Earlier today, I posted a brief update on my #LeadersFromLaw fundraising effort. Then, it stood at about $2400 toward a $5000 goal.
Well, something amazing has happened: we have surpassed the goal, with a current total of $7,517.81, all raised through the #Mastodon community. The people I work with at #AmericanConstitutionSociety are impressed and inspired. Me too. With immense and heartfelt gratitude, I offer some reflections in the rest of this thread. https://www.leadersfromlaw.com/ 1/
On June 26, I posted a thread that began here, https://mastodon.social/@heidilifeldman/112685610831584961. I noted that I was nervous about fundraising for #LeadersFromLaw here on #Mastodon, a very different place than the bird site, where I had had some big fundraising successes. (For more about one of these, https://www.bustle.com/p/this-gofundme-for-christine-blasey-ford-has-raised-more-than-100000-in-under-24-hours-11975595). Raising money for an organization I founded and operate on this non-commercial platform felt like it might be too much. 2/
#LeadersFromLaw is nonprofit with a mission for the public good, to train and orient progressive rising law students and lawyers to run for office and to seek appointed offices. But I wasn’t sure how my fundraising would be received. Nevertheless, because I am certain that we in the US can only salvage constitutional democracy and rule of law if progressive lawyers hold state and local office, I started to fundraise. 3/
Then came yesterday’s chilling Supreme Court decree in the #Trump #immunity case. Like anybody who fears dictatorship, particularly one with a white Christian patriarchal agenda, I reeled. As somebody who has known this Supreme Court went rogue a while back, I thought that #LeadersFromLaw is more crucial than ever. To have had success in fundraising for #LFL over the past 24 hours is a ray of hope. 4/
I will be working on new and additional programming for #LeadersFromLaw training events over the course of the summer. We must have sessions on how to confront authoritarian opponents and how to win the votes and trust to win. We need progressive lawyers on school boards, town councils, county commissions and in key state offices, especially state secretary of state and state attorney general. We need progressive lawyers to run for elected judgeships and to seek appointment to the bench. 5/
I’ll close this thread with this thought: if I can raise money to fund #LeadersFromLaw with the help of the #Mastodon crowd, I believe we can - eventually and with hard work - prevail in the broader fight for rule of law and constitutional democracy. LET’S GO! 6/6
@heidilifeldman #Biden is so honest a #gop — then #Congressional — witch hunt couldn’t find anything on him after 4 years.
#Trump is so guilty the GOP and #SCOTUS broke the Constitution to keep him out of jail and put him in the White House.
Do you really want to find out why?
#voteblue
spread the word.
@heidilifeldman Just Donated!
@heidilifeldman Oh, CONGRATULATIONS, Heidi!
@heidilifeldman , that's fantastic!