Airlift 2018 Annual Report

Feet on the Street! Airlift founder Danny Altman with our partners at an early voting event in Las Vegas. Pictured: Vida Benavides, Win Justice, Danny Altman, Airlift, Reggie Harris, Color of Change, Amanda Khan, PLAN Action Fund.

IN 2018 Airlift turned your dollars into victories

We started Airlift because all of us are bombarded with an insane amount of political fundraising, and there is no way to know where our money is really going or how it is being used. Airlift helped 400 people in 2018 aim their political giving at long term local power building, not consultants and TV. This translated into some landscape-changing victories.
 

Airlift is strategic and it works

Here’s what your Airlift contributions helped to achieve:
-- Flip 21 house seats, including all 7 in California!  (West by Southwest Fund)
-- Restore voting rights for 1.4 million citizens in Florida (Organize Florida)
-- Turn Nevada almost entirely Blue! (PLAN Nevada)
-- Increase early youth voting in Texas by 500% (MOVE Texas)
-- Kick Scott Walker out of office in Wisconsin (Milwaukee BLOC Action Fund)
-- Pass redistricting in Ohio, Missouri and Michigan (Lift the Midwest Fund)
-- Flip 15 Virginia house seats and win Medicaid expansion for 400,000 people (New Virginia Majority)
-- Pass automatic voter registration in Michigan and Nevada (MI-Liberation and PLAN Nevada)
-- Hire 600 organizers in Alabama who won the election for Doug Jones (Airlift special project)

DONATE

We need to keep the pressure on

We know that year-round voter engagement works--that is why we won and why we are celebrating now. If you want to help end the electoral boom and bust cycle, please consider making a big donation now to keep the feet on the street. The earlier the donation, the bigger the impact.
 

2019 is not an off year

For the next 18 months, the Democratic primary is going to suck up nearly all the oxygen and money, most of which will go to losing campaigns. Airlift's top recommendation for 2019 is simple: Invest early in building the strongest possible field organizations in the most important battleground states no matter who the Democratic nominee is. In order to do this, we need to raise a million dollars in 2019. This will allow us to triple the amount of money we invest in each group.

The Airlift team plans for 2019 and 2020.

Airlift is easy and strategic

Our goal is to invest where we are likely to get the biggest return. We are evaluating the groups we fund by mapping to states essential to taking back the Presidency and the Senate and keeping control of the House. Lift the Midwest was an incredibly successful special project—we raised over $70,000 for a part of the country that a lot of people had written off. There were many decisive victories in the Midwest in 2018. Not a single Republican won statewide office in Michigan, Wisconsin or Pennsylvania. We are elevating Lift the Midwest to become a fund. It will replace Network Effect, which supported more established, better funded organizations.
 

DONATE

Let’s get to work

1. Donate monthly  Our groups are like little birds. They don't eat a lot, but they need to be fed all year round. >>>Make a recurring donation on ActBlue. You can change it at any time.

2. Throw a party for Airlift  We make it easy and fun. This is our single biggest way of raising funds and extending our network. >>>Send an email to Carol Korenbrot to find out more.

3. Share Airlift with your friends, family and coworkers >>>Forward this along with a quick note to let them know that you found a consumer reports for political giving. And that mobilizing young and non-white voters made the difference in 2018, and it will in 2020.

More about Airlift

Airlift is part of a network of donor groups including Way to Win, Movement Voter Project, and Women Donors Network all sharing info and best practices and funneling money to the most effective grassroots groups around the country. Our advisors include Larry Litvak, former CFO at Working Assets and now Lecturer in Public Policy at Stanford, Matt Singer, Philanthropic Advisor to America Votes, Jason Franklin, Philanthropic Advisor to Movement Voter Project, and Becky Bond, Strategic Advisor to Bernie Sanders and Beto O'Rourke.
 

What makes Airlift so powerful?

We make it easy to donate strategically. You don’t have to be a member or attend meetings or spend hours researching where to give. We do that work for you. 80% of our donors go to Airlift.fund and press one button that spreads their donation across all funds. Online donations are processed through ActBlue. Checks are processed by Tides Advocacy. Airlift donations are not tax-deductible.
 

Where your Airlift money went in 2018

Reports from the field

Angela Lang, BLOC founder, is helping black voters in Milwaukee flex new muscles.

Lift the Midwest Fund: Milwaukee BLOC

Barely a year old, Milwaukee BLOC works in the most incarcerated zip code in the U.S. and delivers votes in neighborhoods the pros gave up on a long time ago. In a governor’s race decided by 30,000 votes, BLOC talked to 14,000 voters, helping Tony Evers win Milwaukee by 78%. Led by visionary organizer Angela Lang, BLOC calls canvassers “ambassadors,” runs silent canvasses where candidates just come to listen, and educates staff with a civics version of Jeopardy created by one of their organizers. Now they want to keep their ambassadors engaged as BLOC captains, a path to running for office.

MOVE Texas will start operations in Houston and Dallas this year.

Voter Motor Fund: MOVE Texas

MOVE San Antonio was started by 6 University of Texas students in 2013, and it rapidly became a major force in our nation’s 7th largest city. Driven by students, and now working across the state, MOVE Texas is unstoppable. They were the decisive force behind the election of a progressive mayor in 2017. They registered 30,000 new voters and distributed over 200,000 voter guides in 2018. Along the way they won paid sick leave, eliminated arrests for minor offenses and pioneered parties at the polls. The results? A 500% increase in youth turnout in early voting. On the agenda now: fighting to let young people use their student ID for voter ID, mandatory early voting at Texas colleges, and two-year tuition-free community college.

West by Southwest Fund: Communities for a New California

CNC is an independent year round phone banking and canvassing organization in the Central Valley. Their goal since 2010: expand the electorate by deeply engaging with LatinX and young voters. CNC runs five local phone banking offices that check in on their entire universe of 100,000 voters every quarter. When elections get close, they turn into a GOTV operation with bilingual teams of canvassers, peer-to-peer texting, and “chase” teams that track down people who have not turned in their absentee ballots.  CNC had 35,000 direct conversations with voters in CD-10 where Josh Harder won by 10,000 votes. And 20,000 conversations in CD-21 where TJ Cox won by 900 votes. Their goal was to deliver 14,000 unlikely voters in each district. 

Learn more about Airlift

Airlift’s Strategy Is To Win The Senate And White House—Here’s Why Funding Blue States Matters Too

Post by Jennifer Tomkins

On the face of it, support for grassroots groups in the solidly blue state that CA has become may seem to be counterintuitive,  even counterproductive.  Shouldn’t Airlift be exclusively focused on winning the Senate and defeating the White House incumbent (can’t bring myself to utter his name). The answer is that, for the most part, we are, but we are also deeply aware of the fragility of some of our 2018 victories and the need to defend them.  

Yes, we MUST win the Presidency and the Senate and also, if you look a little deeper, there are compelling reasons why we need also to defend Democratic house seats.

The tragic and cautionary tale of a victory squandered:

The key failure of the Obama administration was allowing its unprecedented on-line grass roots organizing tool MyBO that had amassed 13 million email addresses and 2 million supporters, to be co-opted by the Democratic party instead of retaining control of it and using it as a policy tool while in office.  The dream of those ho masterminded MyBO was that “Barack Obama could become not only the first black man elected president, but the first president in history to organize an enduring grassroots movement that could last beyond his years in office.” 

Tragically, an ineffective and self-interested Democratic party that took over MyBO squandered this invaluable asset that might have led to a successful presidency and retention of power in the abortive 2010 midterms.  It led not only to the mid-term defeats and subsequent policy failures but also, ultimately, as the first Black president failed to deliver significant change, to the rise of Trump.

It is worth reading the full story of this fatal organizing failure by a president who had been a community organizer, as told in 2017 in a The News Republic article by Micah L Sifry. Republicans took full advantage of this tragic folly, working their own grass roots like crazy.  The Tea Party also took hold, and by 2014 Republicans controlled state government outright in at least 24 states; they controlled at least 66 of 99 state legislative chambers nationwide; and they cut the number of states with total Democratic control from 14 to seven — the lowest number since the Civil War.  

What this means for Airlift’s strategy.

That is the background to the lessons learned by funding groups like Airlift and the groups on the ground that they support.  Here are some of the lessons learned:

1. Progressives simply cannot rely on the Democratic party.

2. It’s not enough to just elect candidates, you have to have their backs and work with them to get policy implemented. 

3. That means both the funding and the work has to continue year round every year.

4. We cannot lose sight of the fact that Republicans are working just as hard and have been doing so more effectively than Democrats.

Orange County will be a CA battleground  in 2020

The fact that Orange County, CA, once a sea of red has become an ocean of blue is truly cause for celebration.  It is not, however, an occasion to rest on our laurels for the same reasons that it was a tragic mistake to cede MyBO to an ineffective and self interested Democratic party.  

The newly elected representatives in OC have barely had chance to take their seats in congress they have certainly not had a chance to effect policy changes that affect the lives of their constituents and they are highly vulnerable (and one, Katie Hill, has already been brought down by a manufactured scandal).  Nor are these national offices the only ones on which progressives need to focus.  Of equal importance in terms of affecting  the lives of OC’s 300,000 residents and building a progressive base is the country board that decides education, housing and policing policies. Winning a majority on the county board a key goal of progressive organizations in the county.

That’s why Airlift will continue to invest in 2020 in the Orange County Civic Engagement Table  (OCCET).  Civic engagement tables are coalitions of progressive organizations that work together to promote involvement in the democratic process and promote change.  OCCET itself is the body that facilitates the coalition of its seven members and works to strengthen their individual capacities.  This includes fundraising, training, and policy-writing. It has been in existence since 2012 and its news executive director, Jonathan Paik, has worked in the table space since 2014.  OCCET’s members represent  the two key communities that have turned OC blue: the Korean American community and the Latinex community.

Demographics have played a huge role in Orange County turning blue. Today it is not the Orange County of Richard Nixon or the one that supported Reagan by 70%; nor is it still a bastion of the John Birch Society. Its population has also grown enormously in the past 50 years, from 1.4 million to  over 3.2 million. In 1970, whites made up 86% of the county’s population; now they make up just 40%, meaning that over 90% of population growth in the last half-century has been nonwhite.  Orange County is also younger and more highly educated than it once was. Much of its middle class has been driven away by California’s high cost of living.

Demographics, however, are not altogether destiny.  As Paik pointed out, both Latinex and Asian populations tend to be relatively conservative, so the growth of minority populations cannot be taken as leading automatically to progressive power.

Both the county board of supervisors in OC and many city mayors are still Republican — and some of them are from minority communities. Paik notes that the Republicans have done an excellent job of building their base and running Asian American candidates, with two members of the 5-person country board  being Asian American rRepublicans.  Currently there is only one Democrat, Doug Chaffee in the 4th District on the board.   In 2020 it may be that the 1st District will be competitive, according to Paik but, in his opinion, it will be a longterm job to win a Democratic majority, which is why OCCET is beginning now and aiming for 2022.  The existing OC board has been focussed on increased deportation of illegal immigrants.  Policies that OCCET wants to see implemented would focus on housing and education. 

Republicans have also successfully recruited two Korean Americans to run in newly flipped democratic house districts.  In District 48, Michell Park Steel is running on the Republican ticket and in District 45, Peggy Wong is running in what was Katie Porter’s district.  Republicans, as Paik explained are both seeking to win over Koreans while they sow dissent between the Latinex and Asian communities as part of a national strategy to win immigrant districts..  This poses a challenge for OCCET and its allies as they seek to find messaging and outreach that can unite the communities around issues that resonate — education, law-enforcement and housing.  Meanwhile, the tactic of recruiting Koreans to run for office is, according to Paik highly effective with older Korans  while some 85% of young Koreans lean Democratic.

In short, there are pressing reasons why Airlift should not abandon those flighting to prevent the blue wave from dissipating.  Further,  what is true of of Orange County’s vulnerabilities is true of many newly flipped blue seats in other states. That is why we are collaborating with other progressive funders is part of the strategy to  cover all the  bases and keep them covered. Unlike what happened with MyBO.

[Series] On The Ground: Down Home North Carolina

By Lorrie Goldin

2020 is here, a hugely consequential year for our country and the world. As we welcome the new year with hope and renewed determination for the work ahead, we also welcome a new organization into the fold that Airlift funds: Down Home North Carolina.

Down Home exemplifies the winning strategy of building political power from the ground up by engaging and expanding those who have been most marginalized. Founded in June 2017 by organizers Todd Zimmer and Brigid Flaherty, Down Home’s focus is on building long-term, progressive infrastructure to empower working families in rural and small-town communities across North Carolina.

The co-directors both have deep roots in the state, and have witnessed how well-funded, right-wing interests have exploited racial differences and the rural/urban divide, pitting white, black, immigrant and LGBTQ working families against one another to maintain power. With 80 out of 100 North Carolina counties being rural, the balance of power won’t shift without investing in the vast people-power ready to be unlocked in these long-neglected regions. After learning how to organize for issue advocacy and electoral success, Zimmer and Flaherty returned home to North Carolina to do “the heart work” necessary for making local, state and national government serve the people’s interests, not those of the rich and powerful.

One of Down Home’s major undertakings was a Deep Listening Canvass. Trained canvassers held more than 1,000 conversations across the political, racial and economic spectrum in rural areas. Through nonjudgmental listening and sharing personal stories, those who typically distrusted one another discovered shared values and interests, coming together to forcefully advocate for Medicaid expansion, fair wages, education, the end of cash bail and solutions to the opioid crisis. These issues matter to communities devastated by the grinding poverty brought about by a hollowed-out economy and the defunding of education and social programs under Republican rule.

Listening makes a huge difference. “No one’s ever asked me before,” was a common refrain among Deep Canvass participants. Such respectful engagement shifts not only hearts and minds, but also participation: people who never before paid attention to politics now attend Town Halls and Leadership Trainings, challenge their elected representatives and injustice in the courts, educate their neighbors, work hard for electoral change, even run for—and win!—office. DHNC-supported candidates won six out of eight local races—and would have won another had a tie-breaking coin toss gone the other way! On a state-wide basis, DHNC has joined Democratic Governor Roy Cooper in support of Medicaid expansion, and continue to fight the Republican-controlled legislators who consistently block healthcare for half a million North Carolinians.

Down Home also provides on-the-ground services to those in need. Through distributing clean syringes and Naloxone, the antidote to an opioid overdose, DHNC helped save more than 130 lives. Coordinator Mary Kate Crisp says, “I lived with active addiction for three years, and when I stopped using, I started going out into the community to volunteer. It was a big piece of my recovery, and I was thrilled when I was hired by Down Home this summer.” In addition to life-saving interventions, Crisp and her team work tirelessly to educate, break down stigma, direct people to services and organize direct advocacy actions.

Another major DHNC campaign is fighting the cash bail system through court-watching, advocacy and raising money to pay bail for those whose lives will be devastated simply because they cannot pay to stay out of jail while their cases are adjudicated. Such programs are not obviously “political,” but working to improve peoples’ lives is a powerful antidote to disengagement, and brings important electoral shifts that benefit those who have been left behind.

In it for the long haul, Down Home North Carolina has demonstrated astonishing growth and success in a very short time. Their membership has doubled, they established chapters in five counties with plans for another five and they have knocked on thousands of doors. getting more than 1,000 low-propensity voters to cast ballots. With engagement comes hope, and a transformation within rural communities from living in survival mode to enthusiastically participating and leading. Goals for 2020 include: flipping the State House from Red to Blue; protecting Governor Roy Cooper; defeating Senator Thom Tillis; and expanding the vote in rural communities to put North Carolina back into the blue column of the Electoral College.

With your help, all of this is within reach, in both this crucial year and over the long-term. As Airlift founder, Danny Altman, says about Down Home North Carolina, “They have the smarts, the organizing skills, the allies, the data, the plan. All they need is the money.”

*

Your generosity makes a difference. Please support Down Home North C and all the other great grassroots organizations Airlift funds by donating at https://secure.actblue.com/donate/airlift. Thank you!

99Rootz Shows How Youth Organizing Is Done

Interviews and post by Jennifer Tomkins

Some years ago, when I served on the board of the progressive magazine, “In These Times,” our board chair was a young guy who had graduated from Princeton.  He used to say that he was the only Princeton graduate he knew who was not pulling down a six or seven figure income from Wall Street or a corporate law firm. Instead, he was a community organizer (brief moment of silence to remember one who used to occupy the White House) using his smarts and his education to make social change.

He was an exception and an exceptional person, as are two the young organizers in the Central Valley who returned home after educations at UC Berkley and Harvard. Alicia Olivarez (the Harvard grad) is Strategy Director of 99Rootz and Crisantema “Crissy” Gallardo is its Senior Organizer. 99Rootz is a regional youth and young adult leadership initiative specific to the Central Valley launched in early 2018 by what’s known now as Power California, a former recipient of Airlift funding.

Growing up in Atwater, Chrissy starkly recalls to me the stultifying boredom, lack of opportunity and the violence that destroyed the lives of so many in her own family and others (one sister murdered and a brother in jail) and contemporaries — no public transport, lack of recreation facilities, poor education. Chrissy was determined like her friends, to “get out.”  It was her experience at UC Berkeley, where she found the support of women of color, that led her back to Rootz.

Alicia, who grew up in Sanger, felt similarly about her childhood town and future.  Outside the bubble of wealth that is much of coastal California, Sanger’s reality for many is unemployment, lack of access to healthcare, mass incarceration of youth of color as adults and environmental problems caused by pesticide use and abysmal air quality. As the eldest child, Alicia ended up being responsible for caring for her younger siblings, while her father worked and her mother battled addiction. She remembers drive-by shootings, living in homes infested with roaches and mice and the fear of loved ones becoming addicted to meth. Like Chrissy, Alicia decided to use her education not to escape her community, but to change it for everyone through deep organizing. 

As Chrissy succinctly states it, the vision for 99Rootz is “To be the vehicle youth use to transform our schools, cities and region. We are going back to the basics (#eachoneteachone) sharing our stories, building our leadership and taking it to the streets and ballots.” Knowing that few of Central Valley’s youth will escape to Harvard to get a political education, 99Rootz gets creative with their tactics used to realize the #eachoneteachone philosophy. Last summer, they brought 25 students who returned home from university to the community to provide deep training on identity, political education, campaign planning as well as arts and culture.

The core of 99Rootz’s gameplan is building community as a way to change policy. That’s why they incorporate fun and friendship into the organization. As the rabble rouser, Mother Jones, said almost a century ago, they want the revolution to be joyful. Following that mantra, the 99Rootz office serves as a cultural hub for young people to experience and create art as well as a base from which to run political education, voter registration, phone banking and door-knocking campaigns.

Right now, 99Rootz is dedicated to advancing various safe schools and communities effort, mainly gathering signatures to get their Schools and Communities First initiative on the November 2020 ballot, which would bring $12 million in school funding to the area. At the same time, they are also working to turn out record numbers of young Latinex voters in the 2020 primaries.

Without the work of Alicia, Chrissy and their team of passionate young organizers, Central Valley communities would have a lot less hope—and power. As an Airlift alumnus, we can attest to the strength, energy, creativity and vision of Power California, 99Rootz and all other grassroots organizations. We will continue to follow and cheer on these teams’ invaluable work through 2020 and beyond.

***

To donate to 99Rootz and other crucial Central Valley grassroots organizations, go to https://powercalifornia.org/.

The DROP - December 2019

(links listed below)

---

LINKS

Carolina Federation
Down Home North Carolina
On The Ground: LUCHA
New Progressive Activists-Turned-DAs
House Party Host Sign Up

[Series] On The Ground: LUCHA

Abril Gallardo, Communications Director, LUCHA

Post by Lorrie Goldin

Arizona has been turning from deep red to shades of purple and blue. The state is increasingly seen as part of a viable path to the White House for Democrats in 2020, even more so after the blue wall of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania crumbled in 2016. Voter turnout skyrocketed in the 2018 mid-terms, especially among women, young people, and people of color. Also key to Arizona’s rise in national politics is its role in the U.S. Senate: Democrat Krysten Sinema won in 2018, and there’s a good chance another Democrat will join her there in 2020. There have been increasing progressive gains in local elections as well, including the first Latina mayor of Tucson.

A big reason for these victories has been the hard work of grassroots organizations such as Living United for Change in Arizona, proudly funded by Airlift. LUCHA—which means struggle in Spanish, organizes low- and moderate-income families and immigrant communities in the fight for a $15 minimum wage and other workers’ rights, better education and healthcare, criminal justice reform, and immigrant, economic, social, housing, and climate justice.

LUCHA was founded in 2009, right before Arizona’s legislature passed SB 1070, better known as “Show Me Your Papers.” Alex Gomez, LUCHA’S co-director, notes how this notorious law (later declared unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court) sparked the massive grassroots organizations that have worked tirelessly to reach and empower Latinos in both metropolitan and rural communities via massive voter registration and participation campaigns. “When SB 1070 happened, our communities came together and decided, with the little investment we had, to start doing voter registration,” Gomez says. “Those children that were experiencing their parents being detained and deported are actually 18 years old or older now and are ready to vote.”

Those not eligible to vote have also joined the fight. One such person is Dreamer Abril Gallardo Cervera, one of the founding volunteers of LUCHA. With the group since 2010, Gallardo is currently the Communications Director of LUCHA and its sister organization, Arizona Center for Empowerment (ACE). In 2016, she helped the Bazta Arpaio Campaign unseat the infamous Sheriff Arpaio. 

Gallardo first came to LUCHA because she wanted to learn her rights to protect her family and herself from SB 1070. “I came feeling alone and scared, and ten years later I would’ve never thought that I was going to find my village and chosen family in LUCHA,” she says.

That village has done amazing work. In addition to registering 20,000 new voters last year, with plans to add an additional 30,000 in 2020, LUCHA was instrumental in passing a much higher minimum wage and paid time off bill in 2016, then halting recent attempts to sabotage the new law. This past year LUCHA Listens was launched—a community engagement program to learn about and advocate for issues mattering most to people in their everyday lives. This will culminate in a Peoples’ Budget, reflecting the values and priorities of Arizonans who have been historically overlooked. Economic justice is central to everything LUCHA does. The organization also promotes democracy, supporting an Automatic Voter Registration ballot initiative and beating back the Arizona’s conservative-dominated Legislature’s attacks on voting rights.

It’s one thing to register new voters, quite another to ensure they turn out. That’s why year-round, issue-oriented engagement by local activists who are part of their communities is so important. LUCHA makes sure people get not only to the polls, but to town halls and the halls and offices of state legislators.  The organization builds neighborhood teams, offers leadership training, Lobby Days, political education, and civic engagement, and teaches young people how to share their personal stories through its #VOTEriaAZ Campaign. Noting that stories are “the antidote to apathy,” Gallardo explains that “when young leaders go to supermarkets, laundromats or parking lots at churches to register people to vote, they focus on having intentional conversations with those individuals to make sure they remember their stories on Election Day.” 

LUCHA has a robust program for engaging high-school and college students. They also know how to have FUN! Earlier this month, Posada 2019: A Night of Pride and Joy celebrated all their recent accomplishments and plans for the work ahead. 

Gallardo’s energy and dedication are contagious, and vital in overcoming the constant chipping away of progress by Arizona’s traditional and conservative power brokers. What inspires and motivates her is “witnessing year after year the spirit of persistence, joy, and pride that our members show no matter the circumstances.” That’s how you build People Power, with true co-governance between the community, legislature, and those mobilizing in the streets. Seeing progressive people from the community get elected to office and disrupting systems of oppression make it all worthwhile. 

Our hats are off to Abril and everyone else at LUCHA. They are the vital heart of our democracy and our future. On to 2020!

***

Your generosity makes a difference. Please support LUCHA and all the other great grassroots organizations Airlift funds by donating at https://secure.actblue.com/donate/airlift. Thank you!

Now That We Elected Them, It's Time To Have Their Backs

Post by Jennifer Tomkins

Kim Foxx in Chicago, Carlos Garcia in Phoenix, and now Chesa Boudin in San Francisco: all three are examples of people of color elected as District Attorney. Their elections signal the growing awareness of the importance of DAs and city councils to a key part of the progressive agenda: reforming the current “criminal injustice system.” It’s also a direct result of the surge in progressive organizing and in funding from folks like Airlift, Way to Win and others since the 2016 election. Now that they’ve been elected by the people, we, the people, have to ensure they can do their jobs.

Criminal “injustice” and the road to progressive DAs

One of the starkest statistics reflective of this injustice is the fact that while the US population is just 4.4 percent of the global population, the US prison population is a shocking 22% of those incarcerated worldwide. The Pew Research Center reported that in 2017 the rate of incarceration for African Americans was nearly six times the imprisonment rate for whites.  Meanwhile the fastest growing demographic of those in prison is Black women. As the movie 13th argues, our prison system can be seen as an extension of slavery by other means.

It used to be that DA races happened under the radar and police unions played a prominent role in their election. In the past few years, that began to change in response to growing anger over police violence amplified by the Black Lives Matter movement, by the bi-partisan awareness of the need for reform and from progressive political funders investing in down ballot races, such as DAs and city councils.  

But, as Foxx pointed out to an audience of progressive women at the recent conference of Women Donors Network in Chicago, getting elected is only the first, and possibly the easiest part. Once elected, these progressive DAs and local legislators face enormous pressure from the “establishment” to “conform” rather than to fulfill their election pledges.

Foxx becomes the new face of justice

Foxx is a savvy, elegant, strong and articulate African American woman who has risen to her current position from the Chicago projects. As she says, she looks like 85% of the people that come through her office. She is determined to continue the policy disruption she has begun, but she is also clear what she needs from those who elected her: she needs them to have her back.

Since being elected Cook County DA, Foxx has nevertheless changed the gender of leadership in her office, increasing women in leadership positions from 25% to 58%; she vacated 80 convictions because of  police misconduct and she is in the process of vacating 10,000 more for marijuana possession.

“My job is not to be an extension of the police,” she says. Yet, that is precisely what most DAs have been and it’s how the Chicago police force would like it to continue being. She has been physically threatened by the Fraternal Order of Police and white nationalists who held a rally outside her office and widely criticized for being “soft on crime.” 

Justice spreads from the Midwest to the West

On the west coast, newly elected DA Boudin, a former defense attorney, has received the same kind of opposition from the police as Foxx. San Francisco Police Officers Association called Boudin the “#1 choice of criminals and gang members” in the more than $600,000 worth of attack ads it ran against Boudin.

He too has an agenda that centers on the elimination of racist practices. In particular, he plans to target “gang enhancements” (the practice of increasing sentences for crimes in any way associated with gang activities) that affect predominantly people of color and that he views as explicitly racist. In a recent San Francisco Chronicle interview, he explained, “In the cases where we see serious conduct, we can already impose serious punishments without using racially motivated gang enhancements.”

If Boudin’s and Foxx’s elections are a reaction to criminal injustice, so too was that of Carlos Garcia to Phoenix City Council in March this year. A recent article in Politico Magazine by Fernanda Santos explores in depth how Garcia’s election and that of other Hispanics to local office throughout Arizona is mainly thanks to their activist organizing and training, largely in opposition to criminal injustice.  

Many organizations, not the Democratic Party, powered activists like Garcia to victory, including Mi Familia Vota, LUCHA  (an Airlift funding recipient) and Mijente. As for the reason they transitioned to political office from activism, Garcia explained that after five of his siblings were deported, “I got left with no options. And that’s what has pushed someone like me to actually run for office.” Of their new-found strategy of seeking elected office, Garcia says “brown people are coming out, and now we have the numbers and the organization in place to be able to turn the tables in our favor exactly because we have a seat at the table.”

But, like Foxx and Boudin, Garcia and his cohort are only too aware of the effort it will take to implement the policies on which they ran. As Garcia says, it’s a “very lonely world of running for office and governing.” That’s why it’s so important that we in the progressive funding space need to have all their backs.  It’s not just about getting them elected, it’s also about turning out for them as they face both political opposition and physical threats.

The DROP - November 2019

---

LINKS

New York Times Op-Ed by Tram Nguyen
PA + VA: Wins Down To District Attorney
On The Ground: New Virginia Majority
How Democrats Are Fighting Back Online

[Series] On The Ground: New Virginia Majority

Post by Lorrie Goldin

---

(UPDATE: November 7th, 2019)

The results are in, and Democrats won big in Virginia last week! They now control the State Senate 21-19, and the House of Delegates by 53-41. Thanks to New Virginia Majority for their tireless efforts in helping achieve this great victory for the people of Virginia, and to Airlift donors who supported them. Onto 2020!

Check out this wonderful op-ed published in the New York Times by Tram Nguyen, NVM's co-executive director, about how their model of year-round grass-roots organizing is key. It's the model Airlift supports, in Virginia and other crucial districts throughout the country.

---

(ORIGINAL POST: November 4th, 2019)

The 2020 election is now a year away, but an early harbinger of which way the political winds will blow is right around the corner. Virginia holds statewide elections tomorrow, November 5th, for all 40 seats in the State Senate and all 100 seats in the House of Delegates. The outcome will determine not only important policy directions, but who controls the crucial task of redistricting following the 2020 census. New Virginia Majority (NVM), one of the groups Airlift proudly funds, is right there in the thick of it, working hard among communities of color and young people not only to register new voters, but to make sure they turn out to cast their ballots.

We got an early taste of the power of NVM’s and other groups’ grassroots organizing in Virginia’s 2017 elections, when the House of Delegates saw massive gains by Democrats, upending a 2-1 dominance by Republicans to draw nearly even. In fact, majority control was determined by drawing a name out of a bowl, since the vote was tied between the two top candidates (the Republican won).

In 2019, New Virginia Majority is hard at work again, leaving nothing to chance. Just two seats need to flip in both the State Senate and the House of Delegates to shift the balance of power. Already new voter registration statewide has increased by more than 70% compared to 2015. NVM has registered more than 13,000 new voters this year alone, on top of the thousands they registered and turned out for the 2017 elections. NVM’s ACE Collaborative, which focuses on turning out the vote among the several hundred thousand Asian American Pacific Islander residents in Northern Virginia, has led a massive canvassing effort.

NVM has also engaged another marginalized population—former prisoners, almost 200,000 of whom, had their voting rights restored by Democratic governors since 2016. Shawn and Mr. Nathaniel, two Norfolk residents who had never been allowed to vote before, will proudly cast their first ballot on November 5th now that NVM organizers Kymetta and Katie helped restore their civil rights and registered them to vote. New Virginia Majority has also focused on reaching out to people who do not use the Department of Motor Vehicles to make sure they are properly registered. By November 5th, NVM organizers and volunteers will have knocked on more than a quarter million doors multiple times to engage as many people as possible. “This is a generational election and will determine how Virginia is governed for years to come,” notes NVM’s Political Director, Maya Castillo.

Shana Boston, Regional Field Director for the Richmond area, is one of those tireless organizers out knocking on doors and talking to people. Being on the ground is extremely rewarding because she meets so many great people who share their stories and experiences. Boston got involved with NVM because she wanted to be a voice for those who look like her and to help educate community members about local problems and how they, too can get involved in politics so their voices can be heard. In this era of extremely close outcomes, she points out that their one vote can make or break an election.

“What motivates me is seeing different folks work hard and come together to help those around them. Helping others is essential to my life and being around such positive energy in the workplace just pushes me more as a person,” says Boston. 

The issues most on people’s minds are health care, livable wages and affordable housing, and here’s where Boston’s connections with the community really shine. She shares a success story that really touched her: “I was out canvassing and ran into someone who had been in the system. They'd been working hard to get on the right track and do the right things, but their past was hindering them from getting to where they were trying to go. A candidate I was out knocking doors for was actually tackling a lot of those problems that person encountered. I was able to share the information with this individual as well as give him contact information to look more into these programs. Knowing that I've made a difference and being able to leave them with a little more knowledge than before makes it all worthwhile.”

This is the kind of commitment and deep engagement that turns a non-voter into a voter. Thanks to the tireless efforts of Boston and her fellow NVMers, they’ll make a crucial difference on November 5th and beyond.

After that, Boston says, it’s on to the legislative session and keeping voters engaged and active for the upcoming presidential race.

**

Check back for more “On the Ground” profiles of Airlift-funded groups.