Support Minority Candidates for Congressional Internships

February 11, 2022January 16, 2021 otycd

Support minority candidates for Congressional internships.

Do you remember this infamous #SpeakerSelfie photo taken by Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, of him and his Capitol Hill interns?

If not, click through to this Time magazine piece to see it (you’ll have to scroll down a little):

http://time.com/4410815/paul-ryan-intern-selfie/

Thousands of people instantly spotted what was wrong with this picture. Virtually everyone in it is white.

At least a few Democrats have managed to pick a more diverse group of Congressional interns, as shown in rebuttal photos by House Rep Eddie Bernice Johnson, a Democrat from Texas, and House Rep Xavier Becerra, Democrat of California.

Click this CNN link and scroll down to see the rebuttal photos:

http://www.cnn.com/2016/07/21/politics/dc-intern-selfie/index.html

…but the #SpeakerSelfie controversy sheds light on a bigger, thornier problem.

If you want a career in politics, you need a Congressional internship. But these internships, by their nature, tend to shut out anyone who’s working class or poor.

The positions are paid in academic credit–not dollars. Interns are responsible for wrangling their own lodgings, business attire, transportation, and food.

Together, these costs, which can easily run into the four-figure or even the low five-figure range, pose a formidable barrier to entry to candidates from low-income families. And as you well know, many low-income families happen to be non-white as well.

A lack of money closes the avenues to the halls of power, which in turn stops talented working-class and poor people from rising through the political ranks.

You can do something about that.

First, check the web sites of your MoCs. Do their sites say anything about how they choose their interns? If so, do the pages on interns include an explicit statement that commits the MoCs to selecting a diverse group of candidates?

If your MoCs’ websites say nothing about diversity among their interns, or say nothing about interns at all, call their offices and ask how they handle this issue. If they don’t give you a satisfactory answer, call and write periodically until they finally do.

Another option is to donate to Congressional intern scholarship programs.

Congressional Interns chosen by the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation (CFBC) receive a stipend worth $3,000 as well as local dorm housing. Read more about the program at the link below:

http://www.cbcfinc.org/internships/

The Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute gives its Congressional interns a stipend ($3,750 for spring and fall, and $2,500 for summer), all-expenses-paid housing, domestic round-trip transportation to Washington, D.C., and other benefits. Read more about the program at the link below:

http://chci.org/programs/internships/Eligibility_and_Program_Details/

Donate to the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, and specify that the funds are for its Congressional internship program:

http://www.cbcfinc.org/donation-form/

Donate to the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute, and specify that the funds are for its Congressional internship program:

https://chci.org/donate/

Read more about what Congressional interns face:

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/opinion-here-s-why-there-s-little-diversity-among-congressional-n611731

https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/04/how-congress-gets-away-not-paying-its-interns/329629/

Read about the #SpeakerSelfie controversy and responses to it:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jul/18/paul-ryan-intern-selfie-capitol-hill-diversity

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2016/07/20/the-story-behind-congresss-dueling-intern-selfies/?utm_term=.1c1861452221

http://www.cnn.com/2016/07/21/politics/dc-intern-selfie/

Subscribe to One Thing You Can Do by clicking the button on the upper right of the page. And tell your friends about the blog!

Follow the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation on Twitter:

@CBCFInc

Like the CBCF page on Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/CBCFInc

Follow the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute on Twitter:

@CHCI

Like the CHCI page on Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/CHCIDC?ref=mf

Community Activism · Elections · Postcard Campaigns · Uncategorized

Help Postcards to Swing States (Formerly Postcards to Wisconsin and Michigan) (Updated With Mailing Deadlines on September 2, 2020)

August 2, 2020September 3, 2020 otycd

Help Postcards to Swing States reach voters in ten critical states and remind them to cast a ballot this fall. (We at OTYCD updated this post on September 2, 2020. Scroll down to see the new information.)

This story comes with backstory. The folks behind Postcards to Swing States started with Postcards to Wisconsin, an effort to Get Out the Vote (GOTV) in the April 2020 Wisconsin Democratic primary.

That wasn’t the end of it. Their initial plans for phase two were to target Wisconsin and Michigan Democratic voters with two million GOTV postcards, nudging them to come out in the fall for the November 3, 2020 election.

Well, the organizers’ ambitions expanded.

Postcards to Swing States aims to send 13 million GOTV postcards to:

Arizona

Florida

Iowa

Kansas

Michigan

North Carolina

Pennsylvania

…as well as Wisconsin.

The campaign actually targets ten states; two of them, Montana and Maine, have since been completed by volunteers.

Postcards to Swing States will provide you with pre-printed postcards. You provide the stamps and the labor. You’re also given a choice of one or two scripts to hand-write.

Postcards should be mailed around mid-October, but each order will contain specific dates for mailing.

UPDATE September 2, 2020. The organizers have released the mailing deadlines for the GOTV postcards.

Check the instructions that came with your delivery to confirm which wave you’re in.

Please note: The dates for the waves are NOT in chronological order.

Wave One: Saturday, October 24, 2020

Wave Two: Wednesday, October 21, 2020

Wave Three: Monday, October 26, 2020

Wave Unknown: Wednesday, October 21, 2020

The organizers also answered three pressing questions, which we at OTYCD have cut and pasted here:

Will we change our mailing dates?

We’re closely monitoring the USPS delays. We’ll reevaluate our mailing dates in mid-September, which is still over a month before the first mailing date is scheduled. Our current mailing dates already anticipate some delay in mail delivery. If we change them we’ll let you know.

Why aren’t we mailing sooner?

Our postcards will increase turnout the most if they arrive just a few days before the election. The voters we’re targeting are likely to vote on election day or not at all, so if our postcards arrive earlier, they will largely be forgotten by the time it matters. Some voters will have mail-in ballots, and our postcards will be a timely reminder to mail them in. But our postcards aren’t designed to prompt voters to request absentee ballots. Postcards aren’t very good tools for that type of valuable effort in the first place. Given the information on our postcards and the target voters, they’d be nearly useless if mailed early in hopes of getting voters to request mail-in ballots.

What about the USPS Delays?

The vast majority of first class mail is still arriving on time, and less than 2% is taking longer than 5 days. The changes at the USPS are definitely problematic, but the Postal Service normally delivers 96% of first class mail in 1-3 days, with the rest arriving within 1-2 extra days. State laws that allow voters to request mail-in ballots just a few days before the election or require mail-in ballots to be received by election day require USPS to operate with extreme precision, so slight delays can disenfranchise tens of thousands of voters. But our mailing dates are between 8-13 days before the election – well within the timeframe recommended to ensure delivery. Finally, the USPS handles over 400 million pieces of mail every day, and first class mail volumes have been down every single year for a decade. In fact, the decrease in first class letters/cards from last year alone exceeds the number of postcards we’re mailing on any given day. Our 15 million postcards will in no way contribute to any delays for ballots. USPS has plenty of capacity to process first class mail. Huge increases in package volume, mail carrier absences due to COVID-19 and procedural changes by DeJoy are the causes of mail delay, not capacity.

The smallest order you can request is for 200 postcards.

As of July 2020, more than 25,000 volunteers have signed up to help.

If you can’t join the postcard army, you can finance it instead with a donation.

See the Postcards to Swing States website:

https://postcardstoswingstates.com

See the Postcards to Swing States FAQ, which includes the language of the A and B scripts:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1xYifkfYLSNnsq9kyWKOobAhBi8-lsziLSE6oM29aUPc/edit

Donate to Postcards to Swing States:

https://secure.actblue.com/donate/postcardswimi

Like Postcards to Swing States on Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/postcards2swingstates

Follow Postcards to Swing States on Twitter:

@Postcards2WI

Subscribe to One Thing You Can Do by clicking the button on the upper right of the page. And tell your friends about the blog!

Community Activism · Fighting Bigotry, Racism, Sexism, Homophobia, Transphobia... · Read, Educate Yourself, Prepare · Stand Up for Civilization · Stand Up for Norms · Voting Rights, Fighting Voter Suppression

Read Stacey Abrams’s Lead from the Outside and Pre-order Her Next Book, Our Time is Now

April 27, 2020April 26, 2020 otycd

Read Stacey Abrams’s book, Lead from the Outside, and pre-order her next book, Our Time is Now.

Stacey Abrams is 17 different flavors of awesome. You know this. You watched her fight the good fight in 2018 the Georgia governor’s race, which was rigged against her in such blatantly obvious and ludicrous ways (and she nearly won, regardless).

You’ve heard her on podcasts. You’ve seen her on TV. You support Fair Fight, her initiative to protect and expand the right to vote, and Fair Count, which protects and defends the 2020 census.

But have you read her book? And have you pre-ordered her next one?

Lead from the Outside: How to Build Your Future and Make Real Change was originally released as Minority Leader. It’s part autobiographical, and part motivational. Because c’mon, did you think Abrams was going to let you just sit there and consume her story without taking actual lessons from it that you can apply in your own life? No. She has stuff to teach, and she does it in a straightforward, no-nonsense way.

She covers figuring out what you want, and figuring out how to get it, without fear or apology. She discusses how to manage self-doubt, how to confront and repair your own mistakes, how to build a network, how to face down jerks, and any number of other things that seem daunting until she explains how to defeat them.

This is not a rah-rah you-can-do-anything-if-you-just-believe-in-yourself book. Abrams brings clear eyes, good anecdotes, and practical knowledge to show you how to do what the title promises: lead from the outside.

Abrams has a second book due for release in June 2020: Our Time is Now: Power, Purpose, and the Fight for a Fair America. There’s no reason to believe it won’t be as good as its predecessor.

We at OTYCD recommend buying Lead from the Outside from an independent bookstore and pre-ordering Our Time is Now from one, too.

Women & Children First, an independent bookstore in Chicago, will allow you to do both.

Learn more about Fair Fight, Stacey Abrams’s pro-voting rights organization:

About Fair Fight

Donate to Fair Fight:

https://secure.actblue.com/donate/fair-fight–inc–1?refcode=website

Volunteer with Fair Fight:

Join Our Fight

Learn about Fair Count, Stacey Abrams’s organization that’s fighting for a properly administered 2020 census:

About Us

Donate to Fair Count:

https://secure.actblue.com/donate/faircount#

Volunteer for Fair Count:

Commit to be Counted

Subscribe to One Thing You Can Do by clicking the button on the upper right of the page. And tell your friends about the blog!

Action Alerts · Community Activism · Uncategorized

Are You Able to Donate Blood? Now–Yes, Now, During A Covid-19 Lockdown–is a Great Time to Give

March 25, 2020March 21, 2020 otycd

Are you able to give blood? Now–yes, now, when many states are imposing Covid-19 lockdowns–is a great time to give.

In past posts, we’ve asked you to think about donating blood. While there is never a bad time to give blood (there’s always a need), now is an especially good time to do so. And doing it now grants you the extra benefit of a legit reason to leave your damn house.

As long as Covid-19 is running rampant, blood drives are cancelled. As you might have guessed, blood banks rely on periodic blood drives to maintain their holdings. Being forced to quit scheduling these events has already started to take a toll on the blood banking system.

The American Association of Blood Banks (AABB) began raising the alarm about potential shortages in early March of 2020.

If you can give blood, please do. If for some reason you are stopped by authorities, bring up this post on your phone and click on the links in the paragraph above.

If you’d like to give blood but aren’t sure where to go, start here. Or here.

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Candidates · Community Activism · Elections · Use Your Power, Recruit Friends

All the State Deadlines to Register to Vote in the 2020 Primaries, Compiled by Head Count (Please Spread the Word on This NOW, in February 2020)

February 19, 2020February 16, 2020 otycd

This OTYCD post originally ran in January 2020. We’re rerunning it because it is time-sensitive.

Are you registered to vote? Do you need to help friends and family register to vote in time for their state’s 2020 presidential primary? Here’s a list of all the state deadlines.

If you want to vote in the 2020 presidential primaries, you have to register. If you’re not super-hyper-mega plugged in to politics, you might only notice your state’s primary before it happens but after the voter registration deadline has passed.

One of the many ways you can help push back against Trump in 2020 is make sure it isn’t just you going to the polls. You can help friends and family vote, too.

The good folks at Head Count have compiled a master sheet of all the state deadlines to register to vote in 2020. Bookmark it and share it early and often.

It’s important to start talking to people about deadlines to register to vote in the state primaries NOW because the earliest of those deadlines fall in February 2020, and one deadline — South Carolina’s — takes place January 30, 2020.

Head Count is an excellent nonpartisan organization that sets up shop at concerts and helps register newly eligible young people to vote.

See its main website.

See its voting information page.

Learn how to volunteer with Head Count.

See the list of upcoming events at which Head Count will appear.

Donate to Head Count.

Like Head Count on Facebook.

Follow Head Count on Twitter.

Subscribe to One Thing You Can Do by clicking the blue button on the upper right or checking the About & Subscribe page. And tell your friends about the blog!

Community Activism · Elections

Plan Ahead–Take Tuesday, November 3, 2020 Off, and Maybe Other Days Too

February 18, 2020February 16, 2020 otycd

Plan ahead! Make sure to take Tuesday, November 3, 2020 off from work, and maybe Monday November 2 and Friday October 30 as well.

Election Day 2020 is going to be A Thing. You thought the 2018 midterms were a thing? Well, they were, but this is going to be A Bigger Thing.

You need to prepare for it.

Now is the time to think about what you will do on and around Tuesday, November 3, 2020 so you will be as effective as you can be in defending and upholding democracy.

It might make more sense for you to vote early or vote absentee so you can cover for co-workers to free them to head to the polls.

It might make more sense to take that Tuesday off from work, and maybe the surrounding days, too.

If you know you’re going to be out of town on that Tuesday, devote some time to getting your absentee ballot sorted.

Plan ahead, all!

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Candidates · Choose Your Core Four · Community Activism · Use Your Power, Recruit Friends

Set Aside Two Hours Per Week To Work For Your Chosen 2020 Candidates

February 15, 2020February 9, 2020 otycd

This OTYCD post originally appeared in February 2018, but for obvious reasons, we are updating and reposting it for 2020.

2018 was a huge test for us all. We stepped up. All the texting, phone-banking, canvassing, postcard-writing, and general beating-of-the-drum paid off. Democrats claimed control of the House of Representatives, and our efforts helped limit likely Democratic losses in the Senate during a cycle that favored the Republicans. Had things been closer to normal, the GOP could have picked up six to nine seats. While we lost two Senate seats, we gained two, and the GOP didn’t come close to their 2018 goals.

So! On to 2020. We’ve already asked you to choose your Core Four for 2020–four Democrats, two incumbents and two challengers, for each chamber of Congress, PLUS choosing a voting rights organization to support:

https://onethingyoucando.com/2020/02/01/choose-your-core-four-plus-a-voting-rights-org-to-support-in-2020-2/

To serve those four candidates well, you’ll need to school yourself on their voting records and their backgrounds. If they’ve written books, you need to read them. You need to become expert in them so you can persuade people to vote for them and defend them to those who are skeptical or hostile.

Obviously, you will need to read up on the Democratic nominee for president as well, once that person is chosen.

Once you feel like you have those five under control, you should see whether you can add other races to your load. State and local races will take place, too.

In order to stay on top of it all, find a way to commit a minimum of two hours a week to state, local, and federal 2020 races.

Money always matters, of course, but time can be even more valuable to a candidate. If you’re an excellent political volunteer, your time might be worth several times more than your dollar donations.

You don’t have to give your time in a two-hour block. You can chop it up as needed–four half-hours, an hour here and an hour there, twelve 20-minute blocks, twenty-four ten minute blocks, whatever works best for you.

Research, reading, attending speeches, going to Indivisible meetings, and talking to other people all count, as does phone-banking, canvassing, and writing GOTV postcards.

If you can give more than two hours a week, great! But the key thing is to aim to give at least two hours a week, and stick to it.

As we head toward Labor Day 2020, you might want to think about rearranging your schedule to give even more time to 2020 races. Almost all of them will end on November 3, 2020, and campaign needs will grow more intense as early November approaches.

It makes sense to sit down now and plan how September through November will go, particularly if you’ll have other standing obligations to work around, such as school, or your kids’ schools, or holidays such as Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.

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Action Alerts · Choose Your Core Four · Community Activism · Use Your Power, Recruit Friends

See One Thing You Can Do’s 2020 To-Do List

February 14, 2020February 9, 2020 otycd

See the 2020 To-Do List compiled by this very blog, One Thing You Can Do.

With profound apologies for not having this ready to go on January 1, 2020, we have assembled a To-Do list for 2020.

We created it as a page on the site, but we realize we should release it as a post as well.

Please bookmark it and refer to it often in the months leading up to Tuesday, November 3, 2020.

See it here:

https://onethingyoucando.com/your-2020-to-do-list/

Choose Your Core Four · Community Activism · Elections · Read, Educate Yourself, Prepare

Do You Live In Or Near a 2020 Swing State?

February 12, 2020February 9, 2020 otycd

Do you live in a 2020 swing state? Find out.

Whenever a presidential election approaches on the calendar, there’s much discussion of swing states–states that seem like they could tilt toward either the Democratic candidate or the Republican, and which should prove critical to a victory in the Electoral College. [A candidate has to rack up a minimum of 270 Electoral College votes to win the presidency. As of December 2019, the Electoral College consisted of 538 votes.]

Things have gotten ever more polarized over the years, which means the number of legitimate swing states has shrunk. But until we get rid of the Electoral College, swing states will exist, and they will matter more to the candidates than will states that are firmly red or blue.

In an August 2019 guest column for Larry Sabato’s Crystal Ball, Alfred J. Tuchfarber identified six 2020 swing states:

Florida

Michigan

Minnesota

New Hampshire

Pennsylvania

Wisconsin

If you live in or near one of these states, it’s a good idea to pay closer attention and devote time and money to bringing about the result that you want to see.

In particular, you will want to stay on top of threats to the integrity of the voter rolls–attempts to restrict or suppress residents’ ability to cast a ballot–and you will want to do what you can to fight back.

And though Trump is notably weak on a national level, he might show stronger-than-expected poll numbers in specific states. For example, an early November 2019 CNBC piece shows Trump trailing Joe Biden in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Florida, and Wisconsin, but faring better against Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. [Important note: the polls discussed took place weeks before the House of Representatives wrote and voted on articles of impeachment against Trump.]

A looser definition seems to apply to “battleground” states–those regarded as less important to the overall Electoral College count, but which could be in play in the next presidential election.

In an undated piece about 2020 Battleground States, Taegan Goddard counts the six swing states mentioned above and includes:

Maine

North Carolina

Georgia

Texas

Arizona

If you live in or near these five states, you’ll want to keep an eye on things here as well. That said, if you need to budget your attention, favor the swing states over the battleground states. The six swing states merit mention in both the Sabato and the Goddard articles.

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One Thing You Can Do

How you can push back against Trump and Trumpism, day by day.

Category: Community Activism

Support Minority Candidates for Congressional Internships

Help Postcards to Swing States (Formerly Postcards to Wisconsin and Michigan) (Updated With Mailing Deadlines on September 2, 2020)

Read Stacey Abrams’s Lead from the Outside and Pre-order Her Next Book, Our Time is Now

Are You Able to Donate Blood? Now–Yes, Now, During A Covid-19 Lockdown–is a Great Time to Give

All the State Deadlines to Register to Vote in the 2020 Primaries, Compiled by Head Count (Please Spread the Word on This NOW, in February 2020)

Plan Ahead–Take Tuesday, November 3, 2020 Off, and Maybe Other Days Too

Set Aside Two Hours Per Week To Work For Your Chosen 2020 Candidates

See One Thing You Can Do’s 2020 To-Do List

Do You Live In Or Near a 2020 Swing State?