It’s just the middle of January, and 2015 is off to a huge start for the Tenth Amendment Center and the nullification movement.

We’re in the process of launching a new campaign to educate people about nullification, and state legislative sessions are getting underway with over 100 nullification-related bills under consideration already!

I wanted to give you a more-detailed update on both of these important campaigns.

First of all, the support we’ve received for our “TEACH 150,000 TO NULLIFY” plan has been amazing, and I’m extremely grateful for everyone who has chipped in or spread the word. Nearly 450 people have pitched in to raise over $37,000 – and we still have two weeks to go!
(chip in and give as much as you can here)

NULLIFICATION SEASON

Most state legislative sessions run for just a few short months from January or February to around April. Some states, like Texas, Montana and Nevada, only have these sessions once every two years. That’s why you’ll see a shift in the work we do here based on the time of year. In summer, we focus on education and outreach. In the fall, we push hard to fundraise so we can pay for our work. And at this time of year, it’s nullification season – we’re spending all our time and energy reporting on and supporting bills to nullify various acts of government overreach.

For some reason, my gut instinct was telling me that we weren’t going to be as busy this year as in previous years.

I was wrong.  Not even close.

Legislative sessions have barely started in many states, and others won’t even begin for another few weeks. And yet, we’re already tracking 107 bills at the time of this writing.

That number is growing every day.

While we’re currently in the process of expanding and updating our Tenther Tracking and Action Center, you can already see a great deal of those bills, and all the details on where they are should you want to support them.

I hope to have that up to date this coming week.

We’re tracking bills to nullify NSA spying, gun control, indefinite detention, prohibition, FDA restrictions, common core, police militarization, federal health care and more.

But rather than just reporting on these bills, we want to see as many as possible to pass – and that takes simple, but consistent, action from you. That’s why we’ve put so much of our time and resources into expanding the Tenther Tracking and Action Center.  When you’re there, you’ll pick an issue that’s important to you, follow the instructions to support the effort in your state, and then share it with others. We see it as a force-multiplier.

Our years of doing this activism on a state-level – something that no other organization has the same kind of experience in – has taught us many of the best-practices for getting the job done.

Another major upgrade is coming later this month – you’ll be able to log in and see all the bills to support, specific to your state, with customized action steps of what to do to help them pass.

Bottom line? If you want to see more liberty, now is the time to take action.

EDUCATION

When we’re not spending time on action alerts and working to pass bills to nullify, we’re working on education. That is, the more people that understand what nullification is, how it works, and how to get it done – the more people will be taking action in support during “nullification season” each year.

That’s why our “Teach 150,000 people to Nullify” project is so important. It allows us to get out of the echo chamber that is the people who already understand the basics, and reach new people who can be friendly to the cause, and expand the movement.

Our initial fundraising goal for this was $30,000 (you can see a list of the expenses and more details on the project here).  We already hit that goal and are getting close to the next level of $40K!

The additional funding is being used in a number of ways:

Improve our production quality. ($2000) Living in Los Angeles means that I often meet and make friends with people in the film industry. I’m lucky to have a great friend who has put together a top-notch team to record our video series, and at a “friends-only” rate. Because of this, instead of recording one video each week from my home office, and doing my best to get the job done well, without some of the skills needed, I’m going to delay the start date a few weeks and film them all, on location, in one full-day shoot. After recording, I’ll be doing the editing of the videos, and release one each week for all 26 videos. At the bottom of this post I’ve included some pictures from our location scouting, with filming currently scheduled for Feb. 28.

Upgrade our nullification tracking center ($2600)  I mentioned this briefly, above, and the developers are already working to get the job done, along with a number of other improvements and features to help the movement advance. One of the best ways we can educate people on how to nullify is by getting some more victories on the board.

Increase our advertising budget ($2000 – ??) We can simply ramp up our advertising and reach even more people than we originally budgeted by increasing our ad buy. This isn’t set in stone, but it’s a likely path forward.

Expand our support team. (TBD)  As noted above, we teach more people about nullification through example. If we reach $40K, we can move one of our part-time nullification specialists (who works directly with legislators and grassroots groups to get the job done) to a full-time role, which is desperately needed. I have 279 emails in my inbox that need personal attention, and I haven’t touched them for over a week. This is just one example of the many things that need to get done, and having some additional help here is going to help us move mountains.

TEAM EFFORT

This week alone, we published 37 posts between our main site and blog. If one person spent just 45 minutes per post (that’s really churning them out!), that’s 28 hours of work. Add to that, about 70 of the bills we’re tracking, we put together specific action steps for you to take to help them pass.  These generally average about 20 minutes each, from research to writing, editing and publication. That’s another 23 hours.

Plus the dozens of phone calls we held with legislators and activists, conversations that are essential for understanding legislation and implementing strategy, along the with hours of daily research needed to track which bills to report on, our social media and advertising campaigns to reach more people, and more. This all amounts to a few full-time jobs that are being one by one full-time person, two part-time people and a great batch of volunteers that are sometimes available and sometimes not.

In other words, we’re really short-handed. But, we’re firing on all cylinders and ready to make things happen.

WHAT’S NEEDED IS YOU

Starting early next week, be ready to get more emails from us. We’re going to send out as many tracking and action alerts as possible this year. And we really need you to take the 15 minutes of action steps in each. This will make a huge difference!

If you follow us on social media, interact. Like and share our posts on Facebook, retweet us on Twitter, vote up on reddit.

Donate. We’re taking on the big-money establishment. And while we get a LOT done on a shoestring, we need cash in hand to really get the job done. And our track-record shows that we get a lot done, great “bang for the buck.” So please give as much as you can.

This is definitely not a spectator-sport. We’re proud to stand with you in defense of the Constitution and liberty!

Concordia res parvae crescunt,
(small things grow great by concord)

Michael Boldin

Michael Boldin

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