RFS feel-good update (1/25): Our 2021-2022 strategic plan
What we've got up our sleeves for the next two years
Hi all -
Happy first Monday of the Biden-Harris administration!!
I hope your Inauguration Day — and more importantly, your National Run for Office Day!! — was a joyous and beautiful celebration. Good news: More than 3,000 people signed up to run for office around the holiday.
There was so much good content around National Run for Office Day, I can’t link to all of it, but here are a few of the many many highlights:
Scroll through the hashtag on Twitter to see how! many! people! participated in the day, or check out some of the highlights on Instagram.
Gabby Giffords wrote a beautiful piece on why she ran for office the first time that speaks specifically to young people.
CNN.com has a quick & thorough explanation of the holiday and how it fits in to the inauguration
Our four-year anniversary/NROD event on Tuesday night was incredible and inspiring. Put it on the background and soak it in.
National Run for Office Day is the best day of the year. Thank you for celebrating it with us!
We’re taking that momentum with us into 2021-2022 — today we’re rolling out our next strategic plan.
In this plan, you’ll find:
A recap on what we accomplished in 2020
What we learned from the 2020 election results
What we learned from our 2020 candidates
Our focus in 2021–2022, including target states
What our program will look like in 2021–2022
What we need to get it done in 2021–2022
I particularly want to flag the research we did with our 2020 candidates. Two of the top-level notes:
The plan gets into detail on how our program will change in the next year, as we keep building sustainable infrastructure in order to yield sustainable power. If you’re interested in a deeper dive into our research, have any questions at all, or want to learn more about what doubling our 2021 budget could produce, I’m here and eager to chat.
In other RFS candidate & alumni updates:
A must-read story on Rep. Iman Jodeh, the first Muslim and Palestinian-American member of the Colorado state assembly.
Everton Blair became the first Black member and first openly gay member of the Gwinnett county school board when he won in 2018. Now he’s been elected chair!
In Alhambra, CA, Mayor Sasha Renée Perez passed a local ordinance to cap the fees third-party apps can charge to restaurants for delivery services. Now a similar bill is being introduced in the CA state assembly, modeled after what Sasha did.
Al Día profiled state Rep. Manny Guzman, the first Latino elected in Reading, PA’s history. His story is both deeply specific and universal.
SC State Rep. JA Moore has been named one of Charleston’s 50 most influential people.
From the Today show: “Growing up, Jessica Benham never saw people with autism in politics. In fact, she rarely even heard of women having autism. When the 29-year-old disability activist was sworn into the Pennsylvania House of Representatives last week, she became one of only a handful of politicians with autism across the United States and as a bisexual woman, one of a few LGBTQ women in politics.”
All three of these women are Run for Something alum. You love to see it.
Mayor Matt Shorraw in Monessen, PA, signed into law a new bill that would make his city the first municipality in Westmoreland County, and the first non-Allegheny County municipality in the Pittsburgh region to pass a law creating a Human Relations Commission to provide nondiscrimination protections to LGBTQ individuals.
Christina Blackcloud, candidate for IA state house in 2020, reflected on her experience running for office as an Indigenous woman: “One of the first lessons I learned running as a woman of color is that systemic racism is alive and well. A prominent member of the community wrote a letter to the editor that claimed I didn’t pay taxes, would only represent my tribe, and would help the tribe encroach on “their territory.” It was disheartening and sickening to see such blatant racism on display. Another lesson I learned, though, is there are plenty of people throughout the state of Iowa willing to stand up to systemic racism. Tons of letters, comments and tweets were sent calling out this woman and the publication for publishing such toxic hatred. My own response blew up and went viral.”
Josh Simmons made history in 2018 as the first Black member of the Coral Springs City Commission; now he’s the first Black vice mayor of the board. (He also now serves with fellow RFS-alum Nancy Metayer!)
Nebraska state Sen. Terrell McKinney introduced legislation to require NE’s largest cities to create citizen police oversight boards. Terrell, a community activist, is driven by having “seen firsthand how a lack of accountability creates mistrust in the communities being policed, as well as a lack of willingness by city and police leaders to address it."
Andrew Learned took his military experience with him to the Florida state house — read on for how it played a part in his winning 2020 campaign.
RFS alum Katie Valenzuela and Mai Vang are already keeping their campaign promises on the Sacramento City Council, fighting for renters, COVID relief, and passing historic new zoning policies that will dramatically increase housing stock in the city.
Montana Rep. Danny Tannenbaum is taking similar action in Montana, pushing legislation to re-legalizing duplexes (and triplexes/quadplexes in the bigger cities) and banning parking lot quotas.
Virginia Delegate Joshua Cole is proposing renaming Jefferson Davis Highway, a main thoroughfare in northern VA.
GA state Rep. Rebecca Mitchell is leading on legislation to allow ex-felons to vote — right now, 3% of Georgians can’t vote due to disenfranchisement.
Finally, on Sunday, we hosted our first Post-Campaign Workshop for Community Leaders, with a small group of RFS alum who lost their campaigns but are looking to stay engaged. This community we’re building is really something special.
In related reading:
We talked with PopSugar about why activism can’t end even with a new president, and what power-building looks like on the local level.
We knew it was going to happen — Republican state legislatures are preparing to introduce voter suppression laws. They’re even saying the quiet part loud: “They don’t believe they can win unless the rules change. ‘They don’t have to change all of them, but they’ve got to change the major parts of them so that we at least have a shot at winning,’ Alice O’Lenick, a Republican on the Gwinnett County, Ga., board of elections in suburban Atlanta, said.”
Also not-so-feel-good, but worth noting: Even if it’s met with dismissal, that “run for office” is part of the conversation around QAnon/Trumpists should scare the living shit out of you, and is why our 2021-2022 focus on local elections is even more existential.
This is playing out over and over again on the QAnon/pro-Trump internet. Whenever someone suggests taking real action, like voting, organizing, forming a new political party, running for office, etc. the response is always the same: Elections are rigged, so it won't matter.
Tomorrow on the Run for Something podcast: NY State Sen. Zellnor Myrie from Brooklyn explains his path to the state senate to take on an incumbent who outspent him 3 to 1 and what he and the Democratic majority in NY have actually done to make lives better for people. We also discuss his experience being pepper sprayed at the Black Lives Matter protests over the summer, what it's been like to balance the priorities of the last year as he represents one of the districts that's been most ravaged by COVID, and the healthy tension between activists and institutions. Get it wherever you get your shows.
Thank you for making all this possible. Nearly 5,000 people have signed up to run for office in 2021 alone — that’s an incredible responsibility for us, and such a privilege. We’ve got so much work to do, and a great team to get it done. You’re part of that. You’re a hero.
- Amanda