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“I never worried about our country
the way I do now, but complaining
does no good. I truly believe that
getting people out to vote will make
the difference in 2018.”

— SHARON SCHWARTZ

TOP: Fems for Dems holds a session
to send postcards to legislators about
their views. ABOVE: Katie Reiter of
Southfield was so energized that she
decided to run in the Democratic
primary for the Michigan House in
District 25.

The Fems for Change health
care group produced two videos
with powerful stories of people
who would have suffered with-
out the ACA. They sent a copy
to every member of Congress
and posted it online. Whenever
the ACA was threatened, they
mounted postcard-writing
campaigns to senators and rep-
resentatives.
In the fall, they held three
town hall forums with state leg-
islators about health care issues
and had ACA “navigators” avail-
able to help people register.
Marcie Paul of West
Bloomfield also became politi-
cally active because of health
care concerns. A survivor of
ovarian cancer, she is advo-
cating for better health care
through better public policy.
“Politics is personal,” she said,
noting her advocacy efforts on
behalf of the Affordable Care
Act, early diagnosis and afford-
able medication.
She recently took a group
of women cancer survivors to
Capitol Hill. Political novices,
many were leery about talking
face-to-face with their represen-
tatives. Once they did, she said,
“they were hooked.”
“They could see that legisla-
tors are accessible, and that we
are their bosses. This kind of
activism will make a difference,”
said Paul, a member of Temple
Kol Ami in West Bloomfield.
Sheila Kohn of Huntington
Woods, who tutors foreign
workers in English, said she
turned to advocacy to channel
the anger she felt watching the
daily news. She has focused
on immigration issues and has
been working on the campaigns
of Democratic candidates,
including Andy Levin, Dana
Nessel and Gretchen Whitmer.
“I’m optimistic that change is
coming,” said Kohn, a member
of Congregation T’chiyah in
Oak Park. “We need change and
we need it now.”

CREATING ADVOCACY

Linda Zlotoff of Bloomfield
Hills runs a local affiliate of
Indivisible, a national move-
ment to spur national change
through local activism.
Indivisible founders Ezra
Levin and Leah Greenberg, a
married Jewish couple who
work in Washington, D.C.,
started by creating a guide for
organizers. It included advice

on how to influence members
of Congress, scripts for phone
calls to their offices, guidelines
for asking questions at town
halls, even advice about where
to sit at public forums. They put
it online; it has garnered more
than 2 million views.
After hearing about
Indivisible on Rachel
Maddow’s TV show, Zlotoff
started a group for residents
of Congressional Districts 9, 11
and 14, one of 6,000 Indivisible
affiliate groups nationwide. She
has several hundred people on
her mailing list, and she serves
as a clearinghouse for advo-
cacy activities in southeastern
Michigan.
Zlotoff ’s pet project is the
fight against political gerry-
mandering of voting districts.
She helped with the effort to
collect petition signatures for
Voters Not Politicians, which
aims to create a citizens’ coun-
cil to determine the boundaries
of state and national districts.
Now, boundaries are set by the
political party in control in
Lansing.
Many petition drives have
to hire people to collect signa-
tures. Voters Not Politicians had
enough volunteers to handle
the task, many engaging in
advocacy action for the first
time.
Now that Voters Not
Politicians secured enough
signatures to get on the bal-
lot, Zlotoff will turn her efforts
toward educating voters about
gerrymandering and encourag-
ing them to vote in November.
“We need the voters to be bet-
ter informed,” she said.
Sharon Schwartz of
Bloomfield Hills, a retired Hillel
Day School teacher, also saw
advocacy as a way to channel
her anger after the 2016 elec-
tion.
“I was so discouraged and
despondent,” she said. After
reading about “the resistance,”
she got involved with Indivisible
and started writing postcards to
legislators. She concluded that
she would be more effective at
the state level, so when a friend
invited her to join Democrat
Gretchen Whitmer’s campaign
for Michigan governor, she did.
She circulated petitions to get
Whitmer on the primary ballot
and looks forward to work-
ing on the campaign through
Whitmer’s Bloomfield Hills

office.
“I never worried about our
country the way I do now, but
complaining does no good,”
said Schwartz, who took part in
the Women’s March in Lansing
last year and this year. “I truly
believe that getting people out
to vote will make the difference
in 2018.”

STEPPING UP

Working as a health manage-
ment consultant and raising
three children meant Katie
Reiter of Southfield had limited
time for political activism. Now
that her youngest child is 21,
she’s jumping in with both feet,
running in the Democratic pri-
mary for the Michigan House in
District 25 (Southfield, Lathrup
Village, Bingham Farms and
Franklin).
Reiter, who grew up at
the Birmingham Temple in
Farmington Hills, felt empow-
ered by last year’s Women’s
March in Washington. “We are
the people we’ve been waiting
for,” she said.
She became involved with a
local affiliate of Moms Demand
Action for Gun Sense in
America, a national organiza-
tion founded in 2012 after the
mass murder at Sandy Hook
Elementary School in Newtown,
Conn., in 2012. She attends ral-
lies and vigils, including one in
Lansing in late February, and
said one of her campaign plat-
forms will be common-sense
laws to reduce gun violence.
After attending a “boot camp”
in Washington, D.C., last sum-
mer run by the Progressive
Change Campaign Committee,
Reiter came home convinced
she could make the biggest
impact working at the state
level. When she learned her
state representative, Jeremy
Moss, was leaving his House
seat to run for the state senate,
she filed to succeed him.
Reiter knows the odds are
against her — two other pri-
mary candidates have filed and
several more are expected to
file — but says having many
qualified candidates to choose
from is a good problem to have.
Younger women are eager to
join in the political process as
well.
Eleanor Gamalski, 24, of
Hamtrack, community orga-
nizer for Detroit Jews for Justice
and a member of Congregation

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March 29 • 2018

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