Dear Weld County Democrat:
When I was young, my father told me stories of what the country was like when he was young. When my parents married, women weren’t allowed to have jobs if they were married. They kept their marriage temporarily a secret so my mother could keep her job, she eventually was fired. Dad told me stories of how people of color were subjected to sundown laws and were not allowed to be in a city’s limits after sundown with terrible, usually violent consequences. Schools, theaters, and restaurants were segregated. If you were a person of color, voting was discouraged, sometimes impossible. Here in Colorado, Hispanic people with origins from all areas south of the border would be rounded up, put on trucks and taken to that border and dumped, American citizen or not. Colorado University was threatened with severe budget cuts, if all Jewish professors weren’t fired. Dad told me that before Social Security and Medicare, many in his family were forced into poverty after a lifetime of working, due to age and infirmity.
Now it seems there’s a little bit of history repeating. Democrats have fought hard to change these injustices, championing women’s rights and issues, and minority and worker’s rights, and veteran’s and environmental issues. They created Social Security, and Medicare, passed the Civil Rights Act, and the Voting rights Act and worked to end segregation They passed the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act, established the 40- hour work week and overtime pay, worker’s compensation, and unemployment insurance and other bills and acts that benefit the average American. Conservatives voted against every one of these, and they have voted against every measure in the last two years that helps the American people, including providing infant formula to those in need during the shortage.
In the last two years, Democrats have, passed and signed into law, the largest economic recovery act since Roosevelt, the largest infrastructure plan since Eisenhower, the most judges confirmed since Kennedy, including the first black woman, Supreme Court Justice, and the second largest health care bill since Johnson (lowering insulin costs) and the largest climate change bill in history. Democrats also passed the Veteran’s Health Care Bill. Under Democrats, we have record employment, 9.5 million Americans found jobs in the last 18 months. Student debt will be reduced or forgiven, and the deficit has been reduced by $350 billion. The dollar is the strongest it has been in years. Inflation is a concern, but this will pass, threats to our Democracy won’t.
Sincerely,
Beverly Wallace
Chair, Weld County Democratic Party