Hill Heat

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Netroots Nation panel: Chester, Pennsylvania is a poster child for environmental justice in the U.S. State EJ legislation would require all toxic facilities to consider the cumulative impacts of their operations and allow citizens input as a factor in permitting decisions.

Speakers:

• Maurice Sampson, Eastern Pennsylvania Director for Clean Water Action
• Zulene Mayfield, Chester Residents Concerned for Quality Living
• Philadelphia City Councillor Mark Squilla
• Teea Tynes, Trash Academy
• State Rep. Napoleon Nelson (PA-HD-154)

This panel brings together veteran organizers and strategists to name what’s actually broken in a political system designed to block majorities, insulate power, and make accountability structurally impossible. The crises we’re living through have a common source. For decades, organizers have won hearts, minds, and votes — only to watch those wins dissolved by the Supreme Court, buried in the Senate, or gutted by executive power grabs. This panel brings together veteran organizers and strategists to name what’s actually broken: the veto points, the malapportionment, the chokepoints that protect minority rule. They’ll discuss where the real openings for structural reform are in the next few years, what coalitions are forming around them, and what more democratic systems elsewhere have actually required to take hold.

Speakers

• Lauren Maunus, Democracy Revival Center
• Kunoor Ojha, Democracy Revival Center
• Aru Shiney-Ajay, Sunrise Movement
• John-Paul Mejia, Big Country
• Kaniela Ing, Our Hawaii
• Maxwell Love, Hold the Line

Current political wisdom requires Democrats to stop talking about climate change and instead couch their campaign plans as “energy affordability” or even a return to the Obama-era “all of the above” rhetoric giving equal footing to fossil fuels and renewable energy. This session will flip the script by spotlighting Democrats who have won their races by talking about climate change. Yes, the Beltway pundits are wrong. Again.

Speakers:

• RL Miller, Climate Hawks Vote
• Rep. Yassamin Ansari (D-AZ)
• Michelle Deatrick, DNC Climate and Environmental Caucus
• Ryan O’Donnell, Executive Director, Data For Progress

Join Hill Heat, Lead Locally, GrayPAC, Jane Fonda PAC, and more for a happy hour at City Tap House during Netroots Nation on Friday, June 5th to raise money for progressive climate champions running in critical elections in Pennsylvania. We’ll hear from State Rep Chris Rabb, running for PA-03, PA State Rep Izzy Smith-Wade-El and Fern Leard who’s running for PA HD120.

RSVP

Every cycle pulls our movement back into the urgent. Rapid news shifts, electoral deadlines, and reactive messaging make it hard to stay anchored to long-term narrative goals — and the results are showing. Our messaging isn’t landing with enough working class voters to build a durable governing coalition. So how do we resist that gravity and build a narrative strategy designed to last beyond a single election or media moment and build a bigger coalition?

This panel will focus on working class voters and will bring together leaders from labor, climate, and movement research to unpack how they balance urgency with strategy. Panelists will share how they integrate field learning, message testing, and experimentation into a broader narrative framework, and how they navigate the real tradeoffs between saying what’s popular and building the narratives that shift public opinion for working class voters over time.

Speakers:

• Savannah Kinchen, Grow Progress
• Mansoor Khan, Research Director, SEIU
• Joe Dinkin, Working Families Party
• Kimberly Larson, Climate Solutions

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