Feel-good update (7/6): What patriotism means
Hi all -
Hope your long weekend was relaxing & full of both hot dogs and masks. ICYMI: Read our July 4th message. The gist: Patriotism is loving this country enough to say, “This is fucked up, but I will fight to make it better.”
We’re unsurprisingly still waiting on election results from the last few weeks, but congrats to these RFS candidates that won their primaries and are moving on to November: Mauree Turner and Jo Anna Dossett in OK, Kim Jackson in GA, and Joél-Léhi Organista in UT.
(If you need some inspiration, Mauree’s major upset will make her the first Muslim in the Oklahoma state legislature. Her story is so inspiring.)
Also inspiring: In the month-ish since George Floyd was murdered & protests began, nearly 5000 people have signed up with us to run for something local. That’s huge.
And we’re helping them (and many more) figure out how to actually run: More than 100,000 people have viewed our first Armchair Chat with Lis Smith. This week’s Wednesday Armchair Chat is on Fundraising in an Uncertain Environment with Anthony Mercurio (National Investment Director at Pete for America).
In other RFS candidate & alumni news:
Minneapolis school board member Josh Pauly published an op-ed in Teen Vogue explaining how & why he worked with activists to get police officers out of Minneapolis schools.
On our team, we call this “Lina Hidalgo doing Lina Hidalgo” - she walks & chews gum at the same time, announcing a massive housing initiative that will provide 5,000 people with housing in the next 2 years (and will accordingly help reduce the spread of COVID.) You can also watch Lina talking with ABC This Week about the pandemic outbreak in Houston.
The South Florida Sun-Sentinel has endorsed Jasmen Rogers-Shaw, in no small part because of her fierce advocacy for a woman’s right to make her own health care choices.
After Berkeley City Councilmember Rigel Robinson pushed forward a proposal to eliminate the police from doing traffic & parking enforcement, he also helped pass legislation to cut the city’s police budget by 12%, nixing $9.2 million from their budget.
The Appeal talked with José Garza, candidate for Travis County (TX) District Attorney, on how he’ll reform the office and hold police accountable.
Virginia’s Reproductive Health Protection Act went into effect on July 1st, overturning a bunch of abortion restrictions — electing Democratic state legislatures is good!
Meet Max Prestigiacomo, UWisconsin sophomore & a new member of the Madison City Council — he’s already led and passed legislation that cut funding for lethal weapons for the police. Love to hear this, on why he ran for office in the first place:
"It was recognizing I was able to see who had the most successful impact for me, which was city government," said Prestigiacomo. "Because, of course, it's hard for me to go lobby in DC. It was connecting the dots between young people and youth issues with the every day of city government."
Rep. Brianna Titone in Colorado pushed and passed legislation to make Colorado the 11th state to ban the “gay panic defense.”
For the third year in a row, a RFS alum has been named a Glamour magazine college woman of the year — congrats to Rachel Junck, city councilwoman in Ames, Iowa!
Some joy: Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta of PA is getting married!
In related reading:
Academics Meredith Conroy & Jon Green have published a paper in PRQ Journal in which they studied our candidate pipeline to examine what drives women to run for office.
This is a super interesting poll from CIRCLE — nearly 80% of young people say the pandemic has made them realize that politics matters. And check out this chart! The % of young people who've volunteered for a political campaign in 2020 has increased 3x over 2018. The % of young people who've donated to political campaigns has increased 3.5x.
We talked with Forbes about the why the wave of woman running for office is sustainable as long as we keep focusing on the local races.
Two save-the-dates: On July 16th, we’re hosting a California-centric house party with some amazing CA candidates. Don’t miss it.
The next wave, get excited: Run for Something awards are coming to your screen on July 23rd.
Thanks for making this all possible. We’re grateful for you!
- Amanda
P.S. This is what we’re all about: Building community among candidates. Texas state house candidates Akilah Bacy, Natali Hurtado, and Elizabeth Beck doing call-time together over Zoom ahead of last week’s deadline. You truly love to see it.
