Update: The world has changed due to the Covid-19 crisis since this was written in early March. All of us at Airlift hope that you and yours—and those in the grassroots organizations we support--are staying as safe and well as possible during these uncertain and anxious times.
Right now our groups are figuring out what they need to meet the current moment. Texas Rising, which is based on campuses that are largely shut down except for online learning, is utilizing its nimble resourcefulness to adapt. They currently need funding to support additional text and phone banks, phone and internet stipends, remote home office functionality costs, and upgraded Zoom accounts.
These are times of enormous strain and limited bandwidth. But if you’re so inclined and still can, please consider supporting Texas Rising and all the other great grassroots organizations Airlift funds by donating at https://secure.actblue.com/donate/airlift. Your generosity makes a difference, now more than ever. Thank you, and be well!
***
By Lorrie Goldin
It’s been said that Texas isn’t a red state or a blue state—it’s a non-voting state. But that’s beginning to change. Huge increases in turnout, especially among young and Latinx voters, are turning the Lone Star State increasingly purple, threatening the strong conservative grip on its more than 25 million residents. At the national level, we saw this in 2016 when Hillary Clinton significantly narrowed the margins of loss from 2012. In 2018 Beto O’Rourke came tantalizingly close to defeating Senator Ted Cruz. That same year, two U.S. House seats and 12 State House seats flipped to the Democrats, with similar gains in local races throughout the state. For this year’s Super Tuesday primary, turnout in the Democratic primary skyrocketed past 2016 numbers.
In Texas, people under 35 make up half the voting age population, and 6 out of 10 are people of color (predominantly Latinx). Turbo-charging these demographic advantages has been a key strategy behind the success of turning non-voters into voters. Airlift is pleased to support two organizations deserving huge credit for this achievement. MOVE Texas, which Airlift has funded since our inception, is a campus-based organization that registered 30,000 students in 2018, increasing the early voting youth turnout by 500 percent. Now we are proud to introduce the newest member of our Airlift family: Texas Rising.
Dedicated to building the power of young people in communities and at the ballot box, Texas Rising has burst onto the political landscape with ambition, enthusiasm, and effectiveness. They focus on voter registration and turnout of young Texans; organizing on college campuses; youth leadership development and trainings; grassroots and digital organizing; and issue advocacy. Key priorities are LGBTQ equality, reproductive justice, immigrant rights, criminal justice reform, voting rights, and climate justice. The organization has put together an amazingly helpful online scorecard to show how every state legislator has voted on relevant bills.
With a presence on more than 20 college and university campuses across the state, Texas Rising is active in every major metropolitan center in the fastest growing areas for under-represented communities of color. Chapters engage in voter registration drives, Get-Out-The-Vote campaigns, issue and candidate forums, hands-on political training, as well as creative direct actions and media events. Texas Rising is also expanding their voter registration and education efforts into high schools. Along with other partners in the Texas Youth Power Alliance, they are already half way to their goal of registering 100,000 new voters before November’s election.
Rae Martinez, Texas Rising’s Director, caught the activism bug while attending community college in San Antonio. “No one in my family had ever been civically engaged in any real way,” Martinez explained. Then, they began hanging out with a friend who started telling them what was happening in the world, including a hearing on a non-discrimination ordinance to expand protections for gender identity, expression and sexual orientation. Martinez recalls, “I have to go to this. I’m a trans queer Texan. I have a lot of friends who are queer and trans. I wanted to show up, speak for my community, talk about why we need these protections when it comes to employment. Thankfully, the ordinance passed.” This sparked further involvement: registering voters with a local organization, becoming a regional field coordinator in San Antonio. The work helped Martinez build community and organize young people in San Antonio, then in a larger swath of the state before joining Texas Rising two years ago.
Martinez’s dream is “to establish youth power so that elected officials work on the issues we care about most,” ensuring that politicians can’t skirt the issues anymore. “If they don’t have a real solution, they won’t be elected into office.”
Since the U.S. Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act in 2013, Texas, long known for its voting restrictions, has led the South in eliminating polling locations, disproportionately affecting Latinx communities. Texas Rising has fought to preserve polling locations on campuses, and Martinez describes how they packed a hearing at Texas State to protest: “’Don’t make it difficult for us to vote’…we won!”
Impressive victories abound. During the 2019 Legislative session, Texas Rising fought numerous bills using religion to discriminate against LGBTQ Texans; as a result, only ONE bill passed, and it was watered down. They fought attacks by corporate interests against paid sick policies, and all attempts to take those benefits away were defeated. Texas Rising’s advocacy paid off in opposing one of the worst anti-voter bills in the country—protecting voting rights for millions of Texans! And, of course, the fight goes on against the numerous bills filed that attack and stigmatize abortion rights.
Thank you, Texas Rising, for your inspiring grassroots organizing. You are the future of Texas, and Texas is the future of America.