Democrats know that Americans' right to vote is sacred and fundamental. We believe that we must protect American's right to vote, while stopping corporations' outsized influence in elections. We must rectify the Supreme Court decision gutting the Voting Rights Act, which is a profound injustice. We will stop efforts by Republican governors and legislatures to disenfranchise people of color, low-income people, and young people, and prevent these voters from exercising their right to vote through onerous restrictions. We will ensure that election officials comply with voting protections, including provisions mandating bilingual materials and voter assistance. And we will fight to reform our broken campaign finance system, which gives outsized influence to billionaires and big corporations. It's time we give back control of our elections to those to whom it belongs—the American people.

The Democratic Party was founded on the promise of an expanded democracy. The right to vote is at the heart of our national vision. It is a core principle of the Democratic Party to maximize voter participation for all Americans. Our democracy suffers when nearly two thirds of our citizens do not or cannot participate, as in the last midterm elections. Democrats believe we must make it easier to vote, not harder.

We must restore the full protections of the Voting Rights Act. We will bring our democracy into the 21st century by expanding early voting and vote-by-mail, implementing universal automatic voter registration and same day voter registration, ending partisan and racial gerrymandering, and making Election Day a national holiday. We will restore voting rights for those who have served their sentences. And we will continue to fight against discriminatory voter identification laws, which disproportionately burden young voters, diverse communities, people of color, low-income families, people with disabilities, the elderly, and women.

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February 14, 2018

What a great event the Lincoln-Obama dinner was last Saturday night in Lake Havasu. We had ticket sales for 101 people, the food was great as were the servers and cook. The room was awesome and the Gateway Band was wonderful.

A great big out-of-this-world thank you to the MCDCC events committee: Danny, Ginny, Deni and Marianne, and to the officers and people of the Lake Havasu Democratic Association; and to our speakers, Carol Comito and Dr. David Brill. Another thank you to the District for the raffle prizes — what a wonderful, awesome job by all!

And then there was the band, "Gateway Band" — weren't they just wonderful? I, personally, loved the "special" song they did for us. We are going to try to book them for our annual picnic!

As soon as Danny Baker finalizes the event's records, we will report the results to you.

From my heart and from my heart full of pride in you all, as chair of MCDCC — thank you!

Marty Luna-Wolfe
MCDCC Chair

February 14, 2018

We have turned the corner and we are solidly into the 2018 election cycle. Our country has the opportunity to change the political climate of this nation. We have to focus on registering voters, listening to our candidates, and then making the best personal choice for each of us in selecting our candidates and Getting The Vote Out!

Towards that effort, we at MCDCC, are having a county-wide meeting open to anyone who represents a progressive political agenda in the county to join us in an alliance with one focus in mind — and that is to register voters and turn out the vote. That meeting will be in the last part of March and we will let you know more about it as the time gets closer.

It is time for all of us who believe in a progressive America to stand up and quit putting up with the nonsense that is coming out of Washington DC. It has long been known that absolute power corrupts and our current government is corrupt! Absolute power has taken over Washington DC: one party controls the White House (if control is what you call it) and the Congress. And now the disease of "oneness" is creeping into the judicial branch.

I, for one, am done and I'm not going to take it any more! (as my friend Mark says). I'm committed to getting out the vote, registering others, and putting reason and freedom for all back in the government of this country.

Please join me in this effort because we are the hope of a floundering nation. We don't have to like the current system for getting people into office, but we are the solution — not the problem. We become the problem if we don't participate!

Ask yourself, are my neighbors, my family, my co-workers registered to vote? Join me please in putting our shoulders to the wheel of change and starting it to roll back toward equality for all.

Marty Luna-Wolfe
MCDCC Chair

February 7, 2018

Have you heard, #45 has instructed the Pentagon to prepare a military parade honoring him showing off America's military might?

How absolutely stupid! And doesn't that just smell funny and bring to memory the strutting military parades of the 3rd Reich, the Russians, the North Koreans and other world dictators

In a time when we already are at an all-time low in the world as to how people view us — he wants a military parade — and yet, tomorrow night, we face another government shutdown — and trump's reaction to that — "bring it on" unless he gets a wall.

I just can't wait until 2020 and the opportunity to bring back class, intelligence, government understanding of governing for all people back to the white house. Do you know where that starts? It starts right here, right now with the 2018 elections.

We have to get out the vote, get people registered, get out and see the candidates (our officer's are bringing them in droves to Mohave County), support them financially and then and only then will we turn the tide back to a government that is based more on:

● government for the people —

● government by the people —

● government with the people —

In the meantime, call your congressmen and women, and senators. Ttell them your do not want another government shutdown and we do want a solution to the DACA issue that is equitable to all.

In short, we deeply and vehemently disagree with the "bring it on" style of government. That is just plain stupid!

Marty Luna--Wolfe
MCDCC Chair

December 22, 2017

This week as the world is in the process of celebrating Christmas, Hanukkah, and Kwanzaa I have been thinking about life and things in general.

I think about going on vacation; we will leave tomorrow. I will be out of town from Friday the 22nd through 6:00 pm on 3rd of January. Danny Baker will be in charge of the office and the acting MCDCC chair until my return. Remember the office will be closed for the holidays and will reopen on January 3.

Maria and I have packed, hired the house and dog sitter, and are so looking forward to getting away. Also, at the end of our vacation I will be meeting some of my family that I have never met; it's amazing to me how family becomes more important as one gets older. One of the very special gifts I am receiving this year is that family has never been close to me and now that we siblings are down to two — they have become very important.

I guess it's in the same way that what I believe in gets more important as I get older. I believe so solidly in the principles of the Democratic Party that I am almost giddy, excited about the opportunity to challenge the narrow mindedness in Washington during the 2018 elections and beyond. I believe that the governing party, and in part the Democrats, have made a mess out of government by and for the people: The Republicans for becoming the party of the very rich and to hell with our natural resources or the little guy or the disadvantaged; and the Democrats for falling on our noses during the 2016 elections. Also, I believe compromise in the capitol is dead — we haven't seen it since the work of Ted Kennedy. And that my friends is our fault. We did not care enough to send the very best to Washington during the 2016 elections and 2018 is our opportunity to fix it. I'm excited.

I'm excited because we have an infrastructure in MCDCC to support our PCs and to get people registered.

I'm excited because Arizona has been recognized by the DNC and ADP as one of the top five states in the 2018 elections and are providing the money and personnel it will take to pay attention to Arizona.

I'm excited because there is absolutely no reason we should not be able to send a Democratic senator to Washington in 2018 due to Flake's retirement.

I'm excited because we will be electing a new ADP chair in January and I believe that whoever that is will have the support and talent to lead us forward in this state.

In case you haven't figured it out, I'm excited because opportunity liess all around us and it is just ours to pick up and run with it.

And yes, I'm excited to know and serve all of you!

I'm excited!

Happy Holiday to all!

Marty Luna-Wolfe
MCDCC Chair

November 15, 2017

A couple of things:

1. The Senate is trying to tie a proposal to eliminate the required insurance mandate of the ACA to the proposed tax reform bill. Pay attention folks, this could be another disaster in the making. Call or write your senators and ask them to help stop this. I have never seen such an effort to stop something that is wanted by the majority of the people as the Republicans are doing with Obama Care. We must remain vigilant!

2. The elections in some of the Eastern states last week gives us great hope in that the backlash of government by the very rich and mostly white business politicians has started at the ballot box.

What this means is a call for us to dig in and work harder and smarter. We must train our PCs and insist that they do the jobs. We must be actively involved in registering voters. We must be involved in meeting and supporting our candidates with our signatures and our money. And we must understand that we are what our rhetoric is — we must be positive, positive, and yet more positive.

One of the real dangers of the trump presidency is that so many Americans have become negative and complacent. That simply will not work. We live in a nation that responds to crisis with overwhelming kindness and resources. We live in a nation that still refuses to sit by quietly and watch what our forefathers and foremothers built be destroyed by a relative few rich business people who simply don't care about the majority.

We must persevere!

Marty Luna-Wolfe
MCDCC Chair

October 2, 2017

I'm looking out of my window as I try to write this today. The central point in my view is a Kingman Fire Department station with its flag flying at half mast — and I am just sick at heart, because once again, in our country where it is popular to give the gun rights activists anything they want because of the hugely influential NRA — we have missed the point at a cost of 59 lives taken and over 500 people injured in Las Vegas last night — and that was at last count.

I want to point out that I'm a Second Amendment believer and believe that every person of sound mind and who has been safely trained should own and use guns that protect themselves and guns that hunters use; however, and this is my point of separation with most Second Amendment activists — I do not believe that there is any reason that people should be allow to carry high powered rifles if they have been not been cleared by mental health experts and can prove they have been safely trained to use such weapons. Also, I will never believe that we, the citizens of the United States, should be allowed to possess sniper type rifles and assault rifles. My heart breaks for Las Vegas and my stomach turns at the complete inaction of our Congress to enact safe gun laws for our nation even though time after time, we prove that as a people we can not be trusted with setting regulations on gun control that better protect us.

I listened to trump's speech on Las Vegas this morning and was just disgusted. This man was quoting scripture in his speech written by a speech writer and read from a teleprompter in the same two weeks he has called pro-football players SOBs for protesting the prejudicial treatment of blacks in our country. The right to protest is a HUGE CONSTITUTIONAL GUARANTEE FOR AMERICANS. In the same time frame he insulted the San Juan mayor in the wake of Hurricane Maria because she challenged the government to do the relief effort in Puerto Rico differently. There simply are no words to express my disgust at this man! NONE!

Often today, I now hear people who are intelligent and educated telling me that they don't think the U.S. can survive trump and that he will destroy us! I simply don't believe that, not as long as we have people in this country who will stand and fight a congress that is useless, a tax reform bill that will tax the middle class at a higher amount, or people who will spread the news that since the government can't repeal the ACA — they are trying to sabotage it by shortening the sign-up period and not advertising it. I could go on and on about the systematic loss of personal rights this administration is doing or are trying to take away from the average citizen, but I won't.

I will say this over and over — here is the action plan and we have to stick to it or we, as a country, lose our freedom:

1. Register to Vote.

2. Financially work to support qualified candidates for election.

3. Sign petitions for the candidates.

4. Work our Precincts to increase voter turnout and educate our voters.

5. Continue to put out candidate information until we are just tired of it.

6. And vote, vote, vote!

This 6-point action plan is the way we turn the tide of an America gone off the rails from the beliefs of our Founding Fathers.

Our prayers and thoughts go out to Las Vegas and those who were wounded and those families of those who were killed. And especially, thank God for a well-trained SWAT team who took the killer out!

Marty Luna-Wolfe
MCDCC Chair