A Response to the Insurrection at the Capitol

AAUW Morgan Hill members will be presenting the following letter at the next City Council meeting, this coming Wednesday. Note that AAUW nationally has joined with other national women’s organizations demanding President Trump’s removal. READ STATEMENT.

To join in with the signatories on our letter, please email lettertocouncil@aauwmh.org no later than Monday, January 18. Indicate any (non-partisan) organization affiliation or other credentials you would like included with your signature. The following initial list of signatures will be updated with a final list by Tuesday morning. It will be emailed to all City Council members Tuesday evening, in advance of the City Council meeting.


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Dear Mayor Constantine, Mayor Pro-tem McKay, Council Members Spring, Beltran, and Borgioli,

As members of a non-partisan organization devoted to advocacy and equity for all, we unequivocally repudiate the seditious incitement of violence by the President and the elected leaders who supported and encouraged him, responsible for the vicious and bloody assault on our Capitol Building in Washington DC on January 6, 2021.

The violent mob, with a proliferation of white supremacist, Nazi, and anti-Semitic symbols did this in the President’s name. Lives were lost, the Capitol building desecrated, ransacked, and pillaged, and the Confederate flag representing racism, human-trafficking, and slavery, placed in our sacred Capitol building for the first time in history.

Our highest elected leader, our President, flouted federal law, his oath, principles of democracy, decency, and truth, and incited a treasonous insurrection, witnessed in real time on TV by us, and by people all over the globe. This attempt to subvert the results of a fair election, undo the will of the people, and accept the “most secure election ever” as concluded by legal experts and the Supreme Court, after a multitude of attempts to sue without evidence, is a perilous threat to our democracy. The organized armed insurgency still planned across all 50 states and Washington DC for the 20th show no sign of abatement or evidence of lessons learned.

We are encouraged that our leaders in Congress have initiated legal action, and we exhort them to ensure that the President and his encouragers face consequences so that this never happens again. We ask our local officials to make a statement, in solidarity, regarding this grave attack on our democracy. These steps will help us move forward with the new president and legislature, on a path toward healing our country to which we are all committed.

We make this statement in the name of democracy, decency, federal law, and the Constitution of the United States.

Respectfully,


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Kay Arora, AAUW Morgan Hill Member; SURJ South County Member

Mary Cox, AAUW Morgan Hill Member/Past President

Kathy Devine, AAUW Morgan Hill Member

Donna Dicker, AAUW Morgan Hill Board Member/Past President

Betsy Ding, AAUW Morgan Hill Member

Marcia Fishman, AAUW Morgan Hill Member

Gautam Ganapathy, AAUW Morgan Hill Member

Suman Ganapathy, AAUW Morgan Hill Board; Morgan Hill Library, Culture & Arts Commissioner; LMH Class of 2018; SURJ South County Member

Carol Holzgrafe, AAUW Morgan Hill Member/Past President; LMH Class of 1999

Amina Khemici, AAUW Morgan Hill Member; SURJ South County Member; SVIC Member

Katie Khera, AAUW Morgan Hill Member; Morgan Hill Library, Culture & Arts Commissioner; SURJ South County Member

Margaret MacNaughton, AAUW Morgan Hill Member

Elizabeth Mandel, AAUW Morgan Hill Board/Past President; LMH Class of 2019

Sousan Manteghi-Safakish, AAUW Morgan Hill Member; SURJ South County Member

Yvonne Martinez-Beltran, AAUW Morgan Hill Member; Morgan Hill Councilwoman

Margaret McCann, AAUW Morgan Hill Member/Past President; LMH Class of 2016

Monica McClintock, AAUW Morgan Hill Member

Janet McElroy, AAUW Morgan Hill Board/Past President

Marji McMillan, AAUW Morgan Hill, Member; SURJ South County Member

Cinda Meister, AAUW Morgan Hill Member; LMH Class of 2016

Gretchen Merrick, AAUW Morgan Hill Member

Kathy Napoli, AAUW Morgan Hill Member

Jill Paveza, AAUW Morgan Hill Member

Marilyn Pifer, AAUW Morgan Hill Member

Jean Pinard, AAUW Morgan Hill Member

Yvonne Randolph, AAUW Morgan Hill Member

Jenny Redfern, AAUW Morgan Hill Member/Past President

Elaine Reimer, AAUW Morgan Hill Member

Susan Rife, AAUW Morgan Hill Member; LMH Class of 2017

Donna Ruebusch, AAUW Morgan Hill Member

Marian Sacco, AAUW Morgan Hill President; LMH Class of 2005

Kathy Sullivan, AAUW Morgan Hill Member

Joan Stempel, AAUW Morgan Hill Member

Sherrie Wren, AAUW Morgan Hill Board

Janet Wright, AAUW Morgan Hill Board

Beth Wyman, AAUW Morgan Hill Member; Past Morgan Hill Mayor