February 27 General Meeting Recap: Kill the Bill

What are the bills we should know about? And how do we follow them?

Why, we’re glad you asked!

At our Feb. 27 general meeting Kelly Garvy, a recent grad student from Durham, introduced us to her lean, mean, bill-tracking machine: killthebill.com. Kelly, who spearheads Protecting Progress in Durham, worked with Code the Dream, which provides a gateway to the tech sector for minority and immigrant youth, to create a simple and efficient website that simplifies the complicated task of understanding and following a bill’s progress through our legislature.

Kill the Bill explains what a bill means in simple language that a non-politician (or even non-politically-savvy!) person can understand. A simple click allows you to receive regular email updates on the bill as it progresses. You can also take a look at our representative’s voting records and discover how they voted on the bills that matter most to you.

As Aaron Sorkin wrote, nothing is more important to a democracy than a well-informed electorate. (Any Newsroom fans out there?) Kelly’s work on killthebill.com is a fantastic tool to make sure you are a well-informed voter!

We were also fortunate to hear from Sen. Terry Van Duyn, who helped us understand the latest updates in the state’s ongoing gerrymandering and election issues, including congressional redistricting, proposed judicial redistricting, and the elimination of primaries for judicial candidates.

General meetings are held on the last Tuesday of the month, at 6:00 pm, at various central locations. Next month’s meeting will be March 27, 6:00-7:30 pm, at Dr. Wesley Grant Sr. Southside Center, 285 Livingston St, Asheville. We’ll focus on voter registration and offer a voter registration training so we can get out the vote!