Coffee, Conversation and Defending Democracy

Wed, Jan 3 • 9 AM

Panera, 6351 Manatee Ave W, Bradenton

9 AM The coffees are relaxed and we learn more about each other and discuss politics, arts, travel and any number of other topics. Enjoy the company of our League’s bright, interesting and engaged members. Bring your friends!

The Status of Women in Florida

Monday, Jan 8 • 12:00PM • Zoom

What are the issues that affect women and girls in Florida and what impact do the organizations in support of women have? What are the recent legislative changes and what are the bills filed for the upcoming legislative session that impact women and how? Is Florida moving towards or away from gender equality? Click Here for more info and to Register

Voter Services Action Team Lunch

Wednesday, Jan 10 • 11:30AM

O'Bricks, 427 12th St W, Bradenton

Voter Services Action Team will do some specific planning for outreach on voter registration and vote by mail as well as plans for the upcoming Presidential primary, primary in August and General election. Reservations are needed to know number of seats to reserve. Click Here to Reserve

Coffee, Conversation and Defending Democracy

Wed, Jan 17 • 9 AM

Panera, 11505 State Road 70 E, LWR

9 AM Socialize, relax, share. The League is supporting two constitutional amendments and is gathering petitions to get them on the 2024 ballot. We will have blank petitions and supporting materials available.

League in Action - The Final Push!

“Floridians Protecting Freedom” formed a coalition leading a citizen ballot initiative campaign to give women the right to seek abortions up to viability. The LWV of Florida is part of this coalition. The state must have a total of 891,523 valid Florida voters signing the petition and 14 of the state's 28 congressional districts must collect petitions from at least 8% of the number that voted in the last presidential election in that district by the end of January.

Floridians Protecting Freedom was confident that the total number of petitions for the state would be met, 891,523, but in order to get 14 districts with sufficient petitions the focus needed to shift to specific congregational districts. In looking at the numbers, 10 were projected to comfortably make their number, but 4 districts became "priority districts". Congressional District 16 (CD16) was the district that was furthest from it's goal, which consists of Manatee County and part of Pinellas County directly north of Manatee. Paid petitioners were moved to the 4 priority districts and the attention of the state was on these 4, and especially on CD16.

LWV of Manatee had been very active collecting petitions at festivals and the libraries since the beginning of the program, but now we went into over drive. We scheduled a "Sign Up Saturday" where we had 12 different locations with petition takers which we heavily promoted. That weekend we picked up about 600 petitions. Since the only districts actively collecting petitions were now the 4 priority districts, we had volunteers from Sarasota and just north of us. We even had 2 volunteers from Tallahassee. The LWVMC managed the volunteers for Manatee County and Progress Florida managed the volunteers for Pinellas County portion of CD16. We has lists of events and locations for volunteers to sign up to cover, but many also worked when they had time and we provided input on good locations and got feedback as sites proved poor, passing this knowledge on to others. It was an all consuming, hectic and exciting time.

For all this effort, we have our reward. As of Friday, 12/29, Congressional District 16 is only 31 petitions shy of qualifying. The entire state total is 863,876 or 96.9% of the number of petitions needed. In the new year, our district will be well over next week and the whole state will qualify within several weeks! Thank you to all the amazing, wonderful volunteers and donors that made amazing achievement possible!

Florida League Lobby Days Registration is Now Open!

Our annual Florida League Lobby Days is a signature event and one of our most impactful each year. Please consider joining on January 23 & 24 as we mobilize to Tallahassee and push our state forward.

The League's reach has continued to grow over the past year and we're excited to show that off in the halls our state capitol.

Reserve now as rooms at the the Four Points by Sheraton Tallahassee (Downtown) may fill up fast.

Click here for more information