Feel-good update: Tomorrow is Election Day!
Welcome to June. The fun never stops! Tomorrow, June 4th, we have four candidates on the ballot.
Welcome to June. The fun never stops! Tomorrow, June 4th, we have four candidates on the ballot:
Carlos Amador for LA City Council — a formerly undocumented immigrant who worked as a janitor while he was in school, and is now a long-time activist
https://remezcla.com/lists/culture/carlos-amador-undocumented-running-la-city-council/
Phillip Falcone for Riverside City Council, who notes that Riverside is the #1 city millennials are moving to but there are no millennials in the city government
Amanda Sawyer for Denver City Council (district 5), who took the incumbent into a run-off (and beat her in the first round), making this an exciting Tuesday
Candi Cdebaca for Denver City Council (district 9), an incredible community leader who runs Project Voyce, an organization dedicated to engaging kids in civic life
We have nearly two dozen candidates on the ballot in Virginia at the end of the month. I’ll dig into them more in the coming weeks, but I want to flag this great conversation between local millennial candidates (including one of ours, Jerrod Smith, who’s running for Albemarle County Board of Supervisors!).
I also wanted to flag this… The Washington Post issued their endorsements for the board of supervisors positions in northern VA — a list that is 100% men. I’m sure these men are fine, but this is alarming: The endorsement board asked some of the women candidates (including our very own Larysa Kautz) questions along the lines “how will you take care of your kids?” and “don’t you know this will involve long hours?”
Meanwhile, RFS alumni continue to shine:
Bethany Hallam holds her standing as one of my favorite stories of the year:
“When you look back at Bethany Hallam’s successful campaign to unseat a 20-year incumbent Allegheny County Councilor, you can’t point out a hallmark moment when you thought, “That’s it. She’s going to win this damn thing.”
There was no amazing TV ad, no scandal, no stellar debate performance in which she crushed the entrenched incumbent, John Defazio.
She didn’t outspend him. Hallam barely had two nickels to rub together for the entire campaign. There’s no way that she could buy TV time, or radio time, or pay for direct mail flyers. Bethany Hallam didn’t have a strategic gimmick up her sleeve.
But what she had that her opponent didn’t was her story.”
Oklahoma City county commissioner Carrie Blumert and her sister, a public defender, are making tackling criminal justice reform a family affair.
Congrats to alum Brianna Titone and Malcolm Kenyatta for making The Advocate’s 2019 list of 104 Champions for Pride.
Malcolm also launched a Suicide Prevention Taskforce in Pennsylvania — a critical fight, as suicide rates in Pennsylvania have increased by 34% over the last 20 years.
Iowa state senator Zach Wahls wrote a great post about 14 lessons on politics & power that he learned during his first year in office.
Congrats to alum Alexandria City Councilman Canek Aguirre, who was named to El Tiempo Lation’s Powermeter 100 list!
Finally, in other news:
The difference between the policy accomplishments in Democratic trifecta states versus GOP trifectas is staggering. Spoiler: One is good, one is very bad.
Images courtesy of FiveThirtyEight.com
MTV News dug in on how the movement of women running for office didn’t end with 2018. That was just the beginning!
Also: Onward Together is running a contest to give out $50k to one of their partner organizations. Vote for us!
One event update: If you’re in the Boston area, join us from 5:30–7:30pm for cocktails and hors d’oeuvres on June 25th in Cambridge. RSVP: rfsboston.eventbrite.com
Thanks for making all this possible (and for reading all the way to the bottom!)