Dana Beyer - D18 State Senate Candidate - Maryland

The Activist - Montgomery County, Maryland & Beyond

You'll learn about Dana's ideas and commentary regarding:​

• A Multitude of Candidates

  • D 18 - 2 incumbents not running for reelection for delegate race

  • Many at-large candidates

  • 8 State Legislative Districts in Montgomery County

• Districts in Montgomery County

  • Redistricting by state legislature to reward / punish incumbents based on behavior in legislature

  • Roughly 125,000 / district

  • Some districts are compact geographically / others not so much

• District 18

  • Manageable district - can do retail politics here - can meet the neighbors - walk through and knock on doors

  • Lots of federal government workers or supporting workers

  • Several Sections of D18:

    • Upscale Chevy Chase

    • Kensington / Garrett Park / Silver Spring - Mid zone middle to upper middle class

    • Norther part:

      • Wheaton / Viers mill road

        • Working class

        • Lower middle class

        • Aspiring middle class

        • Immigrant community in many cases

        • Burgeoning urbanization of Wheaton

• Local Elections

  • Elections are highly competitive this year for a variety of reasons:

    • Public Financing

    • Term Limits

    • The overall political environment

• Health Insurance

  • Need to ensure affordable health insurance in Maryland

• Immigrant fear in Montgomery County

  • Citizens and non-citizens are scared of being swept up in the net

    • We need to address this

    • MD Attorney General is addressing this and other matters to battle federal government action

• State politics matter more than ever due to the federal regime
• Bio

  • Practiced surgery in Mississippi

  • Served the under-served

  • Worked in Kenya and Nepal

  • Raised children here

  • 2003 completed gender transition

  • Became an LGBTQ activist in 2003

  • Board of Equality Maryland

  • Co-Founded Gender Rights Maryland

  • Promoted marriage equality / laws that led up to that

  • Passing gender identity rights in various counties

  • Passing 2014 bill on gender identity rights in Annapolis

  • Fought bathroom bills - endured death threats

  • Executive Vice Pres. of Maryland NOW

  • NARAL Pro-Choice Maryland Board Member - protecting women’s reproductive rights

  • Helped create the Family Justice Center in Rockville

    • Haven for abused women to have a safe place with their children and pursue judicial justice / protective orders

  • Senior Staffer to a Council Member

    • Worked on BRT plans

  • Public health / environmental health work

    • 2007 County Council banned artificial trans fats - most toxic type of fats

    • First county to pass this kind of law; spread to other jurisdictions and eventually use phased out; many lives were saved

• Why Beyer is running:

  • To be on the inside and make change

  • Leverage successful lobbying experience in Annapolis

• Where change is made

  • Working with civic lobbyists and activists at the beginning to marshal support for a cause - months before the legislative session begins

    • Craft legislation

    • Find a lead sponsor

    • Summon support / create relationships

    • Organize rallies

    • Next:

      • Committee Work

        • Invisible to Voters / Hard to pay attention

        • The best legislators do their best work when nobody is watching and they create legislation that can pass / or kill legislation that shouldn’t pass - and voters don’t know about this since final vote scorecards don’t tell the whole story

• Work with Progressive Neighbors

  • Supporting Jamie Raskin’s campaign

  • Doing the work to research candidates for local office

  • On running a productive meeting or forum

• On Part-Time State Legislature

  • Make it full-time to make it more effective

  • Make it a well-paid job

  • Part-time doesn’t work

• Democratizing the senate

  • Committee chairs are all powerful and kill any bill they want / promote any bill they want

    • Appointed by president of the senate

  • The membership at large should choose the committee chairs

• Commission in Annapolis on Sexual Harassment

  • Need to clear out members now because if they aren’t challenged and get ejected, a Republican can grab the seat.

• Priorities:

  • Hard to know what the next crisis will be due to instability at the federal level

  • Priority 1: flexibility

  • Would like to work on Health Care

    • Retain coverage for Marylanders via affordable care act

  • Make Senate more Democratic

  • Making progressive solutions to our problems the default solution in our legislature - this hasn’t been the case

  • Transportation:

    • Safety

    • Public Transportation should be the priority

    • Address climate change - we are in an existential planetary crisis

      • People are overwhelmed by the scale of the problem

      • Address it with a Manhattan style project

      • Global warming should be the #1 priority; but we need a vital movement to get solutions

• Protect our immigrant community

  • Serious uptake in hate crimes

  • People must be able to trust the authorities

  • Support of the TRUST act

• Health Care

  • The practice of medicine is a healing art - not a business

  • Treatment with as much compassion and empathy as possible

  • Medicare works well because there is no profit motive in it - 97 cents of every dollar is spent on patients

  • Provide choice for Americans - private care / care via employees

  • We should offer medicare for everyone - this is a federal issue

  • Getting single payer in the state is far more complicated

    • It failed in Vermont

  • How the state can help if premiums in Obamacare go up