Organizing to win "College For All" in New York's 6th Congressional District

This action is for everyone who lives in New York’s 6th 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 can take many forms. Reach out to each other, start talking and making plans. Here is some information that you might find helpful.

Grace Meng ( D ) 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 her to co-sponsor or publically support these bills?

So far Melquiades Gagarin ( D ) is the only other candidate who has announced a run for this seat in 2020, although there might be more who announced in the future. Can you force him to take a position on these bills and adopt them as a part of his campaign?

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

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 :arrow_right: StudentDebt_NY06.pdf (1.1 MB) about student debt for New York’s 6th congressional 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 HOME THREAD :house:

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I’m in Grace Meng’s district!

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Hey that is fantastic @Dan_Hong! Would you be willing to bottomline organizing Debt Collective members who live in your district? I’m hoping to get enough activity on these threads that we can do more than just calling her office or writing a letter to her. Maybe even organize an in-person meeting between half a dozen Debt Collective members and her office. But it remains to be seen whether we can get that kind of activity or not.

I don’t know anything about Grace Meng. Is she good? Do you think she would support College for All? Do you know anything about the primary challenger Melquiades Gagarin?

Hey Thomas! If you could help me find local DC folks in my district (don’t know how to do that) then I’m willing to organize an in-person meeting! Or maybe even expand it to student debtors in general, like from NYC-DSA. My work interacts with Meng all the time actually. My impression is that she’s a progressive who would support College for All and Student Debt Cancellation, but I don’t know for sure. She is very pro-immigrant and supports impeachment against Trump.

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Awesome. I’m hoping to find local Debt Collective members and get them active here on this thread, so watch this space. We can use this thread to organize actions. Working with NYC-DSA on this would be awesome!

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Hey y’all:

I’m following up on this! Has anyone here found people who live in this district with me? I’ll reach out to Queens DSA today!