Organizing to win College for All in Maryland’s 8th Congressional District

This action is for everyone who lives in Maryland’s 8th congressional district. (Not sure which district you live in? Look it up here.)

We want to organize people to put pressure on members of Congress (or people who are running to become members of Congress) to cancel all student debt and make public universities completely free. This organizing can take many forms. Reach out to each other, start talking and making plans. Here is some information that you might find helpful.

Rep. Jamie Raskin (Democrat) has not yet taken a position on H.R. 3473 College for All Act of 2019 (this bill would make all public colleges and universities free) or H.R. 3448 Student Debt Cancellation Act of 2019 (this bill would cancel all $1.6 trillion of student debt). Can you force Rep. Raskin to co-sponsor or publicly support these bills?

You can contact your rep yourself, or you can use YDSA’s tool, which will help you do so automatically.

Use the comments below to plan and coordinate with each other on a district-wide level.

CLICK TO EXPAND FOR ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

The Indivisible Guide provides good advice about how to set up a meeting with your members of congress (or the people currently campaigning for office), how to show up at town halls, how to write letters to the editor, etc. We can do all of that and more. Feel free to get creative and come up with your own plans in addition to these tried and true methods.

Use this data sheet StudentDebt_MD08.pdf (1.1 MB) about student debt in your district.

Use this study by economists at the Levy Institute which outlines several positive effects of canceling all student debt.

The Young Democratic Socialists of America (YDSA) have a great resources about organizing for College for All. If there is a YDSA chapter near you please reach out and coordinate with them.

RETURN TO THE MAIN MARYLAND THREAD

RETURN TO THE MAIN COLLEGE FOR ALL THREAD :house:

Hi everyone!

My name is Wes Vanderburgh, and I recently completed my undergrad and racked up over $90k in debt in the process. In the face of not being able to pay back this debt, I declare it illegitimate and refuse to pay it back. Instead, I believe in the power that we debtors have to collectively organize and bring this economy to its knees in order to win not just full debt abolition but also a slew of public goods that would make our lives better, such as universal healthcare, college for all, better public transit, etc.

But I can’t do it alone! We have to organize together to make this vision real. That’s why I’m trying to organize a debtors’ union, the purpose of which is to build collective power as debtors and take control back over our debts–and our lives. I’m currently based in Washington, DC, so I’m reaching out to yall to see if anyone in MD’s 8th district wants to get involved or knows of anyone in DC who would want to be involved in getting this project up and running. Feel free to reply here or direct message me.

Thank you beautiful people, and know I’m in solidarity with each and every one of you (:

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