FEBRUARY SECOND SATURDAY
February Second Saturday Meeting
Thank you to everyone who packed the house! And thank you to all of the candidates who came out and shared their ideas with us. This includes candidates for Illinois Comptroller Karina Villa, Margaret Croke, Holly Kim, and Stephanie Kifowit. Candidates for Cook County Assessor, Fritz Kaegi and Pat Hynes, joined us as well!
JANUARY SECOND SATURDAY
Second Saturday Meeting
Thank you to everyone who packed the house at our Second Saturday meeting! We would especially like to thank Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle as well as four of the candidates for the 7th Congressional District of the U.S. House of Representatives, Rory Hoskins, Jason Friedman, Anabel Mendoza, and Reed Showalter, who spoke and took questions from the audience. It was a lively discussion. We look forward to our next meeting on February 14th!
NO KINGS OCTOBER 18TH
VOLUNTEERS NEEDED
DPOP BOOK CLUB
DPOP Book Club
Join the DPOP Book Club! We welcome seasoned and new DPOPers alike! All are welcome!
Our next meeting will be Thursday, February 26th at 7pm in the Community Room at DPOP.
We will be reading Backsliders: Why Leaders Undermine Their Own Democracies by Susan C. Stokes.
You can buy a copy here or reserve the book from the Oak Park Library here. Let us know if you are having trouble getting ahold of the book.
About the book
Democracies around the world are getting swept up in a wave of democratic erosion. Since the beginning of the twenty-first century, two dozen presidents and prime ministers have attacked their countries' democratic institutions, violating political norms, aggrandizing their own powers, and often trying to overstay their terms in office.
Unlike military leaders who abruptly kill democracies in coups, elected leaders who erode them gradually must maintain some level of public support. They do so by encouraging polarization among citizens and also by trash-talking their democracies: claiming that the institutions they attack are corrupt and incompetent. They tell voters that these institutions should be torn down and replaced by ones under the executive's control. The Backsliders describes how journalists, judges, NGOs, and opposition leaders can put the brakes on democratic erosion, and how voters can do so through political engagement and the power of the ballot box.
Learn more and listen to a discussion with the author here.
NOVEMBER SECOND SATURDAY MEETING
November Second Saturday Meeting
We welcomed U.S. Representative, and U.S. Senate candidate, Raja Krishnamoorthi (IL-8) as our guest speaker for our November Second Saturday meeting.
We also welcomed some of the candidates running for the 7th Congressional District of the U.S. House of Representatives (the seat currently held by Danny Davis). At the November meeting we had Melissa Conyears-Ervin, Richard Boykin, Thomas Fisher, Kina Collins, Felix Tello, LaShawn Ford, and Anthony Driver join us. Stay tuned for more 7th Congressional District candidates in January!
SEPTEMBER SECOND SATURDAY MEETING
September Second Saturday Meeting
What a great crowd we had today for U.S. Rep. Robin Kelly and IL Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton! Thanks to everyone who came out and learned more about these candidates for the United States Senate! We had a lively discussion with interesting questions from the engaged audience.
And we want to thank our very own Senate President Don Harmon, Assistant Minority Leader Rep. Camille Lilly, and all of the candidates running for office who were present for the meeting. Many thanks to the amazing staff at the Oak Park Public Library for all of the help you gave us today. We hope to see many of you at our next Second Saturday meeting on October 11th!
Contact Officials
Village of Oak Park