Help protect the progress we’ve made together. Learn more below!

Vote NO on I-2109, I-2117, and I-2124!

These three initiatives on the November ballot threaten investments in education, childcare, sustainable environments, healthy communities, long-term care and more.

Our recommendation to Vote NO on all three initiatives is grounded in our values, which include: Belonging, Justice & Equity, Interconnectedness, Collaboration, and Pluralism. These emerge from the heart of our diverse spiritual traditions, texts, and practices that call us to love and care for our neighbors and the earth. Join us in voting NO on these three harmful initiatives this fall and stay up to date on our newly updated initiatives page.

For these initiatives, we especially draw on our commitment to seek Justice and Equity, enabling all people and communities to have the resources and opportunities to live a full and meaningful life. We also are called to Interconnectedness, cherishing and respecting the interdependent web of all existence, and supporting actions and policies that promote resilience, sustainability and environmental justice. These initiatives are antithetical to our values and threaten to reverse decades of our work to make Washington more equitable and balance our upside-down tax code.

Here are the facts on why we’re voting no:

Initiative 2109 would repeal Washington’s capital gains excise tax on individuals’ stock market annual profits over $250,000. Revenue goes to the Education Legacy Trust Account. If passed it would:

  • Take away nearly $900 million every year from childcare, early learning, K-12 education, special education, technical and community colleges, and school construction.
  • Repeal a modest 7% capital gains tax on only the wealthiest Washingtonians for profits over $250,000 on stocks and bonds. Prior to this tax, millionaires paid nothing in state taxes toward the common good when reaping huge profits from such assets.
  • Put more pressure on the rest of us to make up for the difference through property and sales taxes.
  • Worsen childcare shortages and issues for working families and small businesses (who already lose over $2 billion each year due to employees’ issues with childcare) by cutting billions from affordable childcare.

Volunteer and Pledge to Vote No on I-2109

Initiative 2117 would repeal the 2021 Climate Commitment Act and prohibit all state agencies, counties, and cities from implementing any type of carbon tax credit trading. If passed it would:

  • Devastate billions in funding that protects our water, farmlands and forests, air quality, fish, clean transportation and school health improvements for us and our children.
  • Cancel investments in energy efficiency and projects to mitigate the impact of climate change and pollution on highly impacted, low-income households and communities.
  • Shift the burden of paying for the impacts of pollution from big industries responsible for carbon emissions onto communities, workers, and families.
    Take away a significant tool for slowing life-threatening climate change and ending pollution

If you are feeling passionate about this issue, we encourage you to volunteer your time and talents to the No On 2117 campaign, they are looking for volunteers across the state in all different kinds of capacities. Learn more and sign up here.

Pledge to Vote No on I-2117

Initiative 2124 would allow all employees and self-employed individuals to opt out of paying the tax and receiving benefits under WA Cares, the state’s public long-term health care program. If passed it would:

  • Worsen the care crisis that’s causing huge financial stress for women, who provide the vast majority of unpaid caregiving duties for loved ones without long-term care coverage. Women are 73% more likely to permanently leave jobs and five times more likely to work only part-time due to caregiving demands.
  • Send more people into debt when faced with expensive long-term care bills and private insurance premiums they can’t afford. Especially, middle- and low-income families who are least able to afford private long term care insurance or to pay thousands out of pocket for care.
  • Harm people with pre-existing conditions like cancer and diabetes because they cannot get private insurance, even if they can afford the expensive premiums.

Pledge to Vote No on I-2124

A Farewell from Tomo Duke

Dear FAN community,

It has truly been an honor to spend the past year at FAN as the ELCA Hunger Advocacy Fellow. I moved to this Evergreen state last year right after graduating from Duke Divinity School. While I was navigating the change in the new environment, I found out about FAN. Coming from the multi-faith background of Buddhism, Shintoism, and Christianity, I thought that FAN would be a wonderful place for me to deepen my understanding of the common ground in the web of multi-faith traditions. And I am grateful to have been able to do so in communities by meeting you at your various places of worship around WA state (or online, thanks to Zoom’s friendly service!) and building friendships through advocacy. In the face of injustice, people like you give me hope for the humanity and reassurance that we all can be united in our greater common purpose.

Thank you for kindly supporting me through this fellowship and exemplifying in your lived-out-faith the tenacious hope for the change that could come. While this is a goodbye for now, I look forward to crossing our paths again in the continued work of advocacy!

In sincere gratitude,
Tomo

Join our 100% Voting Faith Communities Campaign and Strategy Meeting

Are you looking for ways to encourage voting and civic engagement in your faith community this election year? Are you also looking for community-led support? If your answers are yes, FAN invites you to join a Network of 100% Voting Faith Communities! Many faith traditions highlight the importance of voting in preserving community well-being and the common good in democracy. The Network of 100% Voting Faith Communities is a community space to share ideas, tools, and peer support. Whether you are a leader authorized to take action on behalf of your faith community or an individual willing to organize your faith community to participate, you are invited! Please read more information on this document and fill out the form to join the network. You can also access our newly launched Voting & Civic Engagement page.

We will offer monthly zoom meetings through the summer to stay engaged as a network. We welcome any individuals and communities interested and committed to getting out the vote in their faith community and/or wider community. The following online meetings have been scheduled:

                            • Tues. August 20th 12-1 pm

The focus of the meetings will be on supporting organizing, voter registration, and mobilization in your community.

We are committed to voicing the values from our many faith traditions in the electoral process and we hope you will be part of this movement!

Take Action

Sign a Petition in Support of mushroom workers in Sunnyside, WA

  • Mushroom workers at Ostrom Mushroom Farm in Sunnyside WA are demanding a workplace free from threats, excessive pressure, harassment and retaliation. The workers have democratically elected a committee to represent with the United Farm Workers.
  • Workers and community members have delivered a petition signed by over 200 workers demanding fair pay, safe working conditions, equal opportunities, and respect. Workers want to take this petition national. Will you sign on?

Stop the Mega Grocery Merger Update: Since the proposed merger was announced in October of 2022, UFCW Locals 7, 324, 400, 770, 3000, and others have been doing all we can to partner with organizations, farmers and food suppliers, and community members to bring awareness to the serious consequences the merger will pose to communities across the country if the merger were allowed.

Last week, a Stop the Merger Customer Petition was launched to continue to build public support that will be submitted to Kroger and Albertsons leadership. Please help spread the word about our petition by sharing www.nogrocerymerger.com/petition.

Tell Congress to Support the Yes in God’s Back Yard Act

Help remove the barriers that faith-based organizations and institutions of higher education face in developing affordable housing on their land. One of our partners, the United Methodist Church, shares this letter that you can sign here.

  • Faith-based organizations and institutions of higher education are forming new partnerships to develop affordable rental housing on the land they already own. However, they face barriers like zoning and other policies to develop affordable housing.
  • Senator Sherrod Brown, Chairman of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs has introduced the Yes In God’s Back Yard Act (S. 3910), which supports faith-based organizations and colleges in building and preserving affordable housing on their land and reducing barriers to the development of this housing. In addition to the United States’ shortage of 7.3 million affordable rental homes, access to affordable rental housing is drastically declining (National Low Income Housing Coalition).

Addressing Project 2025

Some of you have asked us about Project 2025. This is a plan developed by the Heritage Foundation to restructure the federal government based on a narrow vision of the United States. The introduction to the Project 2025 document calls for “deleting” references to LGBTQ+ equality, reproductive freedom and diversity, equity and inclusion from “every federal rule, agency regulation, contract, grant, regulation, and piece of legislation that exists.” It calls for eliminating the Department of Education and endorses mass deportations, erosions of medical privacy and punishing dissent. You can learn more from the American Civil Liberties Union.

Opportunities and Election Resources

Civic Engagement Toolkit will offer the tools and guidelines of different ways to engage in the democratic electoral process at faith communities. Use it as a handy guide in your 100% Voting Faith Community journey!

FAN’s Ballot Initiatives Webpage gives you a starting point to lean about the three initiatives we are saying NO to that would reverse decades of our work to make Washington more sustainable and equitable.

Social Media Toolkit that you can post your faith communities’ social media and/or newsletter/bulletin to easily announce the election deadlines and encourage people to vote.

Election Action: Postcards 4 Democracy in West Seattle Bring your postcards, pens, postage, and addresses (come anyway if you don’t have these). Find out more at https://www.postcards4democracy.org/. Regularly throughout the summer at C&P Coffee, 5612 California Ave SW, Seattle, WA 98136. Questions? Write postcards4democracyws@gmail.com

Upcoming Cluster Gatherings

SAVE THE DATES: Cluster gatherings will be held in Seattle and King County on September 22, October 20, and October 26. We’ll socialize and build relationships and trust to support our advocacy and solidarity work. More information coming soon.

Upcoming Events

Wednesday, August 14, 7:00-8:00pm, Health Care for All WA Presents: I’ve Never Been to the Doctor: Health Care Access for the Marshallese, online. Hear from Guest speaker Robin Narruhn, PhD, MN, RN from Seattle University’s College of Nursing.

Wednesday, August 21, 3:00-4:00pm PT/6:00-7:00pm ET, Virginia Interfaith Center for Public Policy Presents: White Christian Nationalism – The Shadow of Influence: Power, Politics and Peril, online. The event is organized by Virginia Interfaith Center for Public Policy where Kim Bobo, the guest speaker from our first 100% Voting Faith Communities strategy session, is the director. Dr. Tisby is the author of the book “The Color of Compromise: The Truth about the American Church’s Complicity in Racism.” Dr. Tisby will share his insights on White Christian Nationalism and its possible impact on the upcoming election.