Take Action to Pass Utility Relief For All!

Tl;dr: we have until February 2 to get the Utility Debt Relief for All bill (H.4045) out of committee (or it will die), it’s not had a hearing scheduled yet, and the legislature is in recess in “informal session” until January 5. Sign up for action(s) so we can leave the reps quaking in their boots.


We are nearing a critical moment in our campaign for utility debt relief for all. The legislative session is now in recess and will return in early January. Once the legislators are back, we realistically only have until February 2 to ensure that our bill makes it out of committee; if it doesn’t make it out, it will die there. That’s a one-month window where we need to hammer the Telecommunications, Utilities and Energy Committee with everything we’ve got.

Now that the legislative session is in recess, we have a bit of fallow time between now and January. But we need to use that time wisely to ensure we put on a powerful one month campaign that puts utility debt relief on the map statewide. We need all the help we can get to make this happen. Here is our current tentative plan, but more ideas are welcome. Please fill out this form with the action(s) you’d like to get involved in.

  • We will try to schedule a strategy check-in with Erika Uyterhoeven. Erika introduced the bill and is a key DSA ally in the house.
  • We want to hold an in-person rally(s) in the district of a TUE leader to pump up our activists and bring more supporters into the fold with the coverage
  • We need to flood newspapers with op-eds and letters to the editor. We’ll be hosting a write-a-thon and will offer training and talking points to people, so no writing experience is expected or necessary.
  • We need to get people in the districts of TUE members to set up meetings with their legislators. This means going through our DSA membership rolls and asking people in the right districts to set up meetings. We have a draft guide to meeting with legislators here.
    • This also means connecting with community groups and nonprofits in district who might be allies. For example, framing this as a debt jubilee bill would build connections with progressive churches.
    • We’ll need people to do this outreach work and offer to help people with their legislative meetings.
    • While the legislature is on recess, meetings can still be scheduled with legislators as they are in “informal session.” So there is no need to wait for January to set up meetings!
  • We should use tabling and flyering tactics in TUE member districts to encourage a flood of phone calls.
  • We should make direct phone calls to legislators, for example, to support and report our bill out of committee during the rally.
  • We need to make a huge showing at the bill’s hearing with testimony and data via speech and written testimony in emails.
    • We should include testimony of support from our allies.
    • All bills in joint committees by law get hearings, but we don’t know yet when ours will be (86 are left), so we need to be prepared.
  • Once we present at the hearing, we’ll need to mobilize and focus our energy on getting the bill reported out.
  • More aggressive tactics like bird-dogging could be useful. Bird-dogging involves following, pressuring, and bothering TUE members repeatedly about supporting the bill.
  • We need to mobilize our own membership, led by our Internal Organizing team, and reach out to mobilize the other groups behind this bill to achieve all of this planned work.