November, 09 2022, 11:51am EDT
"Organizing Won These Races"
WASHINGTON
People's Action today congratulated the members of its People's Slate who won races in an uphill midterm election. The organization highlighted the 1 million doors knocked and 2 million phone calls made by its volunteers, staff, and member groups, which tipped crucial races up and down the ballot.
People's Action Executive Director Sulma Arias said:
"When voters and candidates take organizing seriously, we win. When we have vulnerable, courageous conversations with neighbors about the sources of pain in our lives, we win. And when we put forward a hopeful, bold vision, we can defend our freedoms from the people attacking them."
People's Action's organizers, members, and affiliates fought in races all across the country to win a future of well-being, freedom, and democracy that includes all of us. Utilizing their signature deep canvassing program, People's Action marshaled thousands of volunteer shifts in battleground districts nationwide.
While not all races have been called yet, People's Action and its affiliates were already celebrating a broad swath of wins in federal, state, and local races, including U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., Diamond Staton-Williams, D-N.C., Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty, Minn., and Sharlett Mena, D-Wash., among many others that will be listed on People's Action website as reports come in.
People's Action also celebrated historic wins in Pennsylvania, where it organized with its member organization, Pennsylvania Stands Up, and close allies at Pennsylvania United. Racking up more than 763,000 phone calls and door knocks and half a million texts sent to voters in the state, the organizations made a significant contribution to the historic wins of Josh Shapiro for governor; John Fetterman for U.S. Senate; Summer Lee for U.S. House of Representatives; and Izzy Smith-Wade-El, Bridget Kosierowski, and Johanny Cepeda-Freytiz for state representative, among others.
In Michigan, organizers and voters have potentially elected a governing trifecta, including re-electing Gov. Grechen Whitmer and potential majorities in both houses of the state legislature. Michigan People's Campaign, a People's Action member group, made 847,945 combined texts, door knocks, calls, and other conversations reaching 216,369 voters. Their extensive voter outreach program, combined with their status as a trusted messenger in local communities, led the way in terms of in-state organizing.
In Minnesota, organizers with TakeAction Minnesota organized a wholesale rejection of right-wing fear tactics, winning major victories in the face of racial dog-whistle campaigns in the state, epitomized by the victories of Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty and Attorney General Keith Ellison.
In North Carolina, People's Action member group Down Home North Carolina played a crucial role in blocking a potential Republican supermajority in the state legislature, flipping districts in both chambers in hotly contested battleground districts. In one crucial statehouse district, House District 73, the group knocked on 42,134 doors and had 7,757 deep canvass conversations-and the group's preferred candidate won an upset victory by 425 votes. This win blocked the Republicans from obtaining a supermajority. Overall, DHNC and People's Action knocked on 168,617 doors and made 155,540 phone calls in the state.
In Arkansas, People's Action member group Arkansas Citizens First Congress defeated Arkansas Issue 2, which would have required a supermajority to approve ballot measures and proposed constitutional amendments in the state. Ballot measures have been vehicles for progressive change in Arkansas, which right-wing politicians sought to restrict.
Despite record-breaking spending on the midterms driven largely by right-wing billionaires and assaults on elections from authoritarians, People's Action Deputy Director of Movement Politics Marta Popadiak pointed to several encouraging signals from the electorate in addition to the wins highlighted above. "Much of the race-baiting from the white nationalists failed on the national level," Popadiak said. "Authoritarians spent a fortune on dog-whistle messaging and in the end, organizing won these races."
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Quotes from People's Action member groups on outcomes in their states:
Ken Whittaker, Michigan People's Campaign Executive Director:
"Make no mistake, elections aren't won on Election Day; they're won by organizing people to be ready to get out and vote on Election Day and that's just what we did. Now, the results of that work are clear. The people of Michigan have decided that women should be in control of their reproductive decisions, everyone should be able to breathe clean air and drink clean water, but most importantly, our democracy works best when everyone gets to participate in it. That's what we're all about: getting people engaged in elections and keeping them engaged in the policies that result from them.
"Because while the other political campaigns are busy running around taking down yard signs and clearing out of store fronts, the Michigan People's Campaign is going to be in the room with the representatives we got elected holding them accountable. It's not enough to fight against what you don't want. We did that for four years. Now we get to fight for the things we do want. This is what real people power looks like."
Pennsylvania Stands Up Executive Director Carrie Santoro:
"We're fighting like hell to make sure working families have what we need to build good lives for ourselves and our families. That means lowering costs on things like health care and energy, and taking on corporate price gouging. While Democrats are passing legislation like the Inflation Reduction Act to bring prices down for working people, corporations are bragging about raising prices while raking in record profits, and their sycophantic Republican politicians are helping billionaires dodge the taxes they owe. Republicans will do anything - including attacking our freedom to vote and overthrowing an election - to aide and abet corporate price gouging, gut Social Security and ban abortion. Pennsylvania voters didn't fall for it. We understand that election day isn't results day, and in the coming days, we're ready to make sure every single one of our votes are counted."
People's Action builds the power of poor and working people, in rural, suburban, and urban areas to win change through issue campaigns and elections.
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Critics Blast 'Reckless and Impossible' Bid to Start Operating Mountain Valley Pipeline
"The time to build more dirty and dangerous pipelines is over," said one environmental campaigner.
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Mountain Valley Pipeline LLC sent a letter Monday to Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) Acting Secretary Debbie-Anne Reese seeking final permission to begin operation on the MVP next month, even while acknowledging that much of the Virginia portion of the pipeline route remains unfinished and developers have yet to fully comply with safety requirements.
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POWHR and activists representing frontline communities affected by the pipeline are set to take part in a May 8 demonstration outside project financier Bank of America's headquarters in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Appalachian Voices noted that MVP's request comes days before pipeline developer Equitrans Midstream is set to release its 2024 first-quarter earnings information on April 30.
MVP is set to traverse much of Virginia and West Virginia, with the Southgate extension running into North Carolina. Outgoing U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and other pipeline proponents fought to include expedited construction of the project in the debt ceiling deal negotiated between President Joe Biden and congressional Republicans last year.
On Monday, climate and environmental defenders also petitioned the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, challenging FERC's approval of the MVP's planned Southgate extension, contending that the project is so different from original plans that the government's previous assent is now irrelevant.
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David Sligh, conservation director at Wild Virginia, said: "Approving the Southgate project is irresponsible. This project will pose the same kinds of threats of damage to the environment and the people along its path as we have seen caused by the Mountain Valley Pipeline during the last six years."
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U.S. workers' rights advocates and groups celebrated on Tuesday after the Federal Trade Commission voted 3-2 along party lines to approve a ban on most noncompete clauses, which Democratic FTC Chair Lina Khansaid "keep wages low, suppress new ideas, and rob the American economy of dynamism."
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As Economic Policy Institute (EPI) president Heidi Shierholz explained, "Noncompete agreements are employment provisions that ban workers at one company from working for, or starting, a competing business within a certain period of time after leaving a job."
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The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has suggested it plans to file a lawsuit that, as The American Prospectdetailed, "could more broadly threaten the rulemaking authority the FTC cited when proposing to ban noncompetes."
Already, the tax services and software provider Ryan has filed a legal challenge in federal court in Texas, arguing that the FTC is unconstitutionally structured.
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Student Borrower Protection Center (SBPC) executive director Mike Pierce pointed out that the FTC on Tuesday "recognized the harmful role debt plays in the workplace, including the growing use of training repayment agreement provisions, or TRAPs, and took action to outlaw TRAPs and all other employer-driven debt that serve the same functions as noncompete agreements."
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Democracy defenders on Tuesday hailed a ruling from a U.S. federal judge striking down a 19th-century North Carolina law criminalizing people who vote while on parole, probation, or post-release supervision due to a felony conviction.
In Monday's decision, U.S. District Judge Loretta C. Biggs—an appointee of former Democratic President Barack Obama—sided with the North Carolina A. Philip Randolph Institute and Action NC, who argued that the 1877 law discriminated against Black people.
"The challenged statute was enacted with discriminatory intent, has not been cleansed of its discriminatory taint, and continues to disproportionately impact Black voters," Biggs wrote in her 25-page ruling.
Therefore, according to the judge, the 1877 law violates the U.S. Constitution's equal protection clause.
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"It also makes our democracy better and ensures that North Carolina is not able to unjustly criminalize innocent individuals with felony convictions who are valued members of our society, specifically Black voters who were the target of this law," Brown added.
North Carolina officials have not said whether they will appeal Biggs' ruling. The state Department of Justice said it was reviewing the decision.
According to Forward Justice—a nonpartisan law, policy, and strategy center dedicated to advancing racial, social, and economic justice in the U.S. South, "Although Black people constitute 21% of the voting-age population in North Carolina, they represent 42% of the people disenfranchised while on probation, parole, or post-release supervision."
The group notes that in 44 North Carolina counties, "the disenfranchisement rate for Black people is more than three times the rate of the white population."
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In what one civil rights leader called "the largest expansion of voting rights in this state since the 1965 Voting Rights Act," a three-judge state court panel voted 2-1 in 2021 to restore voting rights to approximately 55,000 formerly incarcerated felons. The decision made North Carolina the only Southern state to automatically restore former felons' voting rights.
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As similar battles play out in other states, Democratic U.S. lawmakers led by Rep. Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts and Sen. Peter Welch of Vermont in December introduced legislation to end former felon disenfranchisement in federal elections and guarantee incarcerated people the right to vote.
Currently, only Maine, Vermont, and the District of Columbia allow all incarcerated people to vote behind bars.
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