Hi all -
Do you need some inspiration today? (I bet you do.)
Our 2024 folks are starting to release their first ads — click through to watch & get to know these amazing leaders.
In other RFS community updates:
Over the weekend, our team hosted an amazing candidate recruitment event in Phoenix, highlighting some of the incredible folks we’ve worked with and giving Arizonans a chance to learn more about running for office.
WA Sen. Emily Randall is introducing the Keep Our Care Act, creating a process to ensure that as large health systems buy up smaller hospitals, they aren’t creating even more health care systems that restrict access to reproductive, gender-affirming, and end-of-life care - an issue in WA, where nearly 50% of hospital beds in the state are run by religiously-affiliated institutions that deny patients care through a faith lens. This article begins with a gut-wrenching story.
After the deadly shooting at the Super Bowl parade earlier this month. MO Rep. Ashley Aune is introducing legislation to require permits to carry handguns in public — it’s a tough fight but she thinks (and we agree) it’s one worth having.
NH Sen. Becky Whitley is leading on legislation to require breakfast and lunch to be available at school - kids can’t learn if they’re hungry!!
GA Rep. Saira Draper is pushing for a new law to expand protections for election workers, including protecting their personal information — especially important in GA in 2020, after Fulton County election workers who endured death threats from Trump supporters.
OH Rep. Munira Abdullahi is co-sponsoring bipartisan legislation to cap the price of insulin at $35 for the nearly 1 million Ohioans who use it to manage a chronic health condition.
Also in OH: Rep. Michele Grim is cosponsoring legislation to raise teacher pay. Yes!!
MA Sen. Becca Rausch is introducing legislation to require public establishments to have accessible changing tables for babies in a place that’s gender-neutral and semi-private — this is personal for her, as a mom of young kids, and tbh for me too, as I always make a point to have my husband change our daughter’s diaper when we’re out and about, and then call attention to how the mens’ rooms don’t have changing tables…
VA Sen. Schuyler VanValkenburg is pushing on a bill to require localities to review every solar project - prodding that is necessary because 14% of VA counties (and 15% nationally) have prohibitive local solar ordinances that prevent projects from even being considered.
NY City Councilmember Shekar Krishnan is working on legislation to make parks funding more equitable — right now, parks in rich neighborhoods have more money and better facilities.
Atlanta City Councilmember Liliana Bakhtiari’s ordinance to make period products available in all city facilities is being celebrated - it’s a real problem that teenagers may have to miss school or adults may miss work because they can’t afford the pads or tampons they need.
CO Rep. Iman Jodeh is leading on legislation to bring down the cost of housing by incentivizing denser development near transit. We need more of this.
MS Rep. Zakiya Summers is working on bipartisan legislation to enhance police transparency and accountability.
Take 20 minutes and listen to WI Assembly Minority Leader Greta Neubauer talk about the new state legislative maps and how democracy is a game of inches. She’s the present & future of WI Democrats - you heard it here first.
When Tai Adkins was elected president of the Gary Common Council in Indiana, she made history as part of the first all-female duo in charge. We love to see it.
As we keep an eye on that bench:
Sarah Blas, who ran for NY Senate, announced her campaign for U.S. Congress from an event at NY Fashion Week — too cool!
I want to end this week’s update with some honesty: The last few weeks have felt particularly bleak.
The Alabama state Supreme Court decision essentially banning IVF has shown that the worst things so many said after the Dobbs decision — that abortion bans were just the beginning; that they’d be coming for fertility treatments and contraception; that it was only going to get worse and families would suffer as a result — were not hysterical but rather spot-on.
And it’s not just in Alabama - 14 states are currently considering fetal personhood laws that could similarly endanger fertility care.
Meanwhile, the tragic death of Nex Benedict, an LGBTQ+ teenager in Oklahoma, has sadly affirmed what we’ve been saying for years: The GOP’s hateful policies and bigoted speeches have life-or-death consequences. Teenagers are dying because of the transphobia the right encourages.
And all at the same time, as we look ahead to a Trump vs Biden round 2, folks have been talking lately about “the dread election” or “the rematch no one wants” — a year in which we’re on what feels we’re dragging our feet to November. Some are using the phrase “resistance fatigue,” as if we’re just too tired to keep fighting.
I say all that because when I feel that fatigue myself, I recenter on our mission and our impact.
The work this community is doing to recruit and support young diverse leaders running for state and local office has never been more important.
It matters that LGBTQ+ youth in Oklahoma have leaders like RFS alum Rep. Mauree Turner to look up to, and to be their advocate in the halls of power.
It matters that we’re doing candidate recruitment in places like Alabama, where more than a dozen folks have joined the candidate pipeline just in the last two months.
It matters that we’re supporting amazing local candidates in key communities that folks at the top of the ticket (both Biden and other federal candidates) need to win or run up the score in order to eke out a victory.
Feeling exhausted or demoralized is understandable. But the stakes of this year and this work are nothing less than existential on many levels. We have to keep going — because if we win, we’re both preventing harm (phew!) and creating the possibility of a stronger, more vibrant democracy and country. The present is bleak but the future can be so bright.
I’m so grateful to everyone in the RFS network who gets that and who makes this all possible. You’re the best.
- Amanda
Beautifully said. Thank you!