Best Wishes to Everyone and I hope to see you on March 3rd.

Lynn Badertscher   

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Among the most popular topics were Immigrant Success Stories; Candidate Forums or Hearing From the Candidates; the Dakota Eco Gardens; and Dementia. We will do our best to cover as many of the topics as we can this year. There was also a lot of interest in becoming more active in the campaigns in 2026. If you have suggestions for election activities, please share your ideas or information with a Board Member.

We had our first Board Meeting of the year on January 21st . Our Board is made of up new members and members who have been with our caucus for decades, and some of us have been around for a while; we are of many different backgrounds, experiences, ages and interests. I’m excited to see what we can make happen this year.

Apparently, at the January meeting, I forgot to update every one on our December donation to Faith in the Valley. Our $1,000 donation was directed to their Valley Watch Network Program. This program focuses on the immigration landscape in the Valley and the current status of ICE detentions and raids in our local communities. Thanks to all of you who for your generous contributions.

Looking forward to seeing you on February 3rd .

Let Your Voice Be Heard!
Please contact your member of Congress and make sure they know how you 
feel about the “State of Our Nation.”.

In Unity and Equality,

Lynn Badertscher   

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          President – Lynn Badertscher
          Past President – Marsha Conant
          ADMIN VP – Vacant
          Secretary – Vacant
          ADMIN CFO – Michelle DeLaBarre
          State Director – Barbara Castle
          PAC VP – Darcy Brown
          PAC Treasurer – Linda Knight

Please consider joining our Board as either the ADMIN VP or Secretary. We hold our Board Meetings once a month for an evening Zoom meeting that lasts about an hour.

Marsha took responsibility for scheduling speakers this past year but that was not her official responsibility.  She will remain on the Board as Past President but she has decided that she won’t be able to take on the responsibility of arranging speakers. Please consider volunteering to be ADMIN VP. The major responsibility for this position is finding a speaker for the monthly meetings. I have already scheduled speakers for March and April and the Board will be helpful in suggesting speakers. The Secretary is responsible for taking minutes at the General Meeting and at the Board Meeting.

The Board is a fun and dedicated group of women who enjoy one another and our caucus. Join us in leading the largest caucus in CA. Please reach out to me if you are interested in taking on one of the vacant positions.

No speaker this month.  Instead we are going to break the meeting up into small groups of 4-5 and people give us ideas about topics or speakers and perhaps a theme for the year. 

Hope to see everyone on our January 6th meeting. Please feel free to bring a friend.

Happy New Year to Everyone!

My best to all of you,

Lynn Badertscher

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The post President’s Message appeared first on NWPC Fresno.

• Alysia Bonner – President, Central Labor Council
• Annalisa Perea – Fresno City Councilmember, District 1
• Bernadette Vasquez – Community Activist; Co-Chair of the Human Rights Commission of the Central Valley; and NWPC Member

Mary Stanley Courage to Run Award:

• Itzi Robles – Fresno Co. Board of Education

Good Guy Award:

• Rev. Tim Kutzmark, Minister Unitarian Universalist Church of Fresno

Our fundraising efforts allow us to provide endorsements and campaign funds for Valley women running for office for mayor, school boards, city councils, county supervisors, etc.
 
What can you do help make this event a success?

• Buy a ticket for yourself
• Bring your friends and family members
• Sign up to help with setup or take down after the luncheon
• Please consider donating an item or two for the silent action. Minimum value of $50 per item.
• Become a financial Sponsor of the event.
• Join the WED Planning Committee – Next meeting on Thursday, August 28, 5:30 on Zoom. Contact Marsha or Lynn to be included on the Zoom call.

Looking forward to a very successful fundraiser!
Lynn Badertscher

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My Best to all!  

Lynn Badertscher

The Warnings of George Washington

In 1796, George Washington wrote to the nation in his Farewell Address as he stepped away from the Presidency. Almost prophetically he anticipated the encroachment of one branch of government over the others. He said: “It is important … that … those entrusted with its administration … confine themselves within their respective constitutional spheres, avoiding in the exercise of the powers of one department any encroachment upon another…. The spirit of encroachment tends to consolidate the powers of all the departments in one, and thus to create … a real despotism.” Nothing aroused the wrath of Washington more than arrogant bureaucrats actually changing the fundamental structure of government by sheer despotic assertion of administrative power. He said: “If, in the opinion of the people, the distribution or modification of the constitutional powers be in any particular wrong, let it be corrected by an amendment in the way which the Constitution designates. But let there be no change by usurpations; for though this, in one instance, may be the instrument of good, it is the customary weapon by which free governments are destroyed.”

The Warnings of John Adams

President John Adams, a key figure in American political history, expressed deep reservations about the two-party system. He warned, “There is nothing which I dread so much as a division of the republic into two great parties, each arranged under its leader, and converting measures in opposition to each other.” Adams recognized that such polarization could force voters into a perpetual choice between suboptimal candidates, rather than selecting truly virtuous leadership. 

The “lesser evil” argument in today’s political landscape often becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Voters often compromise their ideals to support the less objectionable candidate, political parties have reduced incentives to nominate exemplary leaders. This pattern can result in a downward spiral, where ethical standards decline little by little over time and the bar for acceptable behavior in public office continues to lower.

The Warnings of James Madison

Madison was known to be the philosophical soul-mate of Thomas Jefferson, but sometimes his contemporaries considered him somewhat paranoid and suffering from fears for the nation that would never happen. But the passing of time was to prove him more insightful than many of his contemporaries had thought. He said: “If Congress can employ money indefinitely, for the general welfare, and are the sole and supreme judges of the general welfare, they may take the care of religion into their own hands; they may appoint teachers in every state, county, and parish, and pay them out of the public treasury; they may take into their own hands the education of children, the establishing in like manner schools throughout the union; they may assume the provision of the poor…. Were the power of Congress to be established in the latitude contended for, it would subvert the very foundations, and transmute the very nature of the limited government established by the people of America.”

The Warnings of Benjamin Franklin

Franklin served as one of the foremost architects in structuring the Constitution, and while most of the Founders were congratulating one another on their remarkable charter of liberty, Benjamin Franklin injected this note of prophetic insight. “I agree to this Constitution … and I believe, further, that this is likely to be well administered for a course of years, and can only end in despotism, as other forms have done before it, when the people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic government, being incapable of any other.” All of this went along with Franklin’s basic philosophy of sound government; namely, that no people can remain free if they become wicked and immoral. When a society decays to the point where people begin to fear for their lives and their property, the demands for a police state have always been inevitable.

The Warnings of Abraham Lincoln

I answer, if it ever reaches us, it must spring up among us. It cannot come from abroad. At the age of twenty-eight, Abraham Lincoln gave one of the great speeches of his life. He had been asked to speak at the Young Men’s Lyceum at Springfield, Illinois (1837). He chose as his subject, “The Perpetuation of Our Political Institutions.” Lincoln deplored the spirit of lawlessness that was increasing among the people. He said: “There is even now something of ill omen amongst us. I mean that increasing disregard for law which pervades the country — the growing disposition to substitute the wild and furious passion in lieu of the sober judgment of courts, and the worse than savage mobs for the executive ministers of justice. The disposition is awfully fearful in any community; and that it now exists in ours … it would be a violation of truth to deny.” He was not afraid of invasion from without, but he saw the ominous possibility of self-destruction from within. He said: “At what point, then, is the approach of danger to be expected?

The Prophesy of Barack Obama

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“I think the purpose of life is to be useful, to be responsible, to be compassionate. It is, above all, to matter: to count, to stand for something, to have it make some difference that you lived at all.”.             

Bregman defines Moral Ambition as “the will to make the world a wildly better place… It’s a longing to make a difference – and to build a legacy that truly matters.”

Gosh, this sounds exactly like “Good Trouble” to me.

For more than fifty years NWPC and NWPC Fresno have worked to build a legacy that truly mattered. In the early 1970’s I’m sure most Americans could hardly conceive of a time when a woman would be a Presidential candidate for a major political party. For those of us in NWPC we can’t understand why several women haven’t already been elected to the Oval Office.

I remember taking my daughter’s Girl Scout troop to the CA Capital in the 1980s. The girls were in elementary school and we had the great honor of meeting and being escorted through the CA Senate chambers by Senator Rose Ann Vuich. In 1976 Rose Ann Vuich from Dinuba became the first women elected to the California Senate, in a seat she held until 1992. Sen. Vuich proudly escorted our troop to the Rose Room, named for her, and build for her since until her election there had been no need for a women’s bathroom in the CA Senate.

What a difference 24 years has made. Today, the CA legislature has near parity with 59 women and 61 men holding state office. NWPC Fresno has endorsed and supported many women who have sought and been elected to local Valley offices and some of them have gone on to hold offices in Sacramento. Good Trouble indeed!

Today we see a new cause that calls Americans to demonstrate Moral Ambition and to engage in Good Trouble. We are fighting for the very foundations of our democracy – for the Constitution, The Rule of Law, the Sanctity of the Courts and the Judicial System. It is sobering to think that our American way of life is hanging in the balance, but clearly this is true.

If we are to be successful in holding onto democracy, decency, kindness and compassion for those in need, the balance of power and the rule of law; we will need the majority of our citizens to join us in committing to the principles of Moral Ambition and Good Trouble.

Perhaps one day our generation will be seen as another “Great Generation.”

In Unity & Equality,

Lynn Badertscher

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This year our caucus is celebrating the 50th Anniversary of our founding. We will celebrate this event at our annual Women’s Equality Day Dinner (WED) to be held in August or September, depending on the availability of our soon to be announced speaker.

At the latest WED planning committee meeting we decided our theme for the event will be “NWPC Fresno, Fifty Years of Good Trouble.” You may recognize the phrase “good trouble” from the late Congressman John Lewis who said “Get in good trouble, necessary trouble, and help redeem the soul of America.” Like many other like-minded social leaders, Lewis was encouraging action and peaceful, nonviolent activism in support of social justice and equality to fulfill our nation’s highest values and potential.

For the past fifty years NWPC Fresno has worked to engage our caucus and our members in “Good Trouble.” We have engaged in “active citizenship” in many ways over the decades. Let me mention some of our good deeds and the many ways we have supported good trouble and active citizenship.

We have supported women and children’s causes such as affordable, high-quality childcare; healthcare; and reproductive rights. We continue to stand up for abortion rights and the people who provide reproductive health care. In the face of opposition, we have never backed down from our support of these issues.

We have supported those who are under-represented in our society: the homeless, the poor, immigrants and the disenfranchised. We have spoken out for equal treatment and opportunities for women athletes; for marginalized ethnic and minority groups. We have welcomed and supported LBGTQ+ agencies, groups, individuals and candidates.

We may be best known for our endorsement of and financial support for women candidates running for local offices. We have supported front runners, previously elected officials, newcomers to elected office, and those who are underdogs. We support women candidates who share our values of equality for women and all people in our society; the passage of ERA; equal pay; reproductive rights; LGBTQ+ rights; and access to dependent care. We seek parity in elected office. We have staffed candidate phone banks, passed out flyers, written postcards, advocated legislation with legislators. At previous WED events we have recognized and honored elected officials and agencies who support our issues and have been leaders in our community.

Every month we have invited speakers to our meetings to help us learn more about and to better understand the issues, the agencies and the people of our community who may need our help and support. We have collected hygiene supplies and clothes for women Veterans; provided holiday gifts for for young women and girls who have been trafficked in our own communities; collected food for hungry college students; and provided volunteers for agencies who support the impoverished who live among us.

We have marched in parades in support of groups and issues, and we have joined community marches in opposition to injustice and in support of social justice in our community and our nation. Especially now, in our current reality, we must persist in standing up for ourselves and for those who need our support.

At our June meeting we will talk about some upcoming opportunities to participate in “Good Trouble.”

Let our work continue!

Lynn Badertscher

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Lynn Badertscher

The post President’s Message appeared first on NWPC Fresno.

Goodbye Winter and Hello to Spring!

Fresno NWPC will be celebrating Women’s Equality Day (WED) and our caucus’ 50^th anniversary in August or Early September. An exact date will be set when we have confirmed a speaker for the event. This is our major annual fundraiser that will raise the funds we will need to support local women candidates running for office in 2026. Last year we awarded more than $20,000 to our endorsed candidates. Get ready, it will be an amazing evening
 
We have reached out to several possible speakers and have only heard back from one. I’m sorry to say that former Vice President Kamala Harris will not be available to celebrate our anniversary with us. As you can see, we are aiming high for this 50^th celebration.
 
We held our first WED planning meeting on March 18^th. We have begun to identify assignments and volunteers have agreed to take on some roles. We will continue to meet monthly to organize and plan. If you would like to be a part of this committee, please reach out to me or to Marsha Conant who has graciously agreed to chair this committee. We had a fun planning dinner at Los Amigos and we would love to have you join us too.
 
We are looking for a theme for this year’s event. Last year our theme was “When Women Are Elected, Every One Wins.” This year we are looking for something that commemorates our 50^thand also looks forward to the future. If you have a good idea for our theme, please pass it on to Marsha or to me.
 
I look forward to seeing you at our next meeting on April 1^st.
 
In Unity and With Dedication to Our Values,

Lynn Badertscher

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