Feel-good update (5/11) "Porkchops vs people."
Hi all -
Good morning & congrats, we’ve made it through another week.
First, a quick ICYMI from last week: We’ve merged! Run for Something has joined forces with Ascend PAC, launching a program called RFS Ascend, which will provide direct funding to state legislative candidates in Texas and Pennsylvania (on top of everything else we’re doing for folks nationwide).
I’m really excited about the short term impact of this: We only need to flip 9 seats in the TX House, 9 in the PA House, and 4 in the PA Senate to control them. And long-term, we’re building towards being able to give $$ in even more states and more races over time. Building infrastructure takes a while, but it’s worth it.
Now, onto the good stuff…
If you’re looking for up-and-coming all stars, check out a few of the candidate spotlights we ran this week:
Julia Hurtado, candidate for Cobb County School Board of Education - learn how she’s balancing her campaign with her work as a health care provider
Terrell McKinney, candidate for Nebraska State Legislature - read about his uphill battle for resources as a candidate of color
Dalbin Osorio, candidate for Montgomery County Board of Education - he has a strong vision for how the school system can reallocate resources to remedy inequities
Meanwhile, RFS alumni across the country were delivering food, fighting for families, and preparing response plans. Some highlights of public servants actually serving the public…
IA: “We were failed by people who put profit margins and greed before people, predominantly brown people, predominantly immigrants, predominantly people who live in lower socioeconomic quarters.” - Jonathan Grieder, Waterloo City Councilmember, on how the pandemic’s impact on meatpacking factories is wrecking his town. It’s worth reading the NYT article on “Porkchops vs People" to get the full story.
NY: State Sen. Jessica Ramos has been distributing bags of fruits & vegetables and hot meals from her district office — last week, she served over 34,000 pounds of food to more than 700 families.
MO: Brianna Lennon, Boone County Clerk, wrote a piece for ELGL.org on three things she’s thinking about as an elections administrator and how she’s doing her best to facilitate safe & accessible voting.
IL: State Sen. Robert Peters is sponsoring a plan to cancel rent and mortgage payments for 180 days, and ban evictions & block foreclosures for 6 months. It’s personal for him, as he explained: “My mom died a few years ago with $300,000 of housing debt. I kept thinking about how she, like millions, was used as a pawn in a larger financial sector game. She was used as an investment tool for someone somewhere else.”
NH: Rep. Matt Wilhelm is proposing a statewide public service program to enable folks to do wellness-checks with their neighbors, build capacity for emergency response, and provide meaningful work when it’s most needed.
TX: A few weeks before the pandemic (or as I call it, the ~before times~), Rep. Erin Zwiener talked with NBC News about how an undercount in the Census a decade ago screwed over her community out of billions of dollars in much-needed federal funding and why the state is refusing to invest in outreach this time around.
IL: Relatedly, Cook County Commissioner Kevin Morrison is trying to amp up Census outreach in his county (which includes Chicago), including multi-lingual outreach, producing videos in Urdu, Hindi, Korean, Polish, and Spanish.
TX: Thanks to the leadership of City Councilmember Paige Ellis, Austin passed a “Healthy Streets” initiative, which will open streets up to pedestrians, cyclists, wheelchair users, and those with strollers without interference from cars.
AZ: State Rep. Alma Hernandez joined a Biden campaign roundtable to talk about the pandemic’s impact on the Latino community, noting that a very small percentage of Hispanic-owned businesses have gotten federal funding.
NY: Brandon Patterson, who’s running for state assembly from Bay Ridge/Staten Island, is joining with teachers & educators to ensure the state doesn’t dismiss the importance of in-person learning as NY reevaluates what our education system looks like.
NV: State Assemblywoman Selena Torres is chairing a new taskforce to examine how the pandemic is affecting the Latino community in Nevada and make recommendations on remediation.
IL: Chicago Alderpeople Daniel la Spata and Maria Hadden are both on the working group to tackle the budget for COVID-19 response for the city, ensuring the process is equitable, accountable, and responsible.
Finally: If you’re feeling anxious and looking for something to do, help out Miami-Dade County School Board candidate Luisa Santos, who’s looking for texting & phone-banking support.
In related reading: A fantastic story in Glamour about the women mayors who are leading their cities out of this crisis:
Municipal governments can make funds available to small businesses to keep them afloat or plan for meal distribution for at-risk children who can’t get them at school while in quarantine. Local officials can mandate mask wearing or clear streets to open up space for pedestrians or streamline access to essential services. In cities and towns across America, it’s mayors—even more than statewide politicians or the president—who are responsible for sounding a clear note to constituents who have perhaps received muddied signals from other leaders. And it’s mayors who have the closest look at the minute-to-minute, ever-compounding desperation that people in their communities now feel.
This is what we’re (always) talking about: Local leadership matters. (I won’t caveat this with a “now, more than ever” condition: Local leadership has always mattered.) We’re seeing the consequences of electing good progressive Democrats into city halls and state legislatures across the country.
Thanks for making this all possible.
Amanda
P.S. If you missed our Front Row Seat Encore last week, bummer. It was fun! Stay tuned for more.
