NLAS West → NLAS D.C.
As many of you know, our inaugural New Liberal Action Summit (NLAS) kicked off with NLAS West, last Friday in San Francisco. We have a wrap-up of the event for you below, and we also want to ask you to save the date for the next NLAS conference, NLAS D.C., July 14th in Washington D.C.!
Our host chapter, the Bay Area New Liberals, hosted drinks and conversation with fellow New Liberals and those who traveled to San Francisco.
We are very thankful to all those who joined us for the weekend, especially those who attended and spoke at the conference. Along with the wrap-up below, be sure to check out our NLAS West Photo Gallery.
At the summit, welcome remarks were followed by our Winning the High-Tech Future fireside chat with Rep. Scott Peters (CA-50). The conversation centered around CA leading as a global leader in biotech. And to nobody's surprise, the conversation eventually veered to one of Rep. Peters’ favorite topics, permitting reform, and was met with enthusiastic applause from the audience.
Our Confronting the Artificial Housing Crisis panel — without a doubt the most popular issue at the Summit -- had our panelists discussing pro-housing legislation they helped write, and touched on how pro-housing messaging looks different in conservative states like Montana than progressive states like California.
Rep. Scott Peters talking about biotech with Matti Miranda
Steven Buss, Ned Resnikoff, Jane Natoli and Annie Fryman
We closed out the morning with Fighting Inequality with Public School Reform, a topical issue in a state roiled by education controversy. The panelists, including Congressional candidate Nick Melvoin, discussed how Democrats can and should reject education policies that hold students back, such as recent reforms to lessen mathematics education requirements.
Lakisha Young and Congressional candidate Nick Melvoin talking about public education reform.
The afternoon included our How Content Moderation Protects Free Speech panel where speakers discussed the recent SCOTUS Section 230 and Tik Tok hearings. The panelists challenged us to ask ourselves: what are the real issues we have regarding content and free speech on the internet, and is Section 230 really the barrier?
Representative Jim Costa, Pavan Venkatakrishnan, and Oregon State Treasurer Tobias Read
Next we were joined by Rep. Jim Costa and Oregon State Treasurer Tobias Read for a conversation on Taming Inflation and Debt. To close us out, we had a conversation on American workforce development and immigration, what policies we should pursue to combat our labor force shortages and how to prepare Americans for the jobs of the future.
In order to rebuke both ends of political extremism, it is important that we as a movement identify new leaders and new ideas to drive the center-left forward.This conference was the next step toward setting that agenda for the pragmatic center-left.
Save the date for our next conference, NLAS D.C. on July 14th here in Washington, and keep up to date with us on social if you aren’t already!
Your support and engagement is critical at this time when members of the center-left need a home. I hope to see you soon!