the hard way.” This is government censorship—maybe not absolute according to the letter of the law, but any other way you look at it, that’s exactly what it is. Read more on the background of this issue here: https://5calls.org/issue/free-speech-suppression/ 

     Actions:  

•      Contact Senators King and Collins and House Rep Jared Golden to demand the resignation (or firing) of Brendan Carr, and urge them to call for an investigation into the FCC meddling in the content business and the threats being made against broadcasters and networks. 
•       Contact Disney CEO Bob Iger (phone: 310-890-5241; email: Robert.A.Iger@disney.com) and urge him to immediately reverse the suspension of the Jimmy Kimmel show. Disney stood up to Florida; now it needs to stand up the Trump administration. Disney has the money, the position, and the power to fight for freedom of speech. It doesn’t need to collaborate with a dictator. 
•      Write to ABC about the same issue. Go to https://support.abc.com/hc/en-us, then click “Submit Programing Feedback” (just under the search bar). Tell them that you’re done with ABC until it stops kowtowing to a dictatorship, or whatever else you might want to say. Free Press also has a website to help you call your nearest ABC affiliate: https://act.freepress.net/call/kimmel-calls/ 
•      Sign a petition: https://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/551/365/912 
•      Speak with your wallet: Cancel all streaming subscriptions to Disney+ and Hulu and let them know why you’re doing it. Find a vacation somewhere other than Disneyland, Disneyworld, Epcot, etc. Stop supporting Disney (see companies, below) until they straighten out their act. If you watch broadcast TV, see if your local station is owned by Sinclair or Nextar: If it is, watch the local newscast, note the businesses advertising on the show, and call those businesses to let them know you will boycott them until they pull their ads from that station. (It can feel difficult to boycott a local business, but it will have an impact). 

     A related action: Contact Fox News and demand that Brian Kilmeade be fired for his horrific on-air suggestion that the homeless should be be given involuntary lethal injections—in other words, that the way the handle the homeless problem is to kill them all. Why is he still on the air, when Jimmy Kimmel (who made no threats to anyone in the comment for which he was suspended) was summarily thrown off the air? Absolutely unconscionable.  

     Ways to contact Fox News: https://www.wikihow.com/Contact-Fox-News.  

     You can also sign this petition: https://www.change.org/p/fire-brian-kilmeade-for-his-harmful-comments-about-homeless-people 

      This would be a good opportunity for a Letter to the Editor! 

2)  Fight for a fair budget: 

® If anyone in our group votes elsewhere and has a Democratic Senator, you need to urge them to hold strong and push Minority Leader Chuck Schumer to fight for a spending bill that protects healthcare AND puts meaningful checks on Trump. He must let the Republicans shut down the government rather than enable Trump further by giving him a de facto blank check on government spending. If the government shuts down because Republicans won’t come to the table on a bipartisan basis, Donald Trump and Republicans will be to blame, not the Democrats (though Trump and his lackeys will blame the Dems anyway). 

® For those of us who vote in Maine:  

              · Contact Senator King, Senator Collins, and House Rep. Golden and tell them to summarily reject any federal budget deal that has no safeguards for preventing administration overreach (a blank check). No budget should be approved unless it includes a PERMANENT extension of the ACA premium tax credits, a reversal of all cuts to Medicaid, and strong guardrails to prevent Trump from cutting funding that Congress has allocated.  

               Put extra pressure on Susan Collins. She needs to understand how much a government shutdown would hurt businesses, workers, and families in Maine. Tell her we can see clearly how Republicans are more focused on censoring free speech than on the real issues people need solved, like healthcare. It’s time for Susan Collins to step up and publicly commit to preventing a government shutdown by working with Democrats on a bipartisan budget deal. 

The Constitution is clear: Under Article I, Section 9, Clause 7, no money shall be drawn from the Treasury but in consequence of appropriations made by law. That means Congress—not the President—decides how taxpayer dollars are spent. This is not a partisan issue. The balance of power depends on Congress defending its constitutional responsibility. We want our representatives in Congress to: 

— Block unlawful rescissions or withholding of funds already approved by Congress— Require that any spending changes receive congressional approval and transparent reporting 

— Prevent unchecked executive overreach that erodes the separation of powers. 

3)  Support the Restore Trust in Congress Act: 

     Representatives Magaziner, Roy, Burchett, Ocasio-Cortez, and others have introduced a bipartisan bill called The Restore Trust in Congress Act that would ban Congressional stock trading.  

® Contact Senators King and Collins and urge them to support a companion bill in the Senate. This is legislation that is supported by voters across the partisan spectrum.  

® Contact Representative Golden to demand that he sign on to the Restore Trust in Congress Act as a co-sponsor.  

® Call Mike Johnson’s office (202-225-4000, or 318-840-0309, or 318-497-6610 or 337-423-4232). Give them your name and tell them that you’re calling him in his capacity as Speaker of the House. Tell them that you expect him to bring this bill up for a vote in the House. Banning members of Congress, their spouses, and their dependent children from owning, buying, or trading individual stocks and other banned assets while in office. This is popular legislation with constituents of both major parties. It would not look good for Johnson to obstruct this bill, especially after his crass blocking of the release of the Epstein files. 

4)  Speak up against Trump’s use of the DOJ as his political retaliation enforcers: 

              Contact our Senators and House Representative to tell them to object to Trump’s weaponizing of the DOJ. He is using the DOJ to go after those he perceived as political enemies, while simultaneously forcing it to shut down investigations into crimes committed by his allies. The Trump Administration is engaging in unprecedented corruption while simultaneously throwing working Americans under the bus. This illegal and unethical behavior has to stop. Urge Senators King and Collins and Rep. Golden to call for hearings into the DOJ’s shutting down of Tom Homan’s bribery case, demand an end to the baseless investigations into Trump’s enemies, and get to work on legislation to help Americans.

5)  October 18^th:  Another national NO KINGS protest. Be there! 

              Ellsworth:  Noon to 1:30pm at City Hall and Main Street  

Bangor:  Noon – 2pm at Broadway Park  

6)   Maine Specific Actions: 

1.      Keep fighting the proposed Voter ID law, Question 1 on the upcoming Nov 4^th referendum. If you want to use an Absentee Ballot (not a bad idea even if you won’t be away—it’ll show how many people rely on this method of voting), you can request one now: https://apps.web.maine.gov/cgi-bin/online/AbsenteeBallot/index.pl. VOTE NO on Question 1! 

2.      Support the proposed Red Flag Law, Question 2 on the Nov 4^th referendum. More info here: https://www.mainegunsafety.org/ . VOTE YES on Question 2! 

3.      Sign the petition to ask the President of UMO to maintain their DEI policies: Universities must hold firm against the hateful overreach of our wannabe dictator. You can sign the petition here: https://www.change.org/p/maintaining-dei-policies-at-university-of-maine-at-orono

4.      Remind Governor Mills that she must make it clear—right now—that if MAGA-led states redraw maps, Maine will respond in kind. According to Indivisible, “that public signaling matters. It changes the risk calculation for red states.” If you want more talking points, you can go here: https://indivisible.org/resource/redistricting-coup-underway 

Yours in Civic Action, 

Bold Coast Civic Alliance