Event 1: Choice Food Pantry Volunteer Shift
Event 2: Food Drive with Copper State Victory
Event 3: Sort Squad, Help Inspect Donated Food
Event 4: Food Drive with Copper State Victory
Maricopa County provides a map showing heat relief centers, water stations, chilled water fountains, donations sites, and more to help stay cool in the summer.
If you live in a different county and also have a link to cooling centers, please feel free to share below so we can compile a list of resources.
Hope you are all hanging in there alright.
August 18, 2026 - Fulltext
A federal judge refused to throw out a fraud lawsuit accusing Elon Musk of rigging a $1 million voter payout he publicly promised would be random.
U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman in Austin denied the Tesla and SpaceX CEO's bid Tuesday to have the case thrown out before trial — a motion called summary judgment — on the fraud claim, according to his order filed Monday.
The ruling allows an Arizona voter's proposed class action lawsuit, which could represent more than 1 million petition signers, to move toward trial.
Musk launched the daily giveaway at an October 2024 rally in Pennsylvania, telling the crowd he would pay $1 million every day to registered voters in swing states who signed America PAC's petition supporting free speech and gun rights.
America PAC, the super PAC Musk founded to support President Donald Trump's 2024 presidential run, amplified the promise on X within hours of the rally.
"We're gonna be awarding a million dollars, randomly, every day from now until the election," Musk said at the event, according to the America PAC post.
But days before the Texas lawsuit was filed, Musk's own lawyer admitted in a Philadelphia court that the winners were not chosen at random.
"The $1 million recipients are not chosen by chance," the lawyer told a Philadelphia judge on Nov. 4, 2024, according to the complaint. "We know exactly who will be announced as the $1 million recipient today and tomorrow."
Pitman was unpersuaded by Musk's argument that the word "randomly" was too vague to be proven true or false.
"This argument warrants little analysis," the order said.
"A jury could surely conclude that America PAC's process of reviewing a 'vetting document' to make the 'best selection of someone who ideologically aligned with America PAC' — which included 'everything from criminal background history to age, marital status, children' and social media content — was far from random," Pitman wrote.
The order also found that Musk himself was deeply involved in the program, undercutting his claim that he did not know the selection was not random.
Musk "participated in high-level discussions about establishing America PAC" and "participated in high-level discussions with Young and certain America PAC independent contractors about America PAC's projects," the order said.
The Texas ruling is the latest in a string of legal setbacks for Musk over the giveaways.
The Wisconsin Elections Commission voted 5-1 in July to refer Musk to a local prosecutor for possible election bribery charges over similar cash giveaways during Wisconsin's April 2025 Supreme Court race, CBS News reported.
Event 1: The Conspiracists, Women of January 6th
Event 2: Movie and A Message
Event 3: From the Sun to the Sea
More movies/documentary events: https://azadvocacyhub.ghost.io/event-calendar/?q=documentary
Mark Kelly is one of the senators pressing for a congressional inspection of the USS Lincoln, where sailors reported severe weight loss and declining mental health across a deployment of more than 240 days. On August 22 he is in Tucson at a veterans town hall organized by VetsForward, Worker Power, UNITE HERE Local 11 and the Pima Area Labor Federation. Secretary of State Adrian Fontes and JoAnna Mendoza are also listed as guests, with Mayor Regina Romero moderating.
Civic Engagement Beyond Voting is recruiting up to 10 fellows aged 16 to 22 for a fall session. The program is a hands-on grounding in how state and local government works and how individual advocacy fits, and fellows receive a $500 stipend! Sessions run Sunday afternoons from September 20 through November 15.
Source: CEBV newsletter dated August 14, 2026, and the fellowship page above
There are a number of postcard and letter writing events coming up. Sharing for those interested. Postcard and Letter Writing Events
Also, I got a Canva subscription and started playing around with creating flyers to showcase events, rather than just sharing blocks of text. However, if you guys prefer the text as opposed to these visual flyers, let me know and I can swap back.
Rush-Hour Resistance Rallies (RhRR) happen every week across the Phoenix metro area and offer a fun way to show up for democracy during morning commute hours! These gatherings are peaceful, low-pressure, and designed so people can join when and where it works best for them, even for a short time. So come on by =D
Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday
For weekly updates, printable materials, and organizing resources, visit: https://rhrr.us
Weekly roundup is up!
Indivisible is running an Election Protection 101 training on Wednesday the 19th at 5pm, fully virtual. It covers how election protection actually works and how to get ready for the fall, and it starts with the basic questions so you are not expected to already know anything. Arizona keeps landing on the Voting Rights Lab's list of states most at risk of election disruption, so this is not a hypothetical.
Now, Saturday. VetsForward, Worker Power, UNITE HERE Local 11 and the Pima Area Labor Federation have a veterans town hall in Tucson at 9:30am with Sen. Mark Kelly, Adrian Fontes and JoAnna Mendoza, moderated by Mayor Regina Romero. Organizers say it is for veterans and for everyone who cares about them, so you do not have to have served to go.
Same morning, Mesa Valley Indivisible is back at Mesa Gateway Airport from 9 to noon over the deportation flights and the AROCC facility. This is the coalition that got Avelo Airlines to drop its ICE contract back in January, so they have actually won things.
Also Saturday, up north: a deep canvass in Flagstaff at Bushmaster Park, 9:30 to 12:30, talking to CD-2 neighbors about the healthcare and food assistance cuts that came out of Eli Crane's vote for the budget bill. Deep canvassing means longer conversations than normal door knocking, and they say they train you and hand you the materials, so no experience needed.
And Copper State Victory has roughly twenty door knocks running Saturday morning across ten cities including Flagstaff and Prescott. Full list here, or the Maryvale one for a direct link. Locations stay private until you RSVP.
Couple of odd ones I liked: Apache Junction is doing a potluck plus a screening of Bad Faith, the Christian nationalism documentary, Saturday at noon. And Sunday afternoon Desert Democracy is showing a documentary about crypto at a brewery in Phoenix, which pairs weirdly well with the CLARITY Act calls in the issue.
One deadline: CEBV's youth fellowship applications close Friday the 21st, ages 16 to 22. Worth passing to a teenager if you know one who has been looking for something to do.
Full issue here: Sunburnt & Stubborn: Arizona's Weekly Activism Roundup | Aug 17-23, 2026
Happy to answer questions about any of these in the comments.
Constituents have shown up outside Rep. David Schweikert's office every Monday for over a year demanding he meet with them and answer for his voting record ... he still hasn't. Bring a sign, a postcard to drop at his office, or non-perishable food for the on-site donation drive that has collected three tons of food for the Scottsdale Foodbank.
https://azfollowthe.money/darkmoney/dossier/
This website has a cool public archive of campaign finance complaints that have been filed recently. It's a great way to see the process and there are actual PDFs with responses so you can see it play out in real time.
Kudos to the author behind all the work. Citizens have a decent amount of power in AZ and it's great to see people using it. ✌️
For the first time since an encampment was set up below and inside a cottonwood tree in southern Arizona, the people living in the tree’s canopy have spoken to the press about their goals. LOOKOUT received exclusive access to the encampment, including camping overnight with the protesters, to talk with them about what they see as an existential threat not just to the environment, but also to civil rights in America.
💜 journalism 💜
Hey all - I know we have people from all corners of the state that come through here and there aren't always events/actions nearby. There is an Action Carousel on the Hub website so you can have an impact from home. They come from the organization Climate Action Now and often contain hyper local actions like emailing your city council members about ... stuff. :)
Hey all,
Event 1: Mesa City Council Meeting, End the 287(g) Agreement
Event 2: Immigrant Justice Summer Call #4
Event 3: Protest ICE Deportations and the AROCC Detention Facility at Mesa Gateway Airport
There are a total of 7 on the calendar: https://azadvocacyhub.ghost.io/event-calendar/?topic=immig&week=next
From the article itself:
Before she was detained, Saenz, 26, spent a year as one of the most vocal advocates for Arbella “Yari” Marquez, a longtime Phoenix resident locked away in a notorious ICE detention camp in Eloy, where she was suffering dangerous health complications, including leukemia, and reportedly losing more than 70 pounds. Marquez is lesbian, and for Saenz, a trans woman, the fight to try to free her was deeply personal. Saenz helped organize the campaign for Marquez, arranged visitations, was a contact for politicians and the media and fought tirelessly to publicize the conditions inside the camp, especially for LGBTQ+ people.
….
A week later, she said, after a whirlwind of deprivation and transfers, she tested positive for COVID-19 and found herself in isolation in the same detention center as Marquez — just a few hundred yards from the person she’d been fighting to free for a year and yet unable to directly communicate with her.
