RFS feel-good update (2/1): You'll never guess how many people have signed up to run for office in 2021...
The answer will stun you.
Hi all -
First, rabbit rabbit. We made it to February! If it’s snowing wherever you are like it is where I am, stay warm and safe; if it’s not snowing wherever you are, sorry about all the Instagram content.
Second, we crossed a big milestone recently: More than 70,000 people have now signed up with us to run for office — including more than 5,000 in the month of January alone.
I pulled some of the answers as to why folks are signing up to run lately… a few examples:
In RFS candidate & alum updates…
Marcus Bush reflects on becoming National City’s first Afro-Latinx, LGBTQIA+ and millennial elected official.
LA City Councilmember Nithya Raman joined Crooked Media’s Hysteria to talk about how the pandemic has affected the unhoused and housing insecure folks in LA. (You should also read about how Nithya is expanding a program to get unhoused folks into vacant hotels and motels.)
State Sen. Katie Muth is working with a group of state legislators to push the governor to restore funding to child care providers.
Denver School Board Director Tay Anderson helped bring free menstrual products to DPS; now he wants to expand the initiative to every restroom so all students (including trans, non-binary, and gender non-conforming) can use the products if needed. On the state level, State Rep. Brianna Titone introduced a similar bill creating a grant for these kinds of programs; while it didn’t pass, she’s not done working toward it.
Armando Montero was sworn in and as a 19 year old, officially became the youngest member in the history of the Tempe Union High School District Governing Board. One of his priorities: Mental health resources for the students.
The Orlando Sentinel named Rep. Anna Eskamani a finalist for Central Floridian of the Year, calling her “a problem-solver for thousands of jobless Floridians.”
Arkansas State Rep. Andrew Collins is leading on legislation to create a statewide sample ballot available on the AR secretary of state site.
MT Rep. Danny Tannenbaum sponsored a bill that would eliminate the fees low-income folks are currently required to pay their public defenders when convicted of crimes.
Nebraska State Senator Megan Hunt introduced legislation to end the tipped minimum wage, giving a servers a flat $9/hour.
Nancy Metayer made history as the first Haitian American woman (and first environmental scientist!) to sit on the Coral Springs city commission. She joined other history-making RFS alum Joshua Simmons on the board.
Wilfredo Florentino is running a seriously progressive campaign hard against a family dynasty: “While the district’s current representative, Councilmember Inez Barron, is barred by term limits from seeking reelection, her husband Charles Barron is also in the running for the seat — which he had held from 2001 until 2013. While Charles had been in the Council, Inez served in the state assembly, before they swapped, leaving Inez in the Council and Charles in the assembly. Now, the Barrons are looking to trade back, with Charles eyeing a return to the city’s legislature.”
There’s a special election in NYC this week — billionaires like Trump-supporter Stephen Ross are spending millions against RFS candidate Moumita Ahmed.
LOLOL, this is so ridiculous — an op-ed column that asks “Is Lina Hidalgo too principled for politics?” Obviously, no!
NY State Rep. Amanda Septimo reflects on the successes of the strike at Hunt’s Point and what’s next for labor.
In related reading…
The good!
Electing working class folks to Congress is still far too rare, but is already having an impact on the tenor of debate. That’s why we’re building a bench that looks more like the American people—according to our 2020 survey, 22% of our candidates had a household income under $50k, 36% fell in the $50k-$100k range, and 37% over $100k.
NextCity has a great series on how local government can solve national problems. I loved this one, on how cities are saving democracy — it highlights Lina Hidalgo’s work in Harris County as one obvious path forward.
We talked with The Climate Pod about how local electoral politics can play a part in tackling climate change. Tune in.
The sigh…
The 117th Congress is the oldest in the last 20 years.
(If you’re interested, here is a TikTok in which a young man tries to hold a handstand for as long as it takes for the text-to-talk robot to read off the ages of U.S. senators, oldest to youngest, until it hits 65.)
The scary!
Take a perusal at the legislation making its way through state capitols — lots of bills on trans rights, abortion rights, and voting access to come.
No surprise here: Republican state legislators are trying to make it harder for people to vote, because when they win, they change the rules so they can hold power in perpetuity “In Georgia, where the State House of Representatives has set up a special committee on election integrity, legislators are pushing to roll back no-excuse absentee voting. Republicans in Pennsylvania plan 14 hearings to revisit complaints they raised last year about the election and to propose limitations on voting. Arizona Republicans have subpoenaed November’s ballots and vote tabulation equipment in Maricopa County, a Democratic stronghold that includes Phoenix. Legislators are taking aim at an election system in which four in five ballots are mailed or delivered to drop boxes.”
Weekly reminder that the Republican Party is rotten all the way down. Sequim, WA, is the first town to to have a QAnon mayor.
Tomorrow on the Run for Something Podcast: First, a quick rant on why Democrats have to govern like winners. Then, and more importantly: A conversation with Washtenaw County Prosecutor Eli Savit on what district attorneys do, how he won his Michigan community over, whether or not his job is anything like what we see on The Good Wife, and the direct impact his work is already having as he's radically transformed his county's criminal justice system in just a few weeks. Learn more at eli2020.com. Get the show wherever you get your podcasts.
This month is going to drag on — the cold, the pandemic, the impeachment trial, all of it. But at the very least, we’ve got great work to do and a great team to do it. Thanks for making this possible.
- Amanda